We are overjoyed to have been sharing yoga with the Sheffield community since 2004!
Jo and Ben warmly welcome you to Yoga Nature. Jo taught her first class in October 2004, though the business was then known as Soul Shine Yoga. A few years later we became Yoga Nature, and you can scroll down for an explanation of why we chose that name. Since then, we have become a deeply rooted, well-loved and respected niche small community yoga school, teaching a limited number of eclectic and high-quality yoga classes to adults and children.
Our Mission
Promoting lifestyles filled with awareness, integrity and stewardship of Nature.
Our Philosophy
As Christopher Hareesh Wallis explains:
“The great Tantrik scholar-sage Abhinavagupta (Kashmīr Valley, c. 1000 CE) gave us a most extraordinary definition of spiritual liberation - the goal of all yoga - in his masterwork “Light on the Tantras” (Tantraloka), a definition that stripped it of its religious and intellectual trappings:
Liberation (mokṣa) is not different from the Self as it is in its real nature, infinitely free. It is neither an insignificant trifle nor something to make a big deal about. Thus a separate name for it is not even needed. || 1.31
In other words, since liberation (in other contexts also called ‘awakeness’ or ‘awareness’, Skt. bodha) is our already-existent true nature, we shouldn't really have a technical term for it (like ‘enlightenment’), for that risks making it into an object, a thing-to-be-attained, distant from ourselves. In reality, it is already who We really are. So how does one discover and fully access one’s true nature? Through humbly realising one’s view of reality is woefully incomplete.”
All of our life experiences, both the seemingly positive and negative, imprint themselves within the various layers of our being…
Physical body: manifesting as muscle and joint pain, and if untended to eventually serious disease within the organs of the body can arise.
Mental/emotional body: manifesting as negative thought patterns, anxiety, fear, depression and if untended to may eventually lead to alcoholism, misuse of narcotics, emotional eating, shopping and other mental health diseases.
Energetic body: manifesting as lacklustre, heavy, lethargic, dark energy and if untended to may lead to an apathy of living life to its fullest.
Our physical, mental/emotional and energetic body are a map of our family, societal and cultural experiences. In a way we are programmed and conditioned to forget that our innate disposition is one of liberation.
Our philosophy and our raison d'être at Yoga Nature is to bring us back home to what we already are. To release the conditioned striving, the berating inner dialogue, the need to be more, better, and the resulting lack of energy and remember that we are expanded, whole, connected, awesome and perfect.
As the Tibetan mantra says: We are the jewel in the lotus. Om mani padme hum.
Our Values
Our guiding value is Ahimsa or creating harmony. This means creating harmony by ensuring that our thoughts, words and actions are acts of kindness and compassion to both ourselves and other beings. We often focus on this quality in Yoga Nature classes.
What's In a Name: Why Yoga Nature?
Yoga: Tantra radically defines yoga as both the path and the destination (i.e. lifestyle) to realising we are already liberated beings.
Nature: The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura or 'essential qualities, innate disposition' and in ancient times literally meant birth.
We are born yogic or liberated, our innate disposition and essential qualities are yogic, therefore our Nature is Yoga, hence Yoga Nature.
Watch Our 10 Year Anniversary Video
