YOUR TEACHERS
& FACILITATORS
When you study with Shantarasa Yoga Darshana you access a superlative training system that has successfully prepared hundreds of teachers currently contributing to the health and upliftment of people all over the world. Our mentoring, trainings, courses, classes and retreats are regularly conducted on three continents and continue to support and educate yoga practitioners in over 10 countries.
The Shantarasa global yoga community accesses comprehensive life-long yoga education including 200-hour, 300-hour, 500-hour Yoga Teacher Training courses with international accreditation through Yoga Alliance. Additional professional development and post graduate courses in the areas of Yoga Chikitsa (Yoga Therapy), Applied Ayurveda, Pre-Post Natal Teacher Training, and Yoga Nidra (Yogic Sleep), Subtle Yoga and Anatomy, Meditation Training, specialised Yoga Wisdom and Practice for Women, Pranayama and Mudra.
As well as continuing education and sangha (community) programs are conducted by Shantarasa founders Sadhana and Keval Pezet for those wanting to live the yogic lifestyle. These services ensure that your practice will continue to evolve and be a vehicle for inspiration and a powerful life resource for yourself and others.
Sadhana and Keval are highly experienced and gifted yoga educators who have spent their whole adult lives dedicated to living and imparting an authentic yogic way of life. We invite you to participate in this exciting and truly transformative conscious life journey.
Shantarasa founders and principal senior teachers are a couple whose yogic path and practice, as well as vocation, spans over 5 decades. The commitment to representing in an authentic way the human legacy the traditions of yoga have gifted genuine seekers remains a guiding force in their work. Yoga to them is a path that radically heals the human condition and their efforts to make the knowledge base and practices accessible and relevant while maintaining traditional roots are extensive. They guide practitioners past the surface the world has so readily embraced toward the depth that is harder to access. We also need sharpened perspective to be able to know the real from the unreal particularly in the unusual era we are all living through.
Through the Shantarasa classes, trainings and events people find the means to genuine personal and life transformation, the foundations and architecture of life take on new form and focus.
Keval Pezet
Educated in the United States, Keval Pezet received his BA in Art History and Philosophy. He developed a strong appreciation for Indian culture while specializing in the pictorial iconography of the world heritage listed Ajanta cave paintings. This research gave rise to his lifelong relationship and passion for the Indian contemplative tradition.
In 1974 he met his mentor, a contemporary spiritual master and exceptional Siddha of the Southern Indian yogic traditions. After several years of intensive study with his teacher Keval moved to Spain and later the UK where he supervised residential contemplative centres and conducted meditation trainings throughout Europe. The roots of his training and knowledge arise from a remarkable lineage of yogic adepts.
In 1985 Keval moved to Australia to continue his work of facilitating yoga and meditative practices. He met his wife Sadhana and together established Shantarasa Yoga Darshana as a vehicle for transformative instruction of ancient yogic wisdom into contemporary understanding and application.
Since 2000 Keval and Sadhana have trained hundreds of yoga teachers as well as yoga enthusiasts in Australia, India, Europe and the United States.
Sadhana Pezet
Sadhana was initiated into yogic study and practice in the mid 1970’s in Australia and spent extended time living in India studying with a great yogic sage and Siddha of Southern India also. Under his guidance and due to her spontaneous unfoldment of hatha yoga practices Sadhana was encouraged to teach hatha yoga and meditation. Over the past decades she has been conducting courses and programs in yogic study along with Keval in India, Australia, Europe and USA.
Sadhana first trained as a classical and contemporary dancer and studied art at Melbourne University, performing as a professional dancer and exhibiting her paintings. Sadhana later took up post graduate studies in transpersonal psychology, art therapy and cultural studies. She was the director for Ikon Institute in South Australia and trained counsellors and art therapists in transpersonal methods nationally in Australia.
Sadhana has sustained a personal yoga practice and served as a highly trained Hatha yoga and meditation instructor for several decades. She also trained extensively in Yoga Chikitsa (Yoga Therapy) and is a highly skilled therapist in this field of specialised yoga instruction and practice. Along with her husband Keval Pezet, she is the founder and co-director of Shantarasa Yoga Darshana and has trained hundreds of yoga asana teachers internationally for the past 25 years. Shantarasa offers courses in yoga philosophy, yoga therapy, conducts retreats and corporate trainings in yoga, meditation, with associated lifestyle practices.
As Sadhana nears her 70th year she is committed to sharing the legacy of the practice and understanding of traditional yoga and as she was graciously educated. Her concern is that contemporary yoga often bypasses the roots, intention, and subtlety of yoga. She and her husband intentionally educate the full spectrum of yoga as a science of consciousness. Both Sadhana and Keval continue their own development with annual extended periods of time in India from through the last two decades in the company of great teachers.
Shanti Pezet
Shanti is the daughter of Sadhana and Keval. She began her training in drama while at high school and later gained an honours degree in acting from the Drama Centre at Flinders University in South Australia. While having grown up in a household of yogis she chose to expand upon an innate love and aptitude for yoga only after having pursued a career in acting for a number of years. She subsequently trained formally in yoga with Shantarasa and also under the guidance of Mahamandaleshwar Swami Nityananda. Shanti and her husband Vinay (a classical Indian musician) currently reside in Walden, New York where she is currently raising a very young family. She has been a part of the Shantarasa team over the years and contributed significantly to management, assisting in the trainings and as a gifted teacher. We hold this space for her return if her life moves again in this direction.
Dr Vikas Mali
Dr Vikas Mali is the principal facilitator for the Shantarasa Applied Ayurveda 70 Hour Certificate Training. Dr Vikas is a highly skilled Ayurvedic Vaidya, registered member of the Australasian Association of Ayurveda, registered Doctor at the Central Council of Indian Medicine, and a qualified yoga instructor from SVYASA-Bangalore.
His passion for Ayurvedic science, practice and benefit is infectious and is revealed through his generous sharing of the knowledge and practical skills that awaken intelligent living. Dr Vikas is also the Vaidya of choice for the majority of our students who live locally in South Australia.
Pru Davey
Pru is a practising midwife with over 35 years’ experience and a pre post-natal yoga teacher for over 25 of those years. Born and raised (by a midwife) in the river country of South Australia which led to Pru training as a midwife herself in 1979. Pru additionally completed yoga teacher training first with the Yoga Teachers Institute of SA then a Diploma of Yoga Teaching with Satyananda Yoga.
From the beginning of her midwifery career Pru saw the value of supporting women through pregnancy and bringing women together, initially through childbirth and parenting classes, later with prenatal yoga both in community and hospital settings. Pregnant and birthing women have been her greatest teachers and she has used this lived knowledge to develop yoga classes that support women on their journey of preparation for birth, mothering and growing families.
Pru is now retired from working as a midwife at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Until recently Pru and a team of two other midwives/yoga teachers facilitated prenatal yoga sessions at the WCH, a successful free program for 15 years. She has been a valued faculty member and facilitator with Shantarasa for several years offering our Pre and Post Natal YTT and assisting women becoming mothers through the same program of study.