Kamala is my spiritual name and means “lotus flower”. It was given to me when I was doing my Hatha Yoga training in South India, in Kerala.

I feel like a citizen of the world: born in Laos to ancestors who emigrated from southern China in the 1930s, my family fled the conflicts in Indochina to settle in Paris at the end of the 1970s. Nomad through my history, I have studied and worked in various countries in Europe, the USA, Asia, and I now reside in France.

Change of direction

Before diving body and soul into the world of Yoga and Non-Duality, I was in the world of management and business. A graduate of the ESCP graduate management school, I worked for several years in project management and international marketing projects in Europe, China and Thailand. I have experienced the motivations and challenges that ambitious people often encounter, who want to “succeed” in life. However, despite comfortable living conditions, a terrible bore-out combined with an intense need for meaning and to reconnect with myself (and the universe!) made me change course radically. It was the beginning of my new life, the real one. Since then, I have lived in gratitude for just being here!

Practicing and teaching Yoga and Meditation

Yoga, as an integral art of living, appeared late in my life but quickly became my passion, my path and the goal of my life. I trained (hatha yoga, kundalini yoga, prenatal yoga) and started teaching. In my understanding, I do not separate meditation from Yoga. To me, there is no Yoga without meditation. With the body in movement or static, there is always an inner work of meditation.

I opened and ran my own yoga studio in Paris center from 2008 to 2018. I practiced, I taught, I practiced, I taught… These were ten very enriching years on a human level, in terms of deepening my art and my way of teaching.

The direct path of Non-Duality

After a few years of running my studio in Paris, an other major crisis appeared within me. My diligent practice made me experience moments of indescribable love and beauty, which could be described as mystical. However, I understood that I had not yet completely embraced the truth.

The questions “who am I?” », “what is consciousness? », “are there individual consciousnesses or a single consciousness? », “what is the reality of the world? The others? » haunted me. The path of Non-Duality then came to me, and I embraced it completely. Every day I immersed myself in meditation with the pure feeling of “I am”. I engaged in self-inquiry to know the very nature of consciousness, and of the reality of my experience. I had to let go of all the mental concepts that were still veiling my perception. Gradually my sensitivity became more transparent, at the same time it was increasingly easier and more stable for me to remain as consciousness and presence. Peace resided within me as the background, I saw better and better the attempts of the ego to take hold of my interior space and the ego thus lost its strength.

The moment of zero doubt

One morning in the fall of 2013, after dropping my son off at school, I was crossing the Buttes Chaumont park, on a meditative walk. Consciously settling into “I am” was fluid and easy. I felt my presence saturating the entire present moment…What sweetness, what peace! And, reality appeared completely transparent, a bit like a dimension of light that shimmers and takes shape in everything as everything… Invisible barriers had collapsed between me and the world. And it was so clear, simple and obvious that nothing existed that was separate from I-Presence, I-Consciousness. Everything was Being, everything was modulation of consciousness, and there were no two. The leaves of the trees, the morning light, the sounds, the textures, the movements, everything belonged to the same dimension of Being-Consciousness. The separation did not exist. The experience was one. My essence and the reality of experience was one and the same reality, one and indivisible. My whole being was filled with love and gratitude, at the same time I felt a deep humility in the face of the perfection and sublime beauty of Life. This realization never left me. A pure joy of being.

My approach: Integral Non-Duality

My approach embraces the tradition of Advaita (Non-Duality) and the direct path through self-inquiry, as transmitted by masters such as Ramana Maharishi, Krishnamurti, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Jean Klein and Rupert Spira. This could be summed up as “I am not in the world, the world is in myself”. It is an approach from a felt space of Presence, where conscious sensorial listening, devoid of any concept and any identification, leads to a natural mental silence and a recognition of one’s true identity: pure Presence-Consciousness or Being. That’s awakening.

My approach of Non-Duality is integral because it is not just an intellectual understanding, but rather a guidance that allows one to live the real experience of awakening and Non-Duality. It includes the totality of being and the experience of the world: Who am I? What is the nature of consciousness? What are the others? What is the world? All of these fundamental questions guide our approach. They are answered not by words, but by the direct observation of our experience:

• It is learning to bring one’s attention back to its source of consciousness, and this requires practice and experienced guidance.
• It is a precise investigation of the nature of consciousness, based on practice and empirical observation of our experience.
• Meditation is omnipresent, with the body in motion or still. The body serves as a sensory tool that participates in empirical exploration.
• During our retreats and training, conscious walks in nature are a framework for living in the present moment without mental prejudice, with eyes open and the body moving. The world is integrated into practice and observation from consciousness.
• Understand what the ego is, its mechanisms and its power, and not fall into its grip.
• It is also developing pure perception in order to see the reality of experience as it really is: pure transparency, pure modulation of consciousness.

These teachings form a global, integral process, which involves one’s entire life. And that’s why it is truly transformative, life-changing.

Living and translating one’s true nature into daily life

Finally, I guide to translate this truth in our interactions with each other in the private or professional sphere, in our way of welcoming the mind and emotions, in making important decisions.

It is an integral, uncompromising path to living our truth fully and 360°.

Besides teaching, I also paint. My inspiration is always from a deep space of Presence. I feel colors and mouvement pouring out from that space.

 

Love and gratitude,

Contact Kamala