Nayaswamis Dharmadas and Nirmala
Spiritual Directors of Ananda Sacramento, Lightbearers,, Meditation Teachers
Dharmadas and Nirmala worked closely with Swami Kriyananda for over 40 years beginning in the 1970s and have taught yoga and meditation on three continents. They helped create four Ananda spiritual communities around the world and were the founding spiritual directors of Ananda India from 2003-2012.
Chaitanya Mahoney
Lightbearer, Music Director, Ananda Community Property Manager
Chaitanya Mahoney has a been a life member of Ananda for over 20 years and has lived and served as a minister and lightbearer in many of the Ananda communities in the US.He currently directs the Ananda Sacramento choir and music ministry and graces many with his beautiful, melodious tenor voice.
Chaitanya works as a building contractor, is the apartment manager and maintains and fixes virtually everything on Ananda’s property!
Brahmacharini Chandrika
Minister, Meditation Teacher
Chandrika has taught Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings of the yoga science for over 20 years. She also manages the office and temple during the week.
Her love and appreciation for the practical applications of yoga in daily life inspires her to share the art and science of yoga with all.
Bryan and Carmenza Coleman-Salgado
Ministers, Yoga Teacher (Bryan), Ananda Community Manager (Carmenza)
Carmenza and Bryan are Ananda ministers and teachers who have served Ananda’s work in Sacramento for over two decades. Carmenza manages Ananda Sacramento’s vibrant community in Rancho Cordova, and with their abundant creativity and deep attunement, Carmenza and Bryan have helped to make Ananda’s community and temple beautiful expressions of that Divine Presence upon which Ananda was founded.
Brahmacharini Victoria
Minister, Healing Prayer Ministry Leader
Victoria leads the Healing Prayer Ministry and has developed the Prayer Council, a group of 25 dedicated prayer givers who pray daily for others and the SOS Prayer Group, a group of over 60 others who pray for people in crisis. Two different Healing Circles have been developed that use Yogananda’s Healing Techniques: the Healing Prayer Circle that meets every second Sunday after service, and a weekly prayer group that meets in the Ananda Community.
As an extension of the Healing Ministry, she enjoys serving and sharing her love for God through teaching classes and through devotional chanting and meditation. Victoria is a founding member of the Sacramento Community.
Nayaswami Devaki
Minister, Yoga and Meditation Teacher
A member of the Yoga Alliance, Devaki has taught yoga and meditation at Ananda’s Expanding Light; for the Ananda church and Ananda’s East-West bookshops in Seattle and in Mountain View, California. She is currently a minister and yoga instructor with Ananda Sacramento. She also teaches “yoga and the chakras” and restorative yoga.
Sharmila and Aaron Atwell
Ministers, Meditation Teachers
Sharmila and Aaron are Ananda ministers and meditation teachers who have been a part of Ananda for many decades. They lead Ananda Sacramento’s family ministry programs and serve in a multitude of ways. They are often the backbone of many of Ananda’s efforts – working tirelessly, sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes front and center to make things happen.
Michelle Dossett
Minister, Meditation Teacher
Dr. Michelle Dossett is a meditation and Ananda yoga teacher (RYT200). It is her joy to serve in the Ananda Sacramento community in a variety of different roles. She also works as an integrative medicine physician for UC Davis Health.
Nayaswamis Chandi and Suryadas
Ministers, Yoga and Meditation Teachers
Suryadas and Chandi have been involved with Ananda for almost three decades. Both are certified Ananda Yoga and Meditation Teachers, as well as Ananda ministers.
Chandi served at the Living Wisdom School in Seattle for 17 years, and she and Suryadas lead the family ministry programs there for two decades. They are currently helping with marketing at Ananda Sacramento, teaching meditation classes, and doing occasional evening inspirational programs. Chandi is also teaching a weekly Ananda Yoga class.
Suryadas is also serving on the Ananda Sacramento Community staff.
Gurudeepa (Jean) Corry
Yoga Teacher
Jean Corry has been practicing yoga for six years and teaching since receiving her 200 RYT in 2015. Jean was attracted to yoga because of the deep mind, body, and spiritual connection and strives to share this uplifting experience with her students. Jean teaches Hatha Yoga which allows students to hold their poses longer in order to gain a greater connection with their bodies.
Jean is a Yoga Alliance 200 RYT, a certified Ananda Yoga teacher, and an Ayurvedic Health Educator. She teaches at Ananda, at a local gym, and at a pain clinic. In each she strives to present rounded classes that target all areas of the body to release tensions and stress, and to raise Kundalini energy to connect with the universe, God.
She strives to make her classes accessible to all students, gentle enough for new students and for those with physical limitations but also thorough for the more advanced students.
Nalini (Beata) Tyminski
Yoga Teacher
Beata Tyminski is certified Ananda Yoga instructor, RYT200. Her love for yoga started after experiencing the gentle style of Ananda Yoga.
She truly believes in Yoga principles, and endeavors to live by them in her everyday life. In her class she focuses on incorporating breath to relax the body, to calm the mind, and to bring each individual deeply inward.
Besides Yoga she loves taking walks, being in nature and spending time with friends.
Astara (Brenda) Gustin Ph.D
Yoga Teacher
Blending the art and science of yoga and meditation to raise awareness that health and wellness are created from within. Enjoy entering the deep vibration of transcending peace and expansion into your radiant light as you practice yoga (union) with Astara.
Brenda Astara Gustin is a certified Ananda Yoga and Meditation Instructor with many years of teaching experience. She enjoys integrating the art and science of yoga through the many teachings brought forth through Paramhansa Yogananda, Swami Sri Yukteswar, Swami Kriyananda and Patanjali. Astara teaches at the Ananda Temple and has modified her classes to also fit within corporate and government environments to bring peace and focus to every day lives.
Lan Gluckman
Yoga Teacher
Lan has been teaching yoga at the Ananda Center since 2005. Her students love her gentle and welcoming teaching style. She is a skillful guide into the stress-relieving yoga postures accessible for people of all ages.
Lan also has a special gift of understanding older bodies (young spirits) and can take an older students new to yoga to a comfortable and rewarding depth in their practice.
Theodora WIlner
Yoga Teacher
Theodora Wilner, MA, RYT, HC has been practicing Yoga since the 70’s and has been teaching Yoga for over 17 years. She received her Yoga Teacher Training through Ananda from Maria McSweeney in 1998.
An Ivy League graduate, Theodora devoted her early career to the management of non-profits. She has directed programs and projects in Wellness, Home Health, Child Abuse and Drug Abuse Prevention.
“I took Yoga classes for stress relief from my demanding jobs,” says Theodora. “That’s probably why my Yoga teaching emphasizes the gentle, calming, meditative side of Yoga.”
Theodora is both a Yoga teacher and a Certified Health Coach. In both these professions, it is Theodora’s goal to awaken people to the light of their true nature.
Yoko Macahilas
Yoga Teacher
I have been teaching yoga at a local hospital since 2006 to patients and employees as my service. Though it may not be the most spiritual nor ideal environment for practicing yoga with occasional loud overhead speaker announcing “code blue in room so and so”, it has been a source of great joy for me to share Ananda Yoga there. People come in just to get some stretch or to relax a little, but they walk out having learned more about the true nature of who they are, their own divinity within, power of breath, inner joy, and other esoteric yogic truths. I see the transformative power of Ananda Yoga in each student and I feel it within myself too.
Practicing yoga with others in a group generates greater shared energy so we all may benefit in body, mind, and soul. That’s what keeps me going. I’m excited to teach at Ananda to be a part of its yoga community. I’m a certified Ananda Yoga Teacher, a certified Ananda Meditation 1 Teacher and a licensed physical therapist since 1988 as well as co-owner of the Radiant Health Center where I practice holistic healing.
