Where I come from
Before anything else, gratitude.
To every teacher who walked ahead of me, whether they know me or not.
Previously an MBA and CFP holder with banking experience, for years I lived a life that looked complete on paper. Each step leading sensibly to the next.
Then a shift happened. I started questioning where it was all leading and who chose this. Slowly I realised that these had not been my choices. Everything I have done since begins with the same question:
What’s the meaning of that which I am doing?
When I started exploring, my first guide was Shankaracharya’s Vivekachudamani, a book on discernment. I remember listening to its commentary by Swami Ranganathananda, as an audio series, for many nights. The study of the Bhagwat Geeta followed. I love words, and from Kabir and Rumi to Tagore and Henry Longfellow, I read them all. Each knew something real about life and its living.
Later, life got sidetracked, the way it does when we feel busy but move nowhere. A wake-up call rang, guised as a big personal crisis. It pushed me to my edges, and I surrendered. Behind those gates, I met my teachers, the masters. The ones who taught me how to get up and fight back. Surrender did not make me give up. It taught me to stand taller.
The teachers of the Siddha lineage taught me courage and discipline, as my first lesson.
Chamundi Gurukulam and Nandhiji guided with grace.
Maa Gyaan is the most gentle healer I have come across, and she introduced us to many modalities of healing. A teacher of Advaita, her grace also opened the doorway to Shakti in her many forms.
The Kaivalya school for yoga is a repository of knowledge for anyone genuinely seeking. Its founder is the most patient and thorough teacher.
I understood the essence of bhakti listening to and watching Maa Parvathi Baul. Her songs answer the many unasked questions of a seeker.
I have had the books on the Devi Mahatmya for some time now, but the teachings revealed themselves once I started listening and learning from the videos of Acharya Ajay Bhattacharya.
And I mention this last, but it remains the first step to spiritual seeking: grounding. I owe it to Meher Malik, who introduced me to beautiful practices of physical anchoring.
Some teachers give you their hand, others their example. Both are gifts.
Throughout this journey, a few subjects appeared frequently and persistently, as if asking me to explore them. I studied astrology formally, and learned cowrie shastra, tarot and prasna shastra from teachers steeped in them.
Many traditions. One thread.
Akaayati is what has grown from all of this: a contemplative studio where these paths meet. Not as separate disciplines, but as different doorways into the same inquiry.
If you have found your way here, perhaps one of these doorways is yours.
Akaayati
The name derives its origin from Ākāyam: the sky, the space that holds everything. It is also a name of Shiva.
I have tried to carry the essence of this name into all my work: helping people find the stillness beneath everyday living.
Leave your email, and I will send you a small illustrated guide as a gift.
Now and then, a letter from the studio. Nothing more.