Aug 3, 2007
From those friendly folks at the Sivananda Vishnu movement: another kind of yoga vacation (on a much cheaper $84 a day)
In an earlier post on yoga vacations, I recommended the long-established Kripalu Institute at Lenox, Massachusetts, with its largely American staff of instructors, leavened by only a few practitioners of the activity from India. Today, for readers anxious to take a more serious plunge into all the aspects of yoga, including the spiritual ones, let me discuss the half-dozen-or-so U.S. and North American ashrams of the Sivananda Vishnu movement founded by the late Swami Vishnu-devananda. Their close-at-hand centers charge as little as $84 per person per night, including accommodations, meals and yoga exercises and lectures, at locations scattered around the country and even in the Bahamas, open all year around. You'll find these Sivananda Vedanta Yoga Centers described at www.sivananda.org.
The outstanding branch of the Sivananda movement, as you'd expect, is on a picturesque stretch of white sand beach right across the bay from Nassau, on Paradise Island, the Bahamas, where it offers a sensational vacation opportunity. Here, meditation and chanting begin at 6am, followed by a two-hour "hatha yoga" (physical yoga) class and veggie brunch (food varies, I've been told, from very good to adequate). Exercise and meditation are required of you, but post-brunch hours are totally free for swimming, snorkeling, or maybe a boat ride into town. There's no lunch (it's a two-meal-a-day, light-on-calories environment), but dinner is served, and afterwards there's more meditation and chanting, perhaps followed by a lecture or concert. Lights are out by 10:30pm, and falling asleep under a canopy of stars is usually no problem.
Drawbacks? I've been told that the small staff is sometimes overwhelmed when the usual 100 to 200 guests increase to nearly 300 during holiday weeks. Some rooms have no closets or bedside lamps, and there are, as you'd expect, no private baths, radios or TVs. But private rooms (including meals and instruction) are only $84 per person double, $89 single, and prices are even cheaper for dorm accommodations and tent sites. Call tel. 800/263-9642 for more information, or access the website listed above.
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The outstanding branch of the Sivananda movement, as you'd expect, is on a picturesque stretch of white sand beach right across the bay from Nassau, on Paradise Island, the Bahamas, where it offers a sensational vacation opportunity. Here, meditation and chanting begin at 6am, followed by a two-hour "hatha yoga" (physical yoga) class and veggie brunch (food varies, I've been told, from very good to adequate). Exercise and meditation are required of you, but post-brunch hours are totally free for swimming, snorkeling, or maybe a boat ride into town. There's no lunch (it's a two-meal-a-day, light-on-calories environment), but dinner is served, and afterwards there's more meditation and chanting, perhaps followed by a lecture or concert. Lights are out by 10:30pm, and falling asleep under a canopy of stars is usually no problem.
Drawbacks? I've been told that the small staff is sometimes overwhelmed when the usual 100 to 200 guests increase to nearly 300 during holiday weeks. Some rooms have no closets or bedside lamps, and there are, as you'd expect, no private baths, radios or TVs. But private rooms (including meals and instruction) are only $84 per person double, $89 single, and prices are even cheaper for dorm accommodations and tent sites. Call tel. 800/263-9642 for more information, or access the website listed above.
Write and read comments about this post.
Fifty years ago, 
Arthur Frommer is generally acknowledged to be the nation's foremost travel authority. He is the founder of the
