Page 69 - Adhiyoga Purana

Lida’s Story: A Journey from France to Fairfax
There are moments in life when something within quietly stirs — not with urgency, but with a steady whisper: “Now is the time.”
For Lida, that whisper came after more than a year of contemplation. Living in the United States but rooted in the contemplative soil of France, she had long been drawn to the idea of yoga. Yet something held her back — a feeling that yoga might unlock doors within her that she wasn't quite ready to open. She had felt this once before, while studying philosophy — the sense that deep truths don’t just explain life, they transform it.
Then, after settling into Northern Virginia, she made a quiet decision. “I’ll just look,” she told herself. A Google search led her to a name she had never heard before: Adhiyogi.
She sent an email. Ten days later, she was on the mat.
And from the very first class, she felt something shift — not just in her body, but in her entire orientation toward life. She had been seeking a new approach to food, movement, and mental well-being. Yoga offered a path, but it wasn’t a rigid method. It was, as she would learn, a personal journey — and Adhiyogi, with humility and depth, became the guide who handed her the compass rather than the map.
“Yoga is something really personal and individual,” she reflected.
“This is the reason why Adhiyogi is doing a fantastic job... he helps each person find their own way.”
Through his teachings — and especially through his book, Health and Yoga Aphorisms, Lida began to shift her inner dialogue. No longer obsessed with calories and routines, she began to listen to her body. Food became nourishment, not battle. Activity gave way to awareness. She discovered the power of stillness in a world addicted to motion.
Her favorite moments were the philosophy lessons. These were not abstract lectures, but vibrant, grounded explorations of life, death, sleep, and emotion — the true terrain of yoga.
Then life, as it often does, moved again. Lida’s career called her to travel extensively, and she had to leave the regular rhythm of Adhiyogi’s classes. But something essential had already been established — the ability to practice on her own, the confidence to explore, and the hunger to keep learning.
“The exciting thing is that I know I still have many things to learn from Neel,” she wrote from Boston in December 2007. “Yoga can be an entire life... I want to explore the very wide possibilities it offers for a more satisfying and meaningful life.”
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