Meet Sri Dharma Mittra

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sri Dharma Mittra. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sri Dharma below.

Sri Dharma, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

Sri Dharma Mittra’s guru or teacher taught that if you have a little spiritual knowledge, the greatest act of charity is to share it. Sri Dharma spent a decade learning directly from his guru and his guru’s close disciples here in New York City. In 1967, he was asked to begin offering classes at the Yogi Gupta New York Center both to fellow disciples and members of the general public in the third and fourth limbs of practice: Asana (yoga poses) and Pranayama (breathing exercises). Sri Dharma asked for and received permission to leave the ashram in 1974 and he began to offer yoga classes to the public daily as one of the early independent yoga teachers in the United States. When we was inspired to create the Master Chart of 908 Asanas in 1984 as an offering to his guru, this created broader awareness of his abilities and led to opportunities to share yoga nationally and internationally at yoga studios, festivals, ashrams, retreat centers and conferences. Sri Dharma continues to share yoga multiple times each week at his own school in Manhattan and will turn 86 in May with no signs of slowing down.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Sri Dharma Mittra launched the Dharma Yoga Center in 1975 and has been offering classes in yoga ever since in Manhattan and beyond. In 1999, Sri Dharma agreed to have his own yoga teacher training organized and has since offered yoga teacher training certification at the 50, 200, 500, 700, 800 and 1000-Hour level. There are certified Dharma Yoga teachers active on every continent except Antartica — a testament to the impact Sri Dharma has had both on the proliferation of yoga. Sri Dharma created and was the model for the Master Chart of 908 Asanas, was featured in two DVDs released by Pranamaya, on demand video series have been created and released by Yoga Journal, Alo Moves, Indaba Online and AyurPrana, he has published books including The LOAY Teachers’ Manual, Yoga Wisdom and 608 Yoga Asanas and has been the subject of many articles and interviews.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Sri Dharma Mittra has an ability to endure and pass through difficulty that would challenge many. It has served him well in facing various circumstances he has faced in life. He refers to it as “standing supreme”. Life may knock you down, but you stand up again and again and stand supreme. Sri Dharma has also expressed many times how important the ability to imitate the teacher physically, mentally and spiritually is. Sri Dharma had the opportunity to observe his guru up close on many occasions and would try to force himself to feel what he was feeling. Sri Dharma has a wonderful sense of humor. Yoga can be intense in various ways. Humor can really help to make everything easier and more bearable.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the books Sri Dharma Mittra often references and teaches from. There are many passages that clearly speak to him. The core teaching is that the fruit of every action should be an offering to the Supreme Self. So much of the action that most of us take in life is selfish; motivated by survival instinct on some deep level. The core teaching of The Bhagavad Gita is to try and move from taking selfish action, to acting selflessly as a way to reframe our experience of all life. There are other wonderful teachings in this book: that every person has a specific role to play in creation, and that we should learn what our role is so we can become established firmly as that. There are also all sorts of teachings regarding the nature of reality itself.

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Please credit Jeffrey Vock for the personal photo.

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