Sri Dharma Mittra is known as “the teacher’s teacher”. He was born in 1939 in Pirapora, Brazil. As a young man he served in the Brazilian Air Force and won a national bodybuilding title in 1962.
The path
In 1964 he met his teacher, Yogi Gupta (Swami Kailashananda), in New York, and in 1967 he took vows of renunciation (sannyasa). That same year he began teaching, and in the mid-1970s he founded what is now the Dharma Yoga Center in New York.
The Master Yoga Chart
In the early 1980s he created a poster of 908 poses to honour his teacher, choosing them from more than 1,300 photographs of himself.
His ideas
- Asana is only one part of yoga.
- The yamas and niyamas are the foundation: without them, meditation goes nowhere.
- His strict vegetarianism is grounded in ahimsa, non-violence.
- Advanced poses matter little; living ethically and dissolving the ego matter a lot.
- Seeing yourself in others.
Source: LA Yoga – The teacher’s teacher.
