Atma Gyanam
Hello, I am Swami Atma Gyanam Saraswati. I was born in England in 1978 and named Joss Guin by my parents Rosalind and William. The day I was born a devotional yoga practitioner gave my father a copy of the Bhagavad Gita for me, which mentions Yoga in every chapter. But It was not until after 12 years growing up in Australia that I returned to England as was introduced to Yoga as means to discover the potential in being human by my great friend Martin Faulks. I have practiced and studied yoga ever since. It has taken me all over the world to visit great teachers and sights of natural wonder.
I started teaching in 1999 and, after completing Kriya Yoga initiation with Swami Janakananda in 2002, returned to Australia with my new bride Sophie. There I was fortunate to become a private student with Swami Muktibodhananda. While in Australia I undertook a 600hr Yoga Teacher Training with Kate Pell. I also returned to India with Swami Muktibodhananda and received Mantra Initiation and insight into the unwritten depths of the Yoga tradition. My first little book was published with Watkins called Karma Yoga by Joss Guin.
Completing my second circuit of the earth I returned to England in 2009 as a father of Lucas and Max, and their brother Alexander soon joined the family. I started teaching full time, and soon started offering workshops, private lessons, and Yoga Teacher Training. In 2012 I made a connection with the Mandala Yoga Ashram in Wales, and it's director Swami Nischalananda who I soon realised was the Guru I had searched for since I was a boy. In 2016 on the full moon in July (Guru Poornima) I was initiated as a Swami in the Dasnami tradition. The second book Song of Life is published with the name I took then, Swami Atma Gyanam Saraswati.
My life is dedicated to helping through Yoga and the insights it brings.
Until recently that insight had suggested to stay low key, but now it says serve as many people as possible. I am an authentic Yogi living the life of a father and yoga teacher in the west; I have forged my practice and tempered it with study of hermetics, zen, gnosticism, animism/shamanism, and science; I teach Yoga without the jargon and require no beliefs or dogmas; and I am here to help.