About Kaya
About Kaya
Sought-after Yoga Educator, Kaya Mindlin has been teaching yoga for 22 years, teaching teachers for 13 years. Dedicated students, teachers and seekers from around the world resonate with her technical acumen, mothering bhāva and ability to thread transformational teachings and healing practices in a meaningful and personal way for modern practitioners.
With thousands of hours of tutelage with masters in the Yoga tradition and the explicit blessing of her teachers to teach others, Kaya integrates the full-spectrum of the Vedic tradition in her work. This includes SRY – her refined approach to yoga – as well as Vedanta, Tantra, Storytelling, Ayurveda, Vedic Astrology, Vastu {Vedic Design} and Sanskrit. She offers teachings and practices that reveal the body and life itself as a vehicle for spiritual awakening.
Kaya’s generosity in sharing her wisdom and her commitment as a steward of the yoga tradition is thanks to her studies with her own brilliant teachers. Her primary two lineages extend from Gurus Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati & Sri Krishan Mantriji both of whom she was lucky to study and receive blessings from directly. Additional direct teachers and mentors include Dr. Sarita Shrestha, Dr. Vasant Lad, Hart deFouw, Rama Berch, Gitte Bechsgaard and Swami Tattvavidananda. She lives in the Pacific Northwest of the US with her husband, Vedic Astrologer Michael Manzella and their children.
Vedic Study and Teachers
- Vedic Mantra, Shantala Sriramaiah, 2021-2023
- Ongoing Mentorship and Study with Gitte Bechsgaard, 2019-2023
- Soma, Nectar of Rejuvenation, Dr. David Frawley, 2016
- Two month Vedanta and Sanskrit Immersion, with Swami Tattvavidananda and Pujya Swami Dayananda, Arsha Vidya Gurukula, 2011
- Year long immersion in the Ganapati Upanishad with Hart deFouw, 2010-2011
- Year long private study with Hart deFouw, 2010-2011
- Advanced Certification in Jyotisha {Vedic Astrology}, Vedic Vidya Institute and Hart deFouw, 2010
- Intermediate Certification in Vastu {Vedic Design}, Vedic Vidya Institute and Hart deFouw, 2009
- Vedanta teachings & darshan with Krishan Mantri, Toronto CA, 2009
- Advanced Certification Hasta Samudrika {Vedic Hand Analysis}, 2009
- Advanced Course in Ayurveda for Women’s Health, Dr. Sarita Shreshtha, 2009
- Training and Apprenticeship for Teaching Teachers, MYTI, 2008-2009
- Yoga Business Certification, MYTI 2008
- Advanced Deeper Yoga Certification, Yoga for Your Back Certification, and Pregnancy Yoga Training, MYTI, 2007-2009
- Yoga Therapy Certifications, MYTI, 2007-2009
- Ayurvedic Practitioner and Classical Yoga Therapy Program, Mount Madonna, 2009 with honors. Areas of expertise include – digestion and nutrition, botanical medicine, women and children’s health, classical yoga therapy, sanskrit, pulse analysis, western anatomy and physiology, ayurvedic anatomy and physiology, lifestyle counseling, ayurvedic psychology, disease process, clinical assessment, disease treatment, cleansing therapies, rejuvenation therapies.
- Ayurvedic Health Counselor Degree, Mount Madonna Institute, 2006
- Teaching Yoga Workshops Certification, Master Yoga Teaching Institute, 2006
- Private Jyotisha Tutelage, Col Puri, Rishikesh India, 2005
- Certified Svaroopa® Yoga Teacher {750 hours}, MYTI & Rama Berch {Now Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati} 2004
- Certified Embodyment® Yoga Therapist, Master Yoga Teaching Institute, 2001
Professional Experience
- Logged over 10,000 hours combined training and in-the-field yoga therapy and teaching
- Accredited Yoga Therapist, C-IAYT
- Accredited IAYT APD {Cont Ed Provider} for Yoga Therapists
- Registered YACEP {Continuing Education Provider for yoga teachers}
- Accredited Pregnancy Yoga Teacher
- Established online membership portal for yoga student home practice combining live & recorded content
- Online membership sangha for yoga teachers to explore pedagogy, practice and philosophy
- Created & Establshed of multiple in-depth programs for dedicated yogis and yoga teachers in yoga, yoga therapy, yoga philosophy, Sanskrit, yoga nidra, bhakti, the doctrine of Karma, SRY YTT and more.
- Private practice Mentoring Yoga Teachers, private practice 2014-present
- Private practice of Vedic Counseling 2017-present
- Master Faculty of Yoga Programs at IAMYoga, Stress Management Center of Marin, Wee Yogis and the Center for Vital Living, Ajna Yoga, 2013-Present
- Co-Founder + Director of Emeryville Yoga Therapy Center, 2013-2019
- Training Yoga Teachers and Yoga Therapists, 2010-present
- Ayurvedic Practitioner, private practice 2009-present
- Chief Content Writer, Banyan Botanicals, 2010-2011
- Chief Content Writer and Editor, Master Yoga Foundation, 2006-2010
- Board Member, Master Yoga Foundation, 2006-2009
- Yoga Therapist, 2004-present
- Yoga Teacher, 2001-present
You are whole and complete as you are.
True Yoga is a process of resolution. We resolve tension, obstacles, misperception, distortion until what remains is the nectar of the self-satisfied Self.
As my teacher Swami Dayananda once said, “Yoga teaches you to love your Self, starting with the body.” In a nourishing practice and perspective, obstacles to experiencing your own wholeness resolve into that love.
Deep and hard are not the same. Yoga is meant to be deeply within, not hard work on the periphery.
Here is a replenishing, compassionate, blissful, healing, transformative approach. At the level of the body, we directly release tensions in the core muscles along the spine. At the level of the subtle body we gather the inner nectar of soma and increase the flow of prāna and agni. At the level of the mind, we resolve distortions and trauma. At the level of the intellect, we reveal the in-built wise viewpoint on all of life. Through all of this we merge into the bliss of being and integrate it all into life and the world with purpose, that we may live yoga in every moment, sharing that nectar in our relationships, our work and with the world.
Join me on this journey of discovery of the nectar within.~ Kaya
