Reverend Durga Glasson, IYM, MEd, C-IAYT, E RYT 500, met Sri Swami Satchidananda in 1975 and attended Integral Yoga Hatha teacher training in Pomfret Center in 1979. There she learned about the formation of the Integral Yoga Ministry and knew this was personally meant to be. Durga returned to NH where she opened an Integral Yoga Center. During her vacations as a public school classroom teacher,
she returned to the Ashram as a karma yogi serving the teacher training certification programs for ten years.
In 1989 she was ordained as a minister, answered her calling to teach Integral Yoga rather than public school, and began leading the Integral Yoga Teacher Training Certification Programs in Yogaville, the SFIYI, and the NYIYI. She also served as the Chairperson of the Integral Yoga Ministry Board of Directors for seven years. She formed and led the New England Integral Yoga Teachers Association which offered weekend retreats, teacher trainings, workshops, blessings, and excursions to the Ashram and the NYIYI.
To deepen her skills, Durga returned to college to earn a Masters Degree in Education in Counseling and became a counselor in the Rochester Pastoral Counseling Center and a school counselor in a public school. She led the district counselors in adopting a Rochester School District Comprehensive Developmental Counseling Program, based on the American School Counselors Association, ASCA,
model. These goals and objectives parallel yama and niyama. For 19 years as a School Counselor, she was able to guide students toward correct action, problem solving, peer mediation, taking responsibility
for one’s actions, mindfulness, and caring for the body and mind through Yoga 4 Classrooms. She offered classes to the district faculty as well.
Durga lives in Portsmouth, NH with Peter, her husband of 44 years, and they have two daughters and two granddaughters. She aspires to lead a life of continuous mindful loving kindness.