About Gyan

Why I do what I do

Childhood memories

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My mother claims I wore out three record players by the age of two!​ Raised in an artistic household, I loved listening to the Beatles, ABBA and Simon & Garfunkel as a toddler & was classically trained on recorder, flute and piano from a young age.

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Teenage rebellion

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In my late teens, I found the classical world I experienced was stifling my creative spirit. I began teaching myself how to play steel string guitar, to sing and play rock piano, as I rediscovered the amazing world of popular music, particularly from the 60's and 70's.

I fell in love with Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder and many others.

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My favourite pastime was trawling through the wonderfully eclectic record collection at Fopp Records in Leamington Spa (England), and spending all the pocket money I ever had on CD's!

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I studied English Literature at York University but it felt like I had graduated with a degree in songwriting instead! Still, the poetry of Shakespeare and Wordsworth moved and inspired me, and helped to inform my songwriting.

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Songwriting in my twenties

In my twenties I taught English and worked as a bookseller for a number of years, but songwriting was my joie de vivre.

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I formed a band called Hobo Gilt with my best mates and we had a lot of creative fun improvising together every Friday night into the wee hours.

I used to write masses of songs, often sardonically humorous, which reflected my then worldview that humans are essentially 'the cruellest of beasts' (to quote one of my early songs!)

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Essentially I believed my happiness depended on my external reality. If I could only have the girl and band of my dreams, everything would be great!

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When I lost the girl, and the band, in close succession, my dreams shattered into smithereens, I felt at my lowest ebb, the sum of what I had lived for, destroyed.

‘What else is there?... Is there Anything Else?’ I enquired. I hadn’t talked to ‘God’ since hitting puberty when I felt too ashamed to. This was my first earnest plea since then. Beyond my own redemption I faced the void...

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Inner awakening

Not so long later, I picked up Eckhart Tolle’s book ‘A New Earth.’ The first chapter disarmed my defensive mind and as I was reading the subsequent chapters, the most remarkable event in my life happened. I began to notice my breath. To notice sensations in my body. To notice thoughts coming and going.

This temporal vessel of brains, brawn and blood was suddenly alive to my perception for the first time in my life! And how alive! How amazing that this body and mind ‘talks’ to me! And then inevitably the question came, ‘So who is the me who listens?’

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And so it was that at the age of my Saturn return – twenty eight years and six months – I 'woke up'. To the ‘me’ who was beyond the thinking mind. To the ‘me’ who could observe. Before this, in my perception, I WAS my mind, completely! Now I was no longer a prisoner of my own mind and making.

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The freedom I experienced was intensely incredible! My life from then on was totally transforming into one of joy and light! 'I' was beginning to call the shots, rather than live totally within the whimsies of my mind.

I discovered of course that I was now on a journey: that the freedom I newly felt can always be felt by simply coming back to the present moment, but it can be lost too just as easily.

I was discovering that there was so much suffering inside my being from the past that was flooding into my present experience: every little thing previously unacknowledged, unfelt and unseen. Not only that, but all the conditioned responses to this suffering. 

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I realised I was free at the most fundamental level but to be free in my body and mind – wow! – that will require a lot of time, energy, attention and care! ‘Living consciously’... how easy it sounds but what a commitment it is! I had opened up the universe within me and I so needed some tools to help deal with all the stuff coming up to the surface.

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My discovery of Yoga

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When I was thirty I took a holiday to pretty much the furthest place from England in the world and discovered Yoga by chance at a retreat centre in remote Tasmania. I had never really even heard the word ‘Yoga’ before. And Yoga immediately revolutionised my life!

The tradition that came to me, Satyananda Yoga, was not simply concerned with a few stretches... It was yoga as a way of living and culture, for the whole being. 

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Not one to do things by halves, I studied and practiced all things Yoga - yama, niyama, yogic philosophy, asana, pranayama, yoga nidra, meditation, mantra, kirtan and havan all at once. Daily! And haven’t stopped since! 

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My body I came to realise was so weak, tight and constricted. The gentle but potent asana – particularly the pawanmuktasana series – was amazing. Within a couple of years, my toes had significantly changed shaped from curled to unfurled as so much energy was releasing! My posture and body language completely changed from hunched and withdrawn to upright and confident.

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Simple deep abdominal breathing pranayama helped bring calm in times when the mind or body often went into a fear or overwhelm response. What a gift! 

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Asana and pranayama by themselves I realised however weren’t sufficient to manage my mind, which was as unruly as wild horses, as scattered as the winds and as damaging as any political party in power!

Practising mantra was wonderful medicine – it provided a focus for my mind and some deeply positive vibrations to bring some peace and comfort and distance from the destructive thoughts.

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The medicine of kirtan

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The practice I found that could really transform the destructive thoughts to uplifting ones however, was kirtan – the group singing of mantra. Sometimes I couldn’t believe how joyful, blissful and even ecstatic I could feel during and after kirtan. Feelings, I’ve come to realise, which are symptomatic of our natural state of being free from suffering. 

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Yoga Nidra to the rescue

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With all these inner experiences and intense reflections and processes, I found I needed a daily practice to help relax my highly taxed nervous system and integrate all the energies being triggered and released.

Yoga Nidra – a deep relaxation meditation lying down – fitted the bill perfectly. It’s still such a staple practice for me to this day. I use it now also to get into the ‘healing zone’ to release deep past trauma and conditioned behaviour. 

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Life in Tasmania

I was fortunate enough to live simply and yogically for seven years in nature next to a yoga retreat centre in Tasmania, and be involved with all the many retreat programs that happen there.

My life changed SO much in these years – and all for the better! It was like having a complete make-over or upgrade – not just physically, but also pranically, mentally, emotionally, psychically and spiritually! 

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Songwriting in my thirties

I wrote many songs in this period honouring this part of the journey, and acknowledging that as we open to ever greater levels of freedom, so too we must feel ever greater depths of pain!

But anything and everything can be joyful I found when experienced in the light of the present moment.

Singing these conscious songs and kirtans in this way to connect to the beauty and creativity of the present moment has become such a well of joy!

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Reflections of gratitude

Reflecting on my journey as a singer and performer, I feel deeply grateful to the practices of Yoga, which really helped me to achieve my goals of being able to sing live well and confidently. 

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I feel so grateful and fortunate to be living a conscious life too, one that is unfolding according to my thoughts, words, actions and intentions! Whether I’m aware of them or not, ha ha!

I feel so grateful too to music, yoga and all other spiritual practices that have helped me transform and transcend. Music, mantra, meditation and movement have been the greatest gifts to me to keep my life unravelling and flowing freely and my being living in each moment. 

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I would like to acknowledge in gratitude my previous partner Brigette for teaching me so much about life, conscious living, cooking, cleaning and housekeeping, time management, the yamas and niyamas and many other aspects of yoga, commitment, faith and matters of the heart.

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I would also like to acknowledge my mentor, neighbour and yoga teacher, Karunamitra, who supported me so gently and gracefully to walk the yogic path. And my friend Sandra John for her wise guidance and healing support for many years. And also Swami Satyadharma, without whose love and extraordinary vision, I wouldn't be doing what I love the way I'm doing it today.

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I also gratefully acknowledge the teachings of Swami Satyananda and Niranjan, which massively expanded my understanding of the human condition and human potential on this Earth. As humans, their abuses of power have taught me much about humility and compassion.

Geeti & Gyan

I feel even more grateful and thrilled to be now in a place to share these gifts with you. I recently relocated to Sydney to share my music and yoga more widely and to collaborate with my partner Geeti and others.

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It is so wonderful to be living, working, singing and creating music and events with Geeti - we share everything! Co-creating in this way with Geeti requires an openness of heart all the time, which is wonderfully challenging and really helps me to develop as a human being! 

Community

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I have found the communities here so inspiring and nourishing for my soul and collaboratively so creatively fulfilling. Coming together to sing, feel, meditate, heal, recharge, receive and give back is such amazing medicine and so important and potent in this day and age. It’s so wonderful to be walking this journey with you! Looking forward to connecting and transforming and transcending together soon!

May peace, joy & happiness be yours

Gyan