Yoga Inspiration

What does it really mean for practice to deepen?
It is not a bigger backbend or a more dramatic shape. It is the quiet transformation that comes from showing up day after day.
In this talk, Kino explores how steady effort widens our capacity to feel the full spectrum of life. The highs may feel brighter, and the lows may feel deeper, yet the work is to meet both with awareness rather than attachment.
Think of the mind as a garden. When we tend it with practice, wisdom takes root. When we stop tending it, weeds of habit and reactivity return.
Kino shares a classical view of the path. Asana is a container where we willingly meet a small dose of discomfort and learn to stay. Breath gives us a way to regulate the field of mind and body. Concentration trains attention so we can see clearly. From this triad, wisdom ripens.
She also reflects on teachings that point to the universality of suffering and the freedom that comes from understanding its causes, along with the courage to respond with compassion, joy, and equanimity.
The episode closes with a reminder of the daily frame of practice: begin with devotion and end with peace for all beings. Keep coming back. Depth is not an accident. It is the natural result of consistent practice and a gentle heart.
To practice with Kino and other amazing teachers, head to Omstars and explore your practice with us.

Recorded at Nøsen Yoga Retreat in Norway, Kino and Tim explore the deeper benefits of traditional Ashtanga Yoga practice. Together, they reflect on Yoga as both a drop of nectar and an ocean, drawing on the Yoga Sūtra, the Bhagavad Gītā, and the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā.
From strength and vitality in the body, to balance in the nervous system, to the quiet of meditation, they share how tradition transforms practice into a path of peace, humility, and self-realization.

If this conversation resonates, you can continue your practice inside Omstars. Explore full-length classes, guided series, and teachings from master instructors rooted in tradition. Begin your journey with a 7-day free trial and experience the depth of practice for yourself.

Srivatsa Ramaswami is one of the last direct students of the legendary yogi Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, often regarded as the father of modern yoga. He studied with Krishnamacharya for over three decades, receiving a deeply traditional education in āsana, prāṇāyāma, chanting, and classical yoga texts.
He is widely respected as a teacher and scholar of yoga, known for preserving and sharing the Vinyāsakrama method. His work emphasizes thoughtful sequencing, breath-led movement, and adaptation for the individual practitioner.
Through decades of teaching, writing, and lecturing around the world, Ramaswami continues to carry forward this living lineage with clarity, precision, and depth.


Continue your study with Srivatsa Ramaswami on Omstars!
Join our live Vinyasakrama class on Sunday, April 19 on Omstars.com. 
Then deepen your practice in Ramaswami's 100 Hour Training, May 11–30, available online through Omstars and in person at Miami Life Center.

Avidyā: Lifting the Veil of Ignorance in Yoga
Ignorance is rarely felt as ignorance. In yoga, this root affliction is called avidyā, the veil that causes us to mistake impermanence for permanence, suffering for joy, and the non-self for the Self.
In this episode, Kino MacGregor explores the meaning of avidyā through the Yoga Sūtras, the Upaniṣads, and Buddhist teachings. Rather than a simple lack of knowledge, avidyā is revealed as an active misperception, a distortion that shapes how we see ourselves and the world.
Drawing on Patañjali's teaching that ignorance is the field from which all other afflictions arise (YS II.4), this episode unpacks how subtle and pervasive avidyā can be. It appears not only as confusion, but also as false certainty, attachment to identity, and the clinging to ideas that have not yet ripened into direct experience.
Kino also reflects on the Buddhist understanding of avijjā, where ignorance is defined as not seeing the Four Noble Truths. This points to the idea that ignorance is not a lack of information, but a blindness to reality itself.
Through classical teachings and contemplative reflection, this episode invites you to consider how perception shapes experience. Like mistaking a rope for a snake, avidyā projects fear and misunderstanding onto what is already whole.
Yoga becomes the path of undoing this misperception. Through steady practice, breath, and stillness, moments of clear seeing begin to dissolve the veil of ignorance, revealing a deeper truth that has always been present.
In this episode you will explore:

What avidyā means in the Yoga Sūtras How ignorance functions as misperception rather than absence of knowledge The role of avidyā as the root of suffering Parallels between yoga philosophy and Buddhist teachings on avijjā The rope and snake analogy as a model of mistaken perception How practice gradually dissolves ignorance into wisdom
Practice with Kino on Omstars and continue your journey on the path of yoga.
Listen and subscribe for more episodes on yoga philosophy, practice, and inner transformation.

Grief is a powerful teacher. It doesn't ask for permission before it arrives—it simply comes, dismantling everything we thought we knew about love, faith, and permanence. It turns the familiar inside out, leaving us raw and exposed to the mystery of loss.


In this heartfelt episode, Kino MacGregor, Tim Feldmann, Joseph Armstrong, Edgar Navarro, Frances Cole Jones, Heather Serna, and many others come together to share stories, memories, and reflections about SharathJi; their teacher, guide, and spiritual anchor. Together, they explore how grief becomes part of the path, how lineage continues through love and practice, and how the teachings live on even when the teacher is gone.


As Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler remind us, "The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to."


SharathJi's sudden departure left a void that words can't fill. When we lost our teacher, we also lost the reflection of who we were in his eyes. There was a certain refuge in being a student, the comfort of knowing that someone stood before us as a mirror, a guide, a guardian of our path. Now, that mirror asks us to see ourselves. The guidance turns inward.


"SharathJi, there's so much left undone, so much left unfinished," Kino reflects. "So many questions we still wanted to ask, so many mornings we thought we'd share in the quiet rhythm of practice. We will have to walk on, sometimes and often along a lonely path, without you standing before us, but always with you in our hearts."


Through shared stories and moments of remembrance, this episode is both a eulogy and an offering, a testament to the lasting presence of a teacher whose spirit continues to live through every breath, every bow, every act of devotion.