Varun
Varun discovered yoga in October 2022, during year eleven of what was supposed to be a three-year PhD. His father suggested Auckland Yoga Academy. Maybe Peter and Jude can help you breathe again, he said. And Varun needed help breathing. By then he’d been drowning in research for over a decade. He had procrastination habits going back to failing first through fourth grade. He had a lifetime of making big promises and missing deadlines because some part of him believed he’d never be enough.
Peter and Jude taught him what his doctoral supervisors couldn’t. How to breathe when there are no more words left on the page. He took the teacher training in February 2023, studied Patanjali’s eight limbs, and started working as a cleaner at the academy. In August 2023, Varun started teaching level 1 ashtanga beginners classes at the academy. In September 2024 he submitted the final thesis. But the real transformation happened on the mat. By then, he was already in his second year of training, going deeper into his asana practice and learning the yoga sutras of Patanjali.
In January 2025, Varun started teaching level 2 ashtanga beginners classes at the academy. Now he teaches both level 1 and level 2 ashtanga beginners classes. His teaching approach is grounded in a lesson he had to learn the hard way: presence and purpose aren’t opposites. You don’t have to choose between being here now and working toward something that matters. You just have to breathe. You just have to begin again. You just have to keep showing up and allow yourself to experience the realisation that deep down inside, you are already everything you have ever needed and you always will be.
Varun currently teaches at the Auckland Yoga Academy:
