Stephen Parker PsyD ERYT500 YACEP was initiated into yoga by Swami Veda Bharati in 1971. He began teaching hatha-yoga in 1976. He is also a licensed psychologist and for many years has had a psychotherapy practice in St. Paul, MN.
In 1975 he earned a B.A. degree summa cum laude in Sanskrit and South Asian Languages under Swami Veda (then Dr. Usharbudh Arya) at the University of Minnesota and masters (1982) and doctoral (1994) degrees in psychology at the University of St. Thomas. Since 1999 he has been a senior faculty member of the Himalayan Yoga Tradition Teacher Training Program. In 2007 he was initiated into vanaprastha (preliminary sannyasa) by Swami Veda and the Shankaracharya of Karvirapitha. In 2008 he received the adhikara from his guru to provide mantra initiation. He serves as a spiritual guide in the AHYMSIN family of centers and students and at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama Ashram in Rishikesh India. He travels and teaches internationally doing teacher trainings in many countries and topical seminars on emotional purification (chitta-prasadana), yoga-nidra, Kashmir Shivaism, Yoga Psychology, touch and correction for yoga teachers, and other topics. He is affiliated with the Meditation Research Institute laboratory at Swami Rama Sadhaka Gram and has authored a number of scientific papers on yoga, book chapters and is soon to publiish a book on the process of emotional purification in yoga. He edited volume II of Swami Veda's commentary on the Yoga Sutras.
Favorite t-shirt: "Yoga Before it was Hot: The Himalayan Yoga Tradition"