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Balaganesh Sivaprakasam — Bala — is a yoga teacher, movement practitioner and lifelong student based in Auroville, South India.

Born in a village close to Auroville and raised in Tamil Nadu, Bala’s journey has moved between very different worlds: engineering and business, corporate life in India and Europe, traditional Indian practices, contemporary movement, philosophy and the exploration of what it means to live yoga beyond the mat.

He holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Business Management and spent more than twelve years working in corporate environments across fields including renewable energy, design and organic food. Years spent living and working in Europe, particularly in the Netherlands and Spain, exposed him to different cultures, ways of thinking and approaches to wellbeing.

Interestingly, Bala’s first real encounter with yoga happened not in India, but while he was living in Amsterdam.

After returning to India, his practice deepened through years of study with teachers from different traditions, including classical Hatha Yoga, Sivananda Yoga, Ashtanga Vinyasa and Vinyasa Flow. What began as a personal practice gradually became a way of understanding the body, mind, relationships and life itself.

Today, Bala is an E-RYT 500 yoga teacher, and Bala Yoga School is a Yoga Alliance registered school offering 200-hour and advanced 300 Yoga Teacher Trainings, retreats and immersions in Auroville, India and Bali, Indonesia.

His teaching brings together traditional yogic practice with contemporary understanding of the human body and experience. His work includes:

Asana · Pranayama · Meditation · Yoga Philosophy · Functional Movement · Anatomy · Nervous-System Awareness · Teaching Methodology · Communication · Self-Inquiry · Holding Space

Bala is particularly interested in the meeting point between Eastern wisdom and contemporary human understanding.

Alongside yoga, he practises and teaches elements of Kalaripayattu, Karlakattai and Silambam, traditional South Indian systems that have deeply influenced his understanding of strength, mobility, coordination, discipline and embodied awareness.

His philosophy teaching is rooted not only in the Yoga Sutras and Bhagavad Gita, but also in the rich philosophical traditions of Tamil Nadu, including Tirumandiram, Shaiva Siddhanta and classical Tamil literature, together with the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

Increasingly, Bala’s work also explores the nervous system, trauma-informed approaches, Polyvagal-informed perspectives, communication and the ability to create safe and intelligent spaces for learning.

For him, becoming a yoga teacher is not simply about learning how to sequence a class or receiving a certificate. It begins with learning to understand yourself — your body, your patterns, your nervous system, your relationships and the way you move through life.

This understanding shapes the evolving approach of Bala Yoga School: Yoga is not only something we practise. It is something we learn to live.

Outside his yoga school, Bala contributes to community initiatives in and around Auroville, including work connected with fatherhood, pregnancy and childbirth, family wellbeing, research and education.

Having lived and worked between India and Europe and taught students from many different cultures, Bala sees his role as a bridge — between tradition and contemporary life, East and West, discipline and exploration, physical practice and self-discovery.

His intention is ultimately simple: to help people become stronger and healthier, understand themselves more deeply, and develop practices that remain meaningful long after they leave the yoga mat.

Balaganesh Sivaprakasam

Based: Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India
Teaching experience: 10+ years
Yoga qualification: E-RYT 500
School: Bala Yoga School · Yoga Alliance Registered School
Teaching locations: India · Bali · International
Languages: English · Tamil · Spanish · Dutch

All Life Is Yoga.