About SATYA
Vedic Priestess Temple is rooted in the practices and teachings of my ancestors: the 10,000 year old Vedic lineage and tradition which I come from. It is also grounded in the tincture of my inquiry and accumulated life experience — as well as yogic training and a concentrated practice over 20 years. My work is tempered through the resilience of overcoming many obstacles, such as - among other things - the sudden and complicated deaths of each of my parents, near death experiences, and surviving a number of deathly tropical sicknesses, as well as multiple fractures and surgeries.
I am Satya Amrita Kumari Jehman. I am the daughter of Vedanti Amrit Jehman and Surinder Kumari Jehman. I am the granddaughter of Balak Ram Jehman, Suhagbati Jehman, Tersem Lal Koshal, and Kanta Rani Koshal. I am the great-granddaughter of Babu Ram Jehman, Hukamdevi Jehman, Udo Ram Koshal, and Mohandevi Koshal. My ancestors hail from Punjab, Northern India. It is through this depth of acknowledgment that my being recognizes the ancestors of those around me, those who I come into contact with, and those whom I work with. This ancestral recognition brings presence and healing to our lines.
An Indian woman born and raised in the west.
After rebelling against the traditional path her parents were laying down, and finally leaving home at age 16 to forge her own path - Satya returned to the Vedic path through yoga just before her 20th birthday. After a major motor vehicle accident left her broken in multiple places, and immobile for several months, her healing experience guided her in slowing down, cultivating patience, and refining her perseverance: all while learning how to walk again. How to Be again. In this new way. One that was much more still and conscious.
This was her awakening. Her entire world shifted as she left an active extreme mountain sports and athletic life for the quieter and more still path of yoga. Through the natural Goddess-given flow of life, she merged her east-west roots. Balancing life in two worlds, two cultures, two countries, rejecting parts of it, and then finally: reconciling her two cultures. All the while, moving as the “psychedelic sheep” of the family — by choosing an unconventional life: unmarried, no children, no mortgage, no 9-5 day job, bi-sexual. She came full circle onto the path she was born into, in her own way, on her own terms.
Self Inquiry
The scriptures of yoga are rooted in the Vedas, the lineage Satya was born into. While her parents were Brahmin Hindus — following the path of priest/priestess/teacher — she does not identify with the caste structure, but rather recognizes herself as of the Vedic lineage. She attended all the Vedic rituals and occasions as a child and teenager; it was important, though, for her to choose her path, rather than have it forced upon her. (Note: there are overlaps between the Hindu tradition, Vedic lineage, the study of yoga, and Advaita Vedanta/non-duality teachings.)
After seven years of studying and moving through the progression of the yogas (karma and bhakti yoga), Satya was met with jnana yoga (the direct path of knowledge of truth). This was the path she had avoided her whole life: her traditional parents had waved the Bhagavad Gita around like it was the bible during her childhood and teenage years. As her yoga path grew stagnant, she was faced with what she'd been avoiding her whole life: the scriptures of yoga. To truly answer the call to go deeper and become more expansive, she knew she needed to embrace sacred Vedic scripture.
It wasn't until Satya met her teacher in the renowned Shiva pilgrim town of Tiruvannamalai (also known as Arunachala), South India, that she for the first time learned what this scripture was embodying. It was the very guidebook for truly living a dharmic life. In fact, in those first moments of discovery, she knew this was what she had been waiting to hear her whole life. She proceeded to sit with this teacher for the duration of the winter, listening to his discourse on the Bhagavad Gita daily. She continued to study with him in the form of Advaita Vedanta — teachings on non duality (self inquiry)— and supporting the management of his satsang in South India for the following several winters.
This study shifted her entire orientation. All the intense physical karma in the form of fractures, surgeries, and tropical sicknesses she had been contending with her whole life suddenly came to an abrupt end at that moment she picked up the scripture. A classic case of: what you resist, persists.
Pilgrimages to Mother India
Satya has been travelling, living, and volunteering in Mother India – the land of her roots – all her life.
Her introduction to India was during a one-year stay as a six year old when her parents said they were all going on holiday. When they arrived, she was told that they weren’t returning to Canada. A one-year stay in her father’s village followed, in which she and her siblings attended public school in a nearby small city. Satya learned how to read and write her mother tongue during this time. The mystic and chaos of the place had deeply captivated her. Upon departing her Motherland at age seven, she quietly vowed to return one day.
And she did. Seventeen years later she quit her cushy job, left her partner, gave away all her possessions, shaved her head, changed the birth name that never truly resonated to begin with, and bought a one-way ticket to Mother India.
Maternal Durga Devotee
Satya comes from a line of Durga devotees on her maternal line. She has been initiated into the Sidh Kunjika Stotram - the highest call to Maha Shakti (Divine Mother). After her mother’s sudden death, the Divine Mother became her mother, just like her mother became much more deeply devoted to Maha Shakti after losing her own mother — Satya’s grandmother — seven years before her departure. For Satya, her entire life has been a Durga-inspired warrior training. This is the essence of the Vedic Priestess Temple offering.
Satya completed a year-long Yoga Apprenticeship in 2014/15 on Salt Spring Island, Canada. She is fluent in the local North Indian dialect of Hindi - and she is proud to call herself both an Indian and a Canadian, with deep Vedic roots.
Encouraged by her teachers, Satya offers ceremony, self inquiry, workshops, and one-to-one guidance.
She presently divides her time between her Motherland of India and Salt Spring Island, Canada.
Satya offers from the deepest place in her with utmost respect and reverence to her ancestors, to You, to the Divine, and to the Self (Pure Awareness) - for the greater good of the Whole. OM.
"Thank you so much for your presence, and leading us in such a beautiful and powerful journey."
~ Danielle-Madhurima B, Cortes Island, Canada
Workshops
We will explore, feel into, grow, and refine our sense of discernment by cultivating spaciousness, both internally and externally. This will support us to heal hard-wire patterns and tendencies (also known as samskaras or vasanas in yoga) - so that we may no longer move from a place of armouring up and numbing out - and instead move from love, fullness, truth, and power.
At our workshops you may:
- Grow spaciousness internally and externally.
- Refine your sense of discernment amid what is true and what is simply not.
- Inquire into who you are at the deepest level and how to embody this knowing.
- Want to deepen into the practice of jnana yoga (self inquiry).
- Cultivate self love, self respect, and self trust.
- Move from fear to love.
- Speak your truth.
- Know your worth.
- Cultivate courage and inner strength.
- Recognize when you move from a sense of lack and/or scarcity.
- Heal the part of you that moves from deficit - and instead, embody your FULLNESS in every moment.
- Fully step into your power.
Currently invitations to yoga studios, centres, and other sacred spaces on the west coast of B.C. are welcome.
Customized arrangements available; in-person or online options also available.
Are you ready for a journey to nurture the seeds of your intentions?
"I look inside and what do I see?
Vast, empty, formless, boundless, stillness."
— Michael Jeffreys