Engaged Dharma: Yoga Teacher Training for Those Who Care, Lead, Advocate, and Serve

Established 2026

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Center for the Study of Jain Yoga

Program Instances

Live online

Jan 16 – Jun 26, 2027

162 days • 200 hours • TBD

Zoom

Led by

Christopher Jain Miller, PhD

CYT-L3

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See up-front pricing

Purpose

Engaged Dharma exists to help those who care, lead, advocate, and serve sustain the work that matters to them, drawing on the dharma traditions’ insight that a steady mind makes lasting engagement with the world possible. Over 200 hours and six months, the program delivers a grounding in engaged yoga philosophy, a personal practice of āsana, prāṇāyāma, mantra, and meditation that supports demanding work, and the trauma-aware, ethical teaching skills to share that practice responsibly with the communities participants serve.

What to expect

Engaged Dharma is a six-month journey of study, practice, and teaching, in a schedule built to fit alongside your work and life.

The inaugural cohort meets live online on Saturdays from January 16 to June 26, 2027, 9:00 to 11:00 AM Pacific. Each session has two parts. The first hour explores dharmic philosophy and the history of engaged yoga. The second turns to applied practice, covering teaching technique, pedagogy, and ethics. In addition to the pre-recorded training content, live sessions are where much of the learning happens, through discussion, shared practice, and teaching in community, so plan to attend consistently.

Between sessions, expect about two hours a week of recorded lectures, short readings, personal practice, and reflection, all on Arihanta Institute’s online learning platform. Three rest weeks are built into the calendar, because a program about sustainable practice should be sustainably paced. Some materials will also be mailed to you during the program.

You don’t need an advanced physical practice or an academic background. Bring curiosity and a willingness to study, practice, and reflect alongside others. Along the way you’ll complete short quizzes, which you can retake until you pass.

The training ends with a teaching practicum. You’ll design and teach a one-hour self-care practice for those who care, lead, advocate, and serve, bringing together ethical reflection, somatic practice, and meditation. Graduates are invited to join Arihanta Institute’s lineage at the American Yoga Council.

Style/Lineage

Engaged Dharma provides a practice for those who care, lead, advocate, and serve. We understand yoga as the dharma traditions have long understood it: a path in which philosophy, ethical discipline, contemplative practice, and action in the world belong together. Across Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, these traditions teach that the practices that quiet the mind (nivṛtti) make responsible engagement with the world (pravṛtti) possible and sustainable. A steady mind is not just a retreat from the world’s suffering, but also the ground on which caring, leading, advocating, and serving can be sustained.

This yoga is grounded in ahiṃsā, nonviolence toward all living beings, and in an awareness of our interconnection with other people, animals, and the earth. Āsana, prāṇāyāma, mantra, and meditation (dhyāna) are part of it, but physical performance is never the measure. We value sustainability, adaptation, and attention over flexibility or the perfect posture.

Our training follows a simple arc: Study. Practice. Teach. We begin with philosophy, reading theYoga Sūtra and other sources in their historical and religious contexts, while also learning from people who carried these teachings into movements for justice. Students then make these ideas their own through personal practice. Finally, they learn to translate them responsibly into practices that serve others, with attention to trauma, ethics, power, and the limits of a teacher’s role. We are not training therapists. We are training aware, responsible, and compassionate teachers.

The way we teach reflects what we teach. Training is paced across six months with rest weeks built in, because a program about sustainable practice should be sustainably paced. Learning happens in community, and we draw on a mutualist model in which teachers, practitioners, and communities support one another. Our faculty bring scholarship and decades of teaching experience, keeping these traditions’ depth intact and accessible.

Additional Information

Prerequisites
You don’t need prior yoga teaching experience, an advanced physical practice, or an academic background. Some familiarity with yoga or meditation helps. Above all, we ask for curiosity and a willingness to study, practice, and reflect alongside others. People of every religious or spiritual tradition, or none, are welcome. If you have accessibility needs, please let us know so we can discuss how best to support your participation.

Application
Admission is by a short, reflective application. Every application is personally reviewed by our team, not by AI, and you can expect to hear back within two weeks.

Tuition and payment
Tuition for the full 200-hour program is offered at a reduced rate of $1,995. You can pay in full or choose a payment plan, and some scholarships are available.

Materials and technology
Recorded lectures, readings, and course materials are provided through Arihanta Institute’s online learning platform, and some materials will be mailed to you before the program. You’ll need a reliable internet connection and a device that can join live video sessions.

Attendance
Live participation matters. Attendance and make-up requirements will be shared before the training begins.

Please note
Engaged Dharma is a non-degree professional training. It does not confer graduate academic credit or guarantee admission to an MA or PhD program. It is also not a therapy or mental health certification.

Core competencies

By the end of this program, graduates will be able to…

Lifestyle & Ethics	Explain the ethical vows of the dharma traditions (patañjali’s yamas and niyamas and the jain vratas) and how ahiṃsā applies to animals, ecology, and social justice by scoring 80% or higher on the engaged yoga philosophy quizzes and through participation in the weekly online sessions where students will be prompted to reflect on and discuss these ethical practices Evaluate one’s own practice and contemporary yoga culture for spiritual bypassing, distinguishing empathic distress from sustainable compassion through the ethical-reflection part of the teaching practicum, as assessed by faculty during live online sessions Develop a sustainable personal practice routine that supports long-term engagement in demanding service work by completing the weekly practice assignments on the learning platform across the 24-week program
Business Skills	Envision a mutualist plan for offering yoga in one’s community, covering exchange and pricing, a basic budget, outreach and promotional copy, liability insurance, and scope of practice through live class discussions and exercises wherein students will reflect upon all of these critical topics in discussion with teacher training faculty
Teaching Skills	Teach a sequenced one-hour self-care class for a chosen community of those who care, lead, advocate, and serve, combining ethical reflection, āsana, prāṇāyāma, and meditation following the general arc of a class, from centering, including warm up, sun salutations, peak pose/segment, cool down, and savasana, as demonstrated in the final teaching practicum Demonstrate clear, invitational verbal cueing, offering variations, and consent-based, non-touch assisting in an online setting as assessed by faculty during live practice sessions and the final teaching practicum Apply trauma-aware teaching principles (choice, predictability, pacing, and scope of practice, including recognizing when to refer someone to other support) as assessed by faculty during live practice sessions and the final teaching practicum
Yoga History & Theory	Explain the sāṃkhya metaphysics underlying patañjali’s yoga sūtra, including puruṣa, prakṛti, the guṇas, and the twenty-five tattvas by scoring 80% or higher on the engaged yoga philosophy quizzes Analyze the yoga sūtra’s path for ending suffering (kleśas, saṃskāras, kriyā-yoga, the eight limbs, and the stages of samādhi) as a resource for sustaining engaged work by reflecting upon and answering the provided discussion questions each week that will be discussed together during weekly live zoom sessions Compare how exemplars from the hindu, buddhist, jain, and sikh traditions have joined contemplative practice to social change by reflecting upon and answering the provided discussion questions each week that will be discussed together during weekly live zoom sessions
Anatomy, Physiology, Biomechanics	Describe the physiology of the stress response (the autonomic nervous system, the hpa axis, and sympathetic and parasympathetic states) and how chronic stress leads to burnout through informed and safe instruction, as assessed by the teacher training faculty, in live teaching sessions and the final teaching practicum Identify the major joints, muscle groups, and movement actions in foundational āsanas, with common contraindications and safe ranges of motion during live class discussions and live teaching sessions, and the final teaching practicum, as assessed by the teacher training faculty
Practice Skills	Demonstrate an adaptable āsana practice for fatigued and depleted bodies, including supported, restorative, and accessible variations with safe alignment and appropriate variations, as assessed by faculty in live teaching sessions and the final teaching practicum Demonstrate prāṇāyāma techniques for nervous-system regulation, including their purpose, sequencing, and contraindications with correct technique and safety guidance, as assessed by faculty in live teaching sessions and the final teaching practicum Practice mantra and dhyāna as taught in arhum yoga by ācārya sushil kumar, including namokar mantra recitation and the subtle body (sūkṣma śarīra) as the field of sound practice with accurate pronunciation and the ability to explain each element’s purpose, as assessed by faculty in week 12

AYC allows each school to state and evaluate the competencies each student acquires. Students rate how well the program delivered them.

Program Emphasis

Evaluation methods

Program evaluations

Other
Solo Project Or Presentation
Graded Skill Demonstration
Oral Exam
Graded Demonstration
Direct Observation

To assess each participant's learning, the Engaged Dharma Yoga Teacher Training combines periodic short quizzes, live classroom course engagement, observed teaching practice with direct feedback, and a final teaching practicum.