About

The Listening Behind OIA

OIA is not something I built.

It is something I listened to, a living space where my devotion and my work meet. It is me, unfolding.

It holds what has been growing inside me for many years: a quiet synthesis of writing, yoga, spiritual study, nourishment, and foremost, lived experience.

This is the beginning of a new chapter in my life, a time when what moves within me is given form. Where inner practice becomes visible. Where this path of inner yoga is allowed to speak, gently and clearly, in its own way.

What OIA Is

OIA is a space born of longing,

a longing to remember what is already whole, and to help others remember what has always lived within.

When you arrive here, I hope something stirs in you.

A joy. A recognition. A breath of mystery.

A sense of beauty. A touch of inspiration.

This space will grow in time, with writings, offerings, and ways to gather. For now, you are welcome to explore what is here, and let it meet you just as you are.

The First Spark

Sacred scripture was one of the first keys that opened something deep within me. The Upanishads did not simply tell wondrous stories — they activated. An energetic current began to move in me, a living response that could not be explained, only felt.

This awakening led me to an Acharya of divine silence and inner yoga. He was not my first encounter with teachings, but his kind presence confirmed what had already begun within. Mysteries that had long been stirring came into clearer focus, and the inner unfolding deepened.

The Meeting With the Siddhas

Around this time, life placed in my hands the writings of Baba Muktananda and his Guru, Bhagavan Nityananda. Reading their words — and even just glimpsing a photograph — was like entering a current that had always been flowing toward me.

A sweet, subtle friendship was born through that meeting, one that continues to guide and accompany me in silence and grace. Through them, and through my living teacher, I came to know Kundalini Shakti not just as a concept, but as a living presence.

And through them, the world of Siddha Yoga, Maha Yoga, and Inner Yoga began to open.

The Early Longing

Long before I knew the names of yoga, Shakti, or the Self, there was already something in me that was listening.

A sense of something vast and near.
A longing I could not explain, only feel.

Even as a child, I was drawn to silence, to the sky, to the edges of things.
There were moments I remember that felt like the world was made of breath.

Other times, the ache became unbearable,
as if I had lost something I could not name.

There was also suffering.
A depth of aloneness and inner pain marked my childhood. And while it would be too simple to call that pain spiritual,
it would also be incomplete to separate it from the contemplative doorway it opened.

This state, though intertwined with trauma, opened a dimension of inner contemplation that carried importance.

A Mirror Along the Way

Over time, the current deepened.

Profound energetic unfoldings and intense purification followed. It was both beautiful and challenging, a deeply transpersonal process that often moved beyond language or context.

In 2019, I found a local and online ashram that offered teachings and events that spoke directly to the dimensions I had been living inwardly.It was consoling to find a mirror, a community that could name what I had been navigating in silence.

That first immersion had a lasting impact.
I felt seen by something deeper within myself.

It was during this time that I met someone who has since become one of the dearest people in my life, along with my dear friend and spiritual sister.

What I Carry Now

I continue to bow to the Siddhas, to Baba Muktananda and Bhagavan Nityananda, to the teachers of Shaivism who have walked with me, and to my beloved Ji, whose words “Be happy, and make others happy also” and “Stay here like a child” live in me as the simplest and most profound transmissions of love.

I carry all of them in my heart.
And I walk with Her,
the One beyond all names,
the Mother of Creation, who first came to me not through form,
but through silence and touch, through dreams, breath, and the aching beauty of being alive.

She revealed Herself in the tenderness between things, in the belly of prayer, in the pull of longing, in the quiet power of the earth, and in the fierce softness of devotion.

She is the current behind my words,
the stillness in my offerings,
the fire beneath my surrender.

I continue to walk this path of inner yoga, not through one role or title, but as a devotion that unfolds from within.

May our silence be vast enough to hear,

our touch be gentle,

our vision clear,

and our knowledge free from dual fixation.

Writing as Transmission

As my sadhana deepened and Shakti rose through the body, silence began to take form. Poems unfolded on their own, crystal clear, as if already written. An inner hearing opened, and words began to appear from within.

Some of these writings wake me in the night. Others arrive mid-breath or in solitude. They do not come from thought. They come from presence. They are not channeled, and they are rarely shaped with intention. They come on their own, sometimes as poems, sometimes as prayers, fragments, or invitations.

What moves through me does not feel separate from what moves through others. Shakti spreads the same flame within many beings.

Yet through our individual senses, impressions, and histories, consciousness unfolds in uniquely differentiated ways.

Human Design later gave language to what I already sensed. As a Self-Projected Projector with only the G center and throat defined, and the 1–8 channel as my only definition, I began to see how transmission flows through identity and voice. Self-identity might carry the dimension of personality, but the self I speak of holds something far more essential. It moves beneath the surface of roles and form. When there is alignment, what moves through me feels both intimate and impersonal, as if life itself is briefly becoming expressed. Sometimes it takes the shape of words. Other times, it is simply known.

Writing, for me, is a subtle fire. A conversation with the unseen, and a form of inner yoga.

At times, it takes great strength to hold what arises in deep silence and mold it into form. Not everything can be written. However sharp, true, or beautiful the worded and the known may seem, they can never fully translate the vastness in which they arise.

Sometimes, it is as if the body itself needs to write. To listen deeply to what is heard in the inner spheres. There can be so much energy moving through that only by allowing it to express can rest return.

The name Mauna, meaning silence, came as a self-given name during sadhana. It remains a humble companion to the names Alexandra and Anna-Louise, which my parents gave me at birth.

I am not special.
I am that.

Some of these writings live here:

lovelunacy.substack.com

Selected Poems

Yoga as Practice and Presence

Yoga first entered my life in my early teenage years, but it wasn’t until I visited an Ayurvedic center in Kerala, India, in 2010  that I experienced a first true glimpse of deep inner peace and joy within the setting of physical asana.

Since then, my relationship with yoga has deepened. What began as a practice has become a state of being. For me, physical practice is not goal-oriented. It is a space to relax when tension arises, to remain within one’s own inner center as the body cycles through cause and effect. Even in stillness, Hatha Yoga can be lived — never stagnant, always fruitful.

Though inner yoga and devotion have long been at the heart of my path, I also teach physical asana — most regularly the 26x2 hot yoga series. This static, heated practice has become a supportive rhythm for my own constitution. I love its clarity, its repetition, and the silent, unwavering concentration it invites.

The moment we step onto the mat, we are invited to be here now. Though our experiences differ, the invitation is always the same: to be with what is. In my experience, all modern branches of yoga can support this return — when approached without heavy dogma or separating ideology. They can help restore balance, ease the body-mind, and bring us back to presence.

Alongside asana, I guide through yogic philosophy, meditation, and inner awareness. The teachings of Kashmir Shaivism, Advaita Vedanta, and the Siddha lineage continue to inform the spaces I hold, not as concepts but as living frequencies. What I share is rooted in direct experience of Shakti, of the Self, and of the silence that gives rise to all things.

This is not merely meditation. It is Maha Yoga, the path of inner awakening, and it is satsanga in its truest sense — an immersion in Sat, in the unchanging reality of Being. It is not a technique, but an atmosphere of presence, where attention gently turns inward and the Self may reveal itself — inwardly, or through action, or kriya.

I do not teach awakening. But when the space is true, when it is safe enough to listen, something real begins to move. And that movement is Grace.

Yoga may be practiced as a system, but to me, it is first and foremost a remembrance. What we seek has never been lost.

Nourishment, Nature, and the Subtle Body

In Ayurveda, everything arises from the five great elements: earth, water, fire, air, and ether. These mahabhūtas are the subtle forces behind all that moves and rests, from the smallest cellular structure to the vast rhythms of the natural world. They also live within us, shaping our constitution, perception, and experience.

But it is not the elements alone. It is their unique vibrational relationship that gives rise to the infinite forms of life. No two configurations are the same. When we begin to live with greater sensitivity toward our own nature and toward the world around us, something begins to shift. We do not just heal. We begin to purify, both energetically and morally. As consciousness expands, so does discernment. A natural refinement takes place, where what no longer serves simply falls away.

As the journey of inner awakening unfolds, the body becomes more sensitive. Awareness sharpens. The play of energies within and around us becomes more visible, more felt. What we eat, how we digest, what we carry, and what we release all participate in this unfolding. The field of nourishment becomes sacred. A part of sādhanā.

I am a trained chef and completed my culinary education in New York in 2011 at the Natural Gourmet Institute, a school with a focus on plant-based cuisine and the healing properties of food. Since then, I have continued to explore nourishment not only as an art but as a form of listening.

I am currently deepening this path through formal studies in Ayurvedic Health and Panchakarma from India. Still, the relationship between food, awareness, and energy has lived in me long before that.

I have spent years listening through cooking — not just to ingredients, but to the silence between them. The way certain tastes support clarity. The way certain preparations soothe the nervous system or awaken ojas. The way joy, reverence, and attention can turn even the simplest bowl into a temple offering.

To nourish well is not to follow rules. It is to listen. To live in such a way that the body, mind, and spirit remember they are not separate from nature or from the Self.

For more on how this lives through my offerings, you’re welcome to visit the Mindful Nourishment page.

What OIA Offers Now

OIA is one expression of this path.

A reflection of the same breath that once stirred in scripture.

A continuation of the current that first moved through silence.

Life is an unfolding homecoming.

In love,

Alexandra / Mauna