Yoga's "Swami-ji" Gives Blessing to First Virtual Holistic Health Alternative Medicine Center -- TheCenterForHealingArts.com

Pickering, Canada (PRWEB) Oct 7, 2007 -- The deep need for in-depth experiential holistic heath alternative medicine information by practitioners, the medical community and a population striving for optimal wellness prompted filmmaker and holistic health meditation practitioner Victor Demko (http://www.thecenterforhealingarts.com/letter.php) to the Himalayas' India/Tibet border area to seek the blessing for his idea of a virtual healing arts center www.thecenterforhealingarts.com, from a reclusive Swami living in the Himalayas at the source of the Ganges.

The vision for the Center is to bring great holistic health alternative medicine practitioners, on DVD, to people who are either pressed for time, live out side of a major center or just need a trusted person to carefully select the guests for them. Each DVD film is shot to present these great beings in an intimate experiential manner, more on the esoteric, meditative side of healing, so that the viewer feels like they are having personal time with the practitioner.

People can become members at the web site for $18 every other month and will receive a DVD made exclusively by the center with a holistic health alternative medicine (http://thecenterforhealingarts.com/) practitioner delivered to their home, which they can watch either alone or enjoy with friends. The first DVD offering is with Swami Sundaranand and is called "Personal time with Swami-ji." The second offering from the center is with the North American Head of The Sufi Healing Order, Devi Tide. Each DVD is fully chaptered for easy reference and sharing.

"When I heard Swami-ji Sundaranand's name I immediately knew he was the person I wanted to ask to be the first guest of the center's DVD series, noted Mr. Demko. "Just hearing his name seemed to evoke healing in my self when a close friend mentioned his name and said I should go see him. I wrote his name down on a napkin and where he was and that was it. I just knew this was the blessing I wanted to start the Center with. I had no idea at the time of his importance in the yoga lineage tradition and also of his other photography and mountaineering accomplishments."

Swami-ji is was a student of the famous and reclusive yoga master Swami Tapovanji Marharaj, (1889-1957) who wrote the classic yoga book Wanderings in the Himalayas about yogic life in the Himalayas in the late 19th and early 20th century and Yoga practitioners ancient and deep love and devotion for nature. Swami-ji lived with Swami Tapovan in the then inaccessible area of Gangotri at the source of the Ganges river, considered one of India's most sacred spots. It was in this area that the great original Yoga texts were written.

"We arrived in the Himalayas (Gangotri) without being able to contact him in advance to ask Swami-ji's permission if he would be willing to be the subject of a film on the healing arts. It took about 4 ½ days to get there from Toronto and lots of people said we had nerve to go all that way without knowing if he would agree to be the subject of a film, not having talked to him first before going" recalled Mr. Demko

Being delayed by and having to negotiate two large Himalayan landslides with the film and sound equipment in tow, notes Mr Demko, "I was more than a bit nervous approaching him. After explaining to him the needs of people in the west and the vision for the center, he gave his blessing to the idea and graciously agreed to be the Center's first film guest."

The end result of the experiential encounter on film is that it gives a very rare in-depth exposure to a real yogi, one who has mastered the physical aspects of the body and more importantly the "inner yoga (http://thecenterforhealingarts.com/view-sample-clips.php)" for which the film is about.

Mr. Demko, the founding director of the center is a holistic filmmaker who has extensive meditation training. He graduated from the American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film Studies where he studied with Ron Howard and Sir David Puttnam. He studied and practiced meditation with Sufi Master Pir Vilayat Khan for 12 years and with the Dali Lama. He also holds a degree in Economics from the University of Western Ontario and a 4 year degree from The Suluk Academy, where Pir Zia Inayat Khan was the chief instructor.

Please visit http://www.thecenterforhealingarts.com for free sample clips and guest bios.

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