Category: The Practice

Ask anyone who has spent five days practicing yoga seriously: by the third day, you can feel exactly what your last meal is doing to you. Food is not separate from practice. It is the fuel the practice runs on.

What sattvic means

In the yogic understanding, sattvic food is food that leaves the system light, clear and steady — fresh vegetables and fruits, salads, juices, whole grains, food cooked simply and eaten with attention. It is not a diet in the modern sense. It is an alignment.

Sattvic, the Goan way

At Shakthi Retreat the food is sattvic and traditional Goan — abundant salads, fresh juices and fruit, and local preparations made for the practice, not despite it. Goa’s land gives generously: coconut, kokum, banana, jackfruit, red rice. Eating what the land grows, where it grows, is itself a practice.

Sessions on food and the elements

Woven through the retreat are sessions on food, the earth elements, and the relationship between what we eat, where we are, and how we practice — so that what you learn at the table goes home with you, like the practice itself.

See what five days at Serendip hold →

Surya Kriya is a complete yogic practice of twenty-one steps, aligned with the sun — the source the body’s own energies answer to. It is among the oldest structured practices in the Hatha Yoga tradition, and it is the spine of everything we do at Shakthi Retreat.

Not a workout, not a routine

Surya Kriya works on breath, body and attention together. Traditionally done at sunrise, it activates and balances the system rather than exhausting it. One participant at our sessions put it simply: it was the first time some of his joints had ever moved. He left energised.

Over time the practice does something quieter. Beyond health, it keeps you on track — it does not let you derail, or let stress accumulate. That is when you understand it is not exercise. It is maintenance of the whole system.

Surya Kriya and Surya Shakti

Surya Shakti is the dynamic sister practice — a physically intensive way of engaging the sun’s energy that builds strength, stamina and steadiness in the body. Where Surya Kriya refines the inner energies, Surya Shakti builds the vessel. Many practitioners eventually learn both.

Learning it properly matters

These practices are taught in person, step by step, by Astha and Kaulina — Isha Hatha Yoga teachers. A few hours, a small group, full attention on precision, so the practice stays with you for life.

Surya Kriya is taught only within the five-day Shakthi Retreat at Serendip, Ponda. Surya Shakti is taught at our regular workshops in Goa. Read about the retreat → · See workshop dates →