A 4-Week Immersion in the Yoga of Sound · Rishikesh, Himalayas
Rohit Yoga Academy, in collaboration with Nada Yoga School. Learn to chant Sanskrit mantras with correct pronunciation, understand how sound moves through the subtle body, play the harmonium, tanpura and singing bowls with intention rather than performance, and lead kirtan, sound meditations and mantra sessions with confidence — and be certified to teach.
The yoga of sound.
Taught in its full depth.
Most People Come to This Training Because Something Has Gone Quiet
What is this sound actually doing — mechanically, to attention, to the nervous system, to the subtle body?
You may have been practising asana for years. You may already teach. You may chant Om at the start and end of class without ever having been taught what you are actually doing.
At some point a question surfaces. Not what does it mean symbolically — what is it doing? Why does a room of thirty people chanting the same syllable feel different from a room of thirty people sitting silently? Why does the tradition insist that sound is not decoration around the practice but a practice in its own right, with its own texts, its own map, and its own end point?
Nada Yoga is the answer to that question. It is not a small subject — it is one of the oldest complete methods in the yogic tradition, described in the Upanishads, mapped in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, and preserved in India through an unbroken chain of teachers who transmitted it the only way it can be transmitted: voice to voice. This training is where you learn it properly.
The Discipline
Why We Are Running This Training Together
Rohit Yoga Academy has always taught sound as part of a serious yoga education — mantra, chanting and the correct pronunciation of Sanskrit are woven through our teacher trainings rather than treated as a decorative add-on. But there is a difference between teaching sound well within a general curriculum and teaching Nada Yoga as a complete discipline. That requires musicians who are also yogis: teachers who can explain the four stages of sound and tune a tanpura, who can correct your Sanskrit vowel length and teach you which raga is traditionally used at dawn.
Nada Yoga School has been doing exactly this in Rishikesh since 2008, and has trained more than 6,800 students from over 40 countries in the yoga of sound. Their teaching faculty, led by NadYogi Bhuwan Chandra, carries this material as a living transmission rather than a syllabus assembled from books.
So rather than build a parallel programme, we co-host. The teachers are the same. The curriculum is the same. The pricing is the same. What Rohit Yoga Academy brings is the wider container: our students, our community, our continuity of practice before and after the month, and our commitment that no one arrives at this training under-prepared or leaves it without support.
If you have trained with us before, this is your specialisation. If you are new to us, you are joining a training that two schools stand behind rather than one.
The Curriculum
Theory and practice reinforce each other daily, rather than being studied in sequence.
1. Foundations
Nada Brahma, the doctrine that reality is fundamentally vibratory; ahata and anahata nada in detail; the four stages of sound; nada anusandhana from the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, chapter four; and how sound acts on the koshas and the subtle body.
2. Language
The Sanskrit alphabet organised by place of articulation, vowel length and aspiration, reading Devanagari and IAST transliteration, Vedic chanting and its rules of accent, and correcting the common errors of Western mantra pronunciation.
3. Mantra
What a mantra actually is and how it differs from an affirmation; sagun and nirgun, Vedic and laukika, tantric and bija mantras; rules of practice; building a mantra meditation sequence; and using mantra therapeutically for specific states.
4. Voice
Vocal warm-up, resonance and breath support from a yogic basis; an introduction to Indian raga and time-specific ragas; leading kirtan and bhajan — call and response, tempo, reading a room; and working through self-consciousness about your own voice.
5. Instruments
Hands-on and daily, with no prior musical experience assumed: tanpura and the drone, harmonium for accompanying and leading a group, singing bowls, and an introduction to sitar, tabla, gongs and other instruments.
6. Practicum
Principles of music therapy and vibrational work, designing a class or sound bath from beginning to end, holding a group, contraindications and honest scope of practice, and a supervised teaching practicum with feedback.
Supporting
India's science of life: the pancha mahabhutas and the three doshas, and how constitution shapes what a person needs and what sound will do for them, with practical guidance on diet and routine to support vocal clarity.
Daily
Every morning begins with physical practice and breath work before sound practice starts. A steady seat and a steady breath are prerequisites for subtle listening, and the training treats them that way.
A Day at the Training
Sundays are lighter, with excursions, satsang or rest, and the schedule flexes with the needs of each group. Four weeks of waking at the same hour, chanting before speaking, and ending each day in a group sound practice changes your baseline — most students notice it somewhere in the second week, when the mind arrives at practice already quiet, without being asked.
Your Teachers
All Rishikesh-based, all trained in the Indian tradition rather than in a weekend certification, supported by additional resident teachers and visiting guest faculty, including practising musicians from Rishikesh's music community.
Founder & Lead Teacher
Founder and director of Nada Yoga School, and lead teacher of this training. A Nada Yoga master and musician who has taught the yoga of sound in Rishikesh since 2008.
Asana & Pranayama
Leads asana, pranayama and yogic practice throughout the training.
Ayurveda
Teaches the Foundations of Ayurveda module, including the doshas and their relationship to voice and practice.
Full teacher biographies are available on request.
Rishikesh: Why the Location Matters Here More Than Usual
For a sound training, place is not scenery. Rishikesh sits where the Ganga leaves the Himalaya. The river is loud. Temple bells run through the day. Ganga Aarti at dusk fills the ghats with collective chanting, and ashrams on both banks have been sounding mantras continuously for generations.
You are learning in a valley that has been sounding continuously for a very long time, where the practice you are studying is simply what people do. The training is held in the Swargashram area on the banks of the Ganga — the oldest established ashram district in Rishikesh, walkable to Ram Jhula, and quiet in the way that only riverside Rishikesh manages to be.
Comfortable shared twin rooms with attached bathroom, hot and cold water, ceiling fans, and linen provided. Single occupancy can be arranged in advance for an additional charge, subject to availability. Three freshly prepared vegetarian meals daily plus herbal teas, cooked in-house with filtered water — dietary requirements are accommodated when you tell us in advance.
Please plan to arrive one day before the course begins to settle in.
Dates & Fees
Batch 1
Four weeks, Rishikesh, India.
Batch 2
Four weeks, Rishikesh, India.
Fee
Early bird, all inclusive. Reserve your seat with a USD 197 deposit — the balance is paid on arrival. Seats are limited by design; this material cannot be taught well to a large room.
FAQ
No — and this is the single most common worry we hear. The training does not require a "good voice" or any musical background. Chanting is a yogic practice, not a performance, and the vocal work is built for beginners. Students with no singing experience routinely finish the month able to hold a tone, lead a chant and use their voice with confidence.
No. Sanskrit is taught from the alphabet up, including how to read Devanagari and its Roman transliteration. What you need is willingness to be corrected on pronunciation, repeatedly and in front of others. That is how the transmission works.
No. The training is open to teachers, practitioners and complete beginners. Being an existing teacher will give you a faster route to applying the material professionally, but it is not a prerequisite for learning it.
No. All instruments are provided for use during the course. Many students buy a harmonium, tanpura or bowls in Rishikesh at the end — instrument prices here are among the best in India, and your teachers will help you choose well rather than expensively.
Most sound healing courses teach the modality: how to play bowls and gongs and structure a session. This training teaches the yogic discipline underneath it — the philosophy of nada, the four stages of sound, mantra science, Sanskrit pronunciation, raga, and the meditative goal the whole system points toward. Instruments and sound healing are part of the curriculum, but they are one component of a complete path, not the whole of it.
Moderate. Daily asana and pranayama, but the main demand is sitting — extended periods of seated chanting and meditation. If sitting on the floor is difficult, tell us in advance and we will arrange support. The training is accessible to a wide range of bodies and ages.
Yes. Nada Yoga is one of the few complete yogic disciplines that does not depend on physical capacity, which makes it particularly well suited to practitioners who want depth without physical intensity. We regularly train students in their sixties and seventies.
A 6:00 am start, sessions through the day, and an evening close. It is a full month with genuine structure — this is an immersion, not a retreat with classes attached. Most students find the rhythm becomes easy by the end of the first week.
Yes — you receive an internationally recognised Nada Yoga Teacher Training certificate, issued in collaboration with Nada Yoga School (Yoga Alliance RYS 200), qualifying you to teach Nada Yoga, mantra meditation and sound practices. If your aim is specifically RYT-200 registration, that requires a 200-hour foundational training; ask us and we will explain the pathway.
Tuition, accommodation, all meals, materials, instruments, excursions and activities are included. Flights, visas, insurance and personal purchases are not. There are no hidden charges added on arrival.
Modest, comfortable clothing suitable for sitting and practice, a shawl for early mornings and evening sessions, a notebook, and warm layers for November through February. Rishikesh mornings are genuinely cold in winter.
Yes. Rishikesh is a vegetarian, alcohol-free pilgrimage town and is well accustomed to international students, including large numbers of solo women travellers. We arrange airport pickup, and normal travel sense applies as it would anywhere.
Students must be 18 or over. There is no upper limit.
Yes. Many students continue into advanced sound healing training, a 200-hour or 300-hour yoga teacher training with Rohit Yoga Academy, or ongoing study in Indian classical music. Speak to us about sequencing — there is usually a better order than the obvious one.
Come and Learn to Listen
Not just mantras and ragas — traffic, silence, your own voice, the pause between two words. Students describe this more often than anything else: not that they learned about sound, but that their hearing changed, and stayed changed. You will leave Rishikesh with a certificate, a repertoire of mantras, the ability to lead a kirtan and structure a sound session, and a practice you can do anywhere, for the rest of your life, with nothing but your own voice.
We would rather talk to you than sell to you. Reach out and we will tell you honestly whether this is your next step.
