AFTER half a century as WA’s oldest ashram, the Beacon Yoga Centre is hoping the anniversary can help shine a new light on its role as a place of healing, refuge and community.

The Beaconsfield ashram will celebrate its milestone with five days of free meditation, yoga, study, music, silence and community gatherings this coming week, in the hope more people discover what has quietly existed on South Street since 1976.

For board president Kellie Brett, that means breaking down perceptions the ashram is only for long-term residents or experienced practitioners, or that they’re a little ‘culty’.

“We offer these short-term residential stays, and to see and live for even a few days or a week is such a gift,” she says.

“It’s a retreat or a refuge inside a busy life without having to go overseas or further away. It’s all here for you.”

Those shorter visits sit alongside longer residential programs, regular yoga classes and public events that the centre hopes will introduce newcomers to a broader understanding of yoga than simply physical exercise.

The anniversary also marks 50 years since the former government-owned building on the corner of South and Field streets became home to what would become one of Australia’s longest-running yoga communities.

But the story stretches back even further.

According to the centre’s history, the seeds were planted in 1961 when Swami Venkatesananda arrived in Perth at the invitation of the University of Western Australia to deliver lectures titled Yoga: An Ancient and a Living Faith. 

Among those inspired were Nancy and John Horwood and Lionel Drummond, who later established a small yoga community in North Fremantle before eventually purchasing the Beaconsfield property in 1976.

The building itself had already lived several lives.

Originally part of the Mulberry Tree Farm estate, it later became the Grosvenor private hospital before being used as government accommodation. 

By the time the Integral Yoga Association successfully tendered for the site, the house and gardens had fallen into serious disrepair.

Patron Shobha Day remembers the enthusiasm that transformed it.

“Our ashram, it was certainly the first ashram in Western Australia, and it’s the only one that actually bought a premises which was not easy,” she said.

“It was a terrific struggle, as you can imagine. But there was so much enthusiasm, and we’re talking now the mid-’70s.”

Many of those early residents literally rebuilt the property with volunteer labour while teaching yoga for no wages.

“A little bit of hardship, plus passion, created this ashram, because there was buying the property, and my understanding is all the teachers in the yoga hall lived here at the time and everyone taught for no wages,” Ms Brett said.

“So it was very much a volunteering and a community action that caused this to grow, for the seeds to sprout and for us to sit here.”

Some even established a printing press on site to produce books and newsletters.

“So the story goes, I think it was Swami Parvathi, who now still comes back and forth to the ashram though is part of an ashram in South Africa, but apparently Swami Lakshmi said to her, ‘You will go and study, go to night school and study to set up the printing press’. 

“They would print newspapers, books, all of this and that was all happening down in the back.”

The volunteer spirit has never entirely disappeared.

“We are a charity and a not for profit, so that’s our status,” Ms Brett said.

“So we do sit in terms of our pricing, well underneath the high street yoga schools.”

Membership costs $99 a year, with members able to participate in many activities at no additional cost.

But Ms Day said membership was never simply about receiving benefits.

“The main thing is that with our membership, we’re attempting to make each one of us take more responsibility, because this place, you can imagine maintaining it, or keeping going, requires people who want to give of themselves too.”

“And if you get, you give. There’s no doubt. That’s that’s the way it is.”

Rather than obligation, she describes it as an invitation.

“It’s not an expectation, but it is an invitation. People who take up membership, we hope will become more and more interested in this place.”

“So you go above and beyond.”

That philosophy extends to residents, who contribute through what the ashram calls karma yoga.

“We have a residential program,” Ms Brett said.

“So a minimum stay for a resident on application would be two months. Some do go on to stay as long as three or nine months, and it’s an ongoing relationship that that resident would build with our house manager and with the group as to the ongoing nature of that.”

Residents participate in meditation, yoga, lectures and community life while contributing around 10 hours each week through cooking, cleaning, gardening or maintenance.

“The way we use karma yoga is that it is service for others and for each other; it’s essentially work.”

For many people, she said, that broader understanding of yoga comes as a surprise.

“The stretches are the preparation for the practices, and yet the stretches have been the thing that has been elevated by the likes of Lululemon.

“There are other ways to bring people to these other practices, and it’s much more than physical stretches.”

Ms Day said that broader understanding had always been central to the Beacon Yoga Centre.

“Always here, there was a balance of the different ways of approaching yoga, depending on your temperament,” she said.

“So we teach Hatha Yoga, which is what everybody thinks yoga is, and it’s the most marvellous and deep and full pathway.”

“But we also teach karma yoga, which is fantastic.”

“It’s not just what you’re doing; it’s the way you’re doing it, and it’s about yoga in action.”

She said the centre also teaches meditation, inquiry and devotion.

“We have on Sunday nights kirtans here and that’s on at 6.30pm every Sunday night, and it’s amazingly diverse age groups, and people that come from all walks of life to chant and sing together, really to bring about a sense of integration within yourself, or peace, or atonement, whatever you like to call it.”

“Mainly, you just feel better, that’s what we say.”

One of the centre’s defining characteristics, both women believe, has been its willingness to welcome people regardless of their beliefs or background.

“One of the beautiful things that I’ve learned is the inclusiveness of Shivananda,” Ms Brett said.

Swami Shivananda was an Indian yoga master, who became founder Swami Venkatesananda’s teacher and inspiration.

“You don’t have to think this way or this way or from this tradition,” Ms Brett says of the Swami’s teachings.

“If you’ve had your roots and study in the Buddhist traditions or in Christianity or in some of the Hindu or the Vedic, if you’ve dabbled even a small bit or if you’re incredibly studied across the law, there is this inclusivity and this welcoming to one and all.”

by STEVE GRANT