I was born in Rustavi, Georgia in October 1980 and given the name Giorgi, that very fast transformed to Gia. After living ordinary soviet child life, with huge ambitions in school and urge for patriotic independence, I smoothly moved to tough freedom with my parents, little brother (Vakho, currently also YIDL instructor) and the other happy Georgians. The life in the stimulating and interesting period of early 90s was even more interesting and diverse with coming teenage years. After graduating the “prestigious” secondary school, I entered the Tbilisi State Medical University, Department of General Medicine, which I graduated in 2004 after 6 years of studies. Later I worked in IT field for various companies. My next stop was Master’s degree in Medical Informatics from University of Amsterdam.
I started to practice yoga in 2010 according to Yoga in Daily Life system with Olga Ramer. The reason of starting yoga practice was the one, which as far as I know is the most frequent – health problems. This may sound banalbut nevertheless absolutely true – the condition I suffered from for 6 months, started to diminish after the very first day and totally disappeared in a week. Since that, for a couple of years I practiced yoga with mixed regularity, but always felt the strong effects of the practice on both, physical and mental levels. Initially I could not even think about teaching yoga. At the time I have decided to start teaching (initially only as an assistant of the instructor), I felt immense of responsibility, that sometimes felt as a heavy burden. And now I realize how strong and appropriate practice is this for myself.
I first met Swami Maheshwarananda on September 1st, 2012 and asked to take Gia as a disciple the same day. My plea was accepted in a week and that moment was the one that is usually called the life changing experience. Another such experience was MahaKumbhaMela (a spiritual gathering in India) with our guru and many guru-brothers and guru-sisters. Actually every day was an unforgettable, day-by-day increasing experience, finally exploded in a bathing ceremony in holy Ganga. There’s no sense in describing those feelings and experiences – human language is a limited instrument to grasp even one millionth of those blissful, intensive, mind-blowing and even psychedelic states.
I would not say that my life got better, happier or more joyful after my first encounter with the guru. Because to say this means to say nothing. But what I can say is that now I am much more aware about my life and about myself. It is now easier to communicate with people, my mind is mostly peaceful, my fears are gone, I am almost never anxious. And when I finally started to practice yoga daily (gradually increasing the time), I could strongly feel the flow of energy – now I can afford to work a lot, practice and teach yoga, get up early in the morning and almost never feel sleepy or tired. By the moment I started yoga practices I was already vegetarian, but since the practices the effects of the lacto-vegetarian diet got more intensive, I could literally feel the purity of the body and mind. And the last but not the least – the physical health drastically improved when I started practicing regularly. As it is said – health is not everything, but everything is nothing without health.
Currently I work at the Ministry of Healthcare and this particular job is the most important and cardinally different comparing to all the previous ones. This is the first governmental organization I’ve ever worked for and for the person who only had experience in business or academic fields, many things seem weird, strange and unusual even now. But with the attitude and mindset developed with yoga practices, my job is very interesting and ok, also challenging, really really challenging sometimes. But hey, without challenges there is no development, without development there is no self-enquiry and without self-enquiry there is no self-realization.