Thursday Satsang In Person and via Zoom
June 18, 2026
“Tapas : Enjoyment through Concentration” with Dr. Stephen Parker (Stoma)
7:00-8:30 p.m. CT
New start time, 6:00-7:00 p.m.: In-Person Gentle Yoga with Michael Snodgrass
7:00-7:30 p.m.: Guided Meditation with Dr. Stephen Parker (Stoma)
7:30-8:30 p.m.: “Tapas : Enjoyment through Concentration”
with Dr. Stephen Parker (Stoma)
8:35 p.m.: Evening Chants
8:40 p.m. Tea
Join Dr. Stephen Parker for a talk on “tapas,” one of the “niyamas” or five observances explained in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Stoma will be introducing the 40-day spiritual festival of 2026 which begins Friday, June 19th and ends on Guru Purnima, July 29th,
Stephen Parker (Stoma) was initiated in the Himalayan Yoga tradition by Swami Veda Bharati and was given the initiate name Stoma in 1971. Among the first teachers certified by the Himalayan International Teachers’ Association, H.I.T.A., he began teaching hatha-yoga in 1974. Stoma is a Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher at the 500-hour level of the Yoga Alliance (E-RYT 500). A member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, he serves on the faculties of the Meditation Center in Minneapolis and the Sadhanamandir and Sadhaka Gram ashrams in Rishikesh, India.
He is also a senior faculty member of the Himalayan Yoga Tradition Teachers’ Training Program. He has lectured on yoga, meditation, and spiritual practice in the U.S. and Canada as well as in Caribbean countries, Holland, Italy, Austria, Hungary, South Africa, Korea, Hong Kong, and India. In 2004 he helped originate and teach the first course on yoga in an American medical school at the University of Minnesota Academic Medical Center. In 2007 he received took preliminary vows of renunciation from Swami Veda and the Shankaracharya of Karvirapitha.
Stoma has been a licensed psychologist in private practice in St. Paul, MN since 1985. He also served as Adjunct Assistant School Professor of Counseling and Psychological Services at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, MN. He has taught on the faculty of the Introductory Workshops of the Minnesota Society of Clinical Hypnosis. In addition to authoring journal articles and book chapters, Dr. Parker edited volume two of Swami Veda’s definitive scholarly work on the “Yoga-sutras of Patanjali” and he has been a peer review editor for the “Journal of Men’s Studies,” the “American Journal of Orthopsychiatry,” and the “International Journal of Yoga Therapy.”
To support the work of The Meditation Center and register you can donate here or make a general donation by clicking on the “donate” button on the “Support TMC” website page..
There is parking available for TMC visitors in the St. Boniface lot across the street from the Center.
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