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Stephen Parker 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 Carribean 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.