About...
Shifting times...
Inner Bright Yoga School came into being as a result of various global & life shifts; as the world fell into 'Covid times' Nischala (Cassandra) was forced to make the difficult decision to close her once flourishing yoga center, Gilbert Yoga.
In this time of letting go & clearing, & as the energetic space opened, Nischala felt the call to share her heart with a broader audience . . . & Here We Are! She now offers yoga retreats and teacher trainings around the world, at beautiful indoor/outdoor retreat destination centers. Through her experience of leading 26 Yoga Alliance approved teacher trainings over the course of twelve years, she has mentored hundreds of student teachers on their journey of deepening their practice & in taking their seat as the teacher, & now enjoys this offering at an international level. You can find her co-facilitating yoga retreats in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Sedona, and wherever you'd like to have one!
Cassandra's yoga journey began in 1998, shortly after the birth of her second child. As she searched the Yellow Pages (yes, those huge paper phone books!) for a yoga studio near her home in Long Beach California, she was blessed to find an instructor who studied in the Ashtanga Mysore tradition in India twice each year with his teacher Sri K Pattabhi Jois, a student of Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, known as the father of modern yoga. (More about Cassandra's yoga education below.)
That first class...her little ones she could hear crying from the childcare center...the completely new-to-her yoga that was kicking her physical butt! & still . . . she felt she had found her way 'home'. . . & the tears of gratitude flowed. It wasn't until many years later when she realized that the 'home' she felt she was returning to was her own heart, her own center of Being. Soon, life led Cassandra to Arizona, where she enrolled in her first 200 hour yoga teacher training program in late 1999. By the year 2001 she was teaching in a handful of local gyms, & with students asking her for more classes, she started renting spaces at dance studios to fill the need. By 2003 she had a 'following' of enough students & classes to open Gilbert Yoga.
Gilbert Yoga, over the course of 17 years, with great care & tending by Cassandra along with a loving & heart-oriented family of additional instructors, served well over 15,000 people in the community; offering yoga classes, yoga retreats, workshops, yoga trainings, & kirtans with Girish, Larissa Stow, David Newman, & so many more! Known as the studio with 'heart', & with Cassandra's 'Ma' energy as its pulsing heartbeat, Gilbert Yoga became a sacred vortex - a space where one would feel at Home upon walking through the door. Cassandra recalls many a new student walking in to inquire about yoga, & soon, as a tear came to their eye, they would say, 'I don't know why I'm crying!' . . . but Cassandra knew . . . when one senses that it is safe to let down their guard & to allow themselves to feel, when one's heart is in the midst of a reflective loving heart . . . often a tear will appear.
We invite you to join us for a time of diving deep into yoga & Self together.
We welcome you . . . Home.
Inner Bright Yoga School came into being as a result of various global & life shifts; as the world fell into 'Covid times' Nischala (Cassandra) was forced to make the difficult decision to close her once flourishing yoga center, Gilbert Yoga.
In this time of letting go & clearing, & as the energetic space opened, Nischala felt the call to share her heart with a broader audience . . . & Here We Are! She now offers yoga retreats and teacher trainings around the world, at beautiful indoor/outdoor retreat destination centers. Through her experience of leading 26 Yoga Alliance approved teacher trainings over the course of twelve years, she has mentored hundreds of student teachers on their journey of deepening their practice & in taking their seat as the teacher, & now enjoys this offering at an international level. You can find her co-facilitating yoga retreats in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Sedona, and wherever you'd like to have one!
Cassandra's yoga journey began in 1998, shortly after the birth of her second child. As she searched the Yellow Pages (yes, those huge paper phone books!) for a yoga studio near her home in Long Beach California, she was blessed to find an instructor who studied in the Ashtanga Mysore tradition in India twice each year with his teacher Sri K Pattabhi Jois, a student of Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, known as the father of modern yoga. (More about Cassandra's yoga education below.)
That first class...her little ones she could hear crying from the childcare center...the completely new-to-her yoga that was kicking her physical butt! & still . . . she felt she had found her way 'home'. . . & the tears of gratitude flowed. It wasn't until many years later when she realized that the 'home' she felt she was returning to was her own heart, her own center of Being. Soon, life led Cassandra to Arizona, where she enrolled in her first 200 hour yoga teacher training program in late 1999. By the year 2001 she was teaching in a handful of local gyms, & with students asking her for more classes, she started renting spaces at dance studios to fill the need. By 2003 she had a 'following' of enough students & classes to open Gilbert Yoga.
Gilbert Yoga, over the course of 17 years, with great care & tending by Cassandra along with a loving & heart-oriented family of additional instructors, served well over 15,000 people in the community; offering yoga classes, yoga retreats, workshops, yoga trainings, & kirtans with Girish, Larissa Stow, David Newman, & so many more! Known as the studio with 'heart', & with Cassandra's 'Ma' energy as its pulsing heartbeat, Gilbert Yoga became a sacred vortex - a space where one would feel at Home upon walking through the door. Cassandra recalls many a new student walking in to inquire about yoga, & soon, as a tear came to their eye, they would say, 'I don't know why I'm crying!' . . . but Cassandra knew . . . when one senses that it is safe to let down their guard & to allow themselves to feel, when one's heart is in the midst of a reflective loving heart . . . often a tear will appear.
We invite you to join us for a time of diving deep into yoga & Self together.
We welcome you . . . Home.
Meet Your Instructor
Nischala (Cassandra Bright) E-RYT500, YACEP, Vocalist with The Band of Now - Kirtan, Thai Yoga Facilitator, Space-holder
Well, you've already read a taste of her journey above . . . but here's just a bit more in her own words:
"Hmm, my 'story' -- when feeling into Presence, it's difficult to speak of the past, when I was in places of conflict, mental chatter or confusion. Even if that 'past' was only a week ago or an hour ago! Presence is like that. When awareness rests in the heart of presence, what is there to say . . .
...Yes, I vacillate - I still get 'caught' in the Maya, the minds net of ideas, of right & wrong, should & shouldn't, etc., etc., but when I remember to feel into my direct experience. . . ahhh . . . Here I AM again . . . Home in my center. This is my practice, my sadhana . . . to remember, & remember again, & remember again & again.
Life is beautiful, horrible, raw, delightful, contracting & expanding, filled with awe & wonder, surprise & grief, ebb & flow . . . & Here we are ... asked to continue to 'show up'. If we're willing to see, to reveal what's been holding us small & if we are willing to let that shit go . . . OH!! How bright our inner LIGHT will SHINE! All of the waves of vacillation are of the mind - at the Ground of our Being, there is silence, stillness, a vast spacious sparkling emptiness that within it holds unlimited potentiality. From this spark, our life unfolds.
In one of the pivotal silent retreats I attended with Adyashanti, he posed this question to us: 'How does life want to express itself through me right now?' I often return to pondering this - as it supports me dropping in to the present moment and to what is 'arising' to be authentically expressed right now.
Yoga is like this. It's a continuous happening, already, always. We are already Source, one with all, whole and complete. Yoga invokes the remembering of our essential nature. There's really nothing we need to do . . . just drop in . . . to the ease, the wholeness, the inner bright Self."
Her yoga education:
Nischala (Cassandra Bright) E-RYT500, YACEP, Vocalist with The Band of Now - Kirtan, Thai Yoga Facilitator, Space-holder
Well, you've already read a taste of her journey above . . . but here's just a bit more in her own words:
"Hmm, my 'story' -- when feeling into Presence, it's difficult to speak of the past, when I was in places of conflict, mental chatter or confusion. Even if that 'past' was only a week ago or an hour ago! Presence is like that. When awareness rests in the heart of presence, what is there to say . . .
...Yes, I vacillate - I still get 'caught' in the Maya, the minds net of ideas, of right & wrong, should & shouldn't, etc., etc., but when I remember to feel into my direct experience. . . ahhh . . . Here I AM again . . . Home in my center. This is my practice, my sadhana . . . to remember, & remember again, & remember again & again.
Life is beautiful, horrible, raw, delightful, contracting & expanding, filled with awe & wonder, surprise & grief, ebb & flow . . . & Here we are ... asked to continue to 'show up'. If we're willing to see, to reveal what's been holding us small & if we are willing to let that shit go . . . OH!! How bright our inner LIGHT will SHINE! All of the waves of vacillation are of the mind - at the Ground of our Being, there is silence, stillness, a vast spacious sparkling emptiness that within it holds unlimited potentiality. From this spark, our life unfolds.
In one of the pivotal silent retreats I attended with Adyashanti, he posed this question to us: 'How does life want to express itself through me right now?' I often return to pondering this - as it supports me dropping in to the present moment and to what is 'arising' to be authentically expressed right now.
Yoga is like this. It's a continuous happening, already, always. We are already Source, one with all, whole and complete. Yoga invokes the remembering of our essential nature. There's really nothing we need to do . . . just drop in . . . to the ease, the wholeness, the inner bright Self."
Her yoga education:
- 1998-1999 365 days of Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga classes with a teacher we'll call François (the one who studied twice/year in India with Pattabhi Jois)
- 1999-2000 Completed a '200-hr Hatha Yoga' BKS Iyengar based teacher training in Scottsdale Arizona
- 2006-2007 Ordained as a Yogacharya & Ananda Spiritual Healer upon completion of a vinyasa krama style 'Nithya Yoga 200-hr YTT' program in Bangalore India, led by Rahi Santhanam, student of T Krishnamacharya & TKV Desikachar in the ashram of Swami Nithyananda
- 2000-2019 Attended countless yoga, pranayama, meditation workshops, intensives, festivals, temple events & classes, along with seven 7-day silent meditation retreats with Adyashanti
- 2016-2017 Completed a 300 hr Yoga-Ayurveda teacher training with Mas Vidal, Dancing Shiva Yoga
- 2021-2022 Attended a second 300 hr yoga teacher training in the Tantra / Laya Yoga tradition
- 2022 Completed a 6 week Thai Yoga Massage Training in Chiang Mai Thailand