About Naveen Kolli

I come from a very humble background. My family are farmers. My father is a karma yogi in the truest sense - not because anyone taught him that word, but because he has lived it every single day of his life.

One summer, when the fields were bare, my sister asked why he still walked out to the farm in the fierce heat and rested under a neem tree. He answered: The farm gives food to survive for all 365 days of the year. How can I leave it alone when there is no crop? I would always like to spend time here, even when there is no crop.

That answer shaped everything that followed.

My first salary was Rs.200 a month working at an STD booth. After that, Rs.600 as a receptionist. I mention this not for sympathy but because it is the honest truth of where I started. There was no safety net, no family connections in any industry, no shortcuts. There was only the same quality my father showed in his fields: show up, do the work, and trust that consistent effort compounds over time.

In 2000 I became a Mathematics teacher at St. Thomas High School. Teaching was never just a profession to me. Watching a student grasp something they could not grasp before - that feeling became a thread running through everything that followed, whether the subject was mathematics, yoga, breathwork or digital strategy.

In 2004 I moved into the BPO industry, working with Webhelp and Transworks, an Aditya Birla IT company, delivering requirements for Microsoft. In 2007 I joined Satyam Computers, later Tech Mahindra, where I spent over twelve years delivering requirements for some of the most demanding clients in the world - Barclays, GSK, Mastercard, Cisco, GE Power and British Petroleum. The boy who started at Rs.200 a month was now working on projects that moved across continents.

In 2009, while still working in IT, I experienced Sudarshan Kriya for the first time under Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar ji. Something shifted within three days at a level I had not known was possible. The heaviness of years of high-pressure corporate life began to release, breath by breath. I began volunteering with the Art of Living Foundation, supporting programmes and sharing what I had received.

In 2012, I began teaching yoga - voluntarily, in corporate rooms and offices, while still working full time in IT. The mat became my second classroom. I completed my E-RYT 500 certification - the highest Yoga Alliance recognition - and earned the YACEP continuing education provider credential.

In 2019 I made the decision that had been building for years. I left the corporate IT world and committed fully to healing, teaching and wellness. That same year I became a certified Art of Living teacher with the blessings of Gurudev, and founded Navyoga Wellness in Hyderabad.

In 2020 I completed certifications in both Sound Healing - Tibetan bowls, crystal bowls and gongs - and Rakkenho, a Japanese energy healing system that works at the level ordinary movement cannot reach. Both have become central to the Navyoga Wellness offering.

Throughout all of this, the digital work continued. I have been building websites, developing software and crafting digital strategies for over twelve years - bringing the same discipline I brought to Fortune 500 client delivery to businesses and wellness practitioners who deserve a world-class digital presence.

From Rs.200 a month at an STD booth to delivering requirements for Barclays and Mastercard. From a corporate desk to the yoga mat. From student to teacher of Sudarshan Kriya under the blessings of Gurudev. Every step was necessary. Every step still informs the work I do today.