Shreyas is a boutique retreat situated about 35 km from the center of Bangalore. In design, aesthetics, service and comfort levels, we have modeled Shreyas on some of the more exclusive & luxurious small hotels in South East Asia. We have just 14 rooms spread across 25 acres of coconut plantation, gardens and paddy fields. A maximum of 25 people are unobtrusively tended to by our carefully trained staff as they go about their daily agendas in complete privacy and quiet.

At the same time, Shreyas is a place where you can come in touch with the rich and vibrant Indian spiritual tradition that encourages us to search for meaning and purpose of our existence by looking into the depths of our souls. Numerous processes derived from the tradition of Yoga and a range of self discovery modules allows guests to truly recharge their body and mind energies and set about resetting their priorities and goals.

This is all provided in a private, serene and spiritual environment which is greatly enhanced by our guests refraining from consuming alcohol during their stay with us. So perhaps we are a bold alternative to the modern achiever; stressed out from pushing their body and mind to the limit in the unrelenting, yet seemingly fleeting, pursuit of peace and happiness.

At Shreyas, we are dedicated to enabling you to achieve this by catalyzing your thinking process with inputs from the Indian Spiritual tradition.

If you are looking to spend some time reflecting and connecting with your inner core, we provide a sacred space for you and structure your stay with dedicated yoga classes, rejuvenation and relaxing massages, light, but wholesome vegetarian food, guided meditation sessions, mouna (silence) and karma yoga (working with a selfless attitude) hours.

Yoga classes at Shreyas are based on classical Hatha yoga & combined with Pranayama (breathing related) and Pratyahara (internalisation) processes drawn from the Yoga Sutras – an ancient yogic doctrine that aims to integrate our body, mind, heart and souls for complete living. There is no dogmatic religion practiced at Shreyas and people of all faiths are welcome.

All programs & yoga classes are conducted by Inner Challenges, the life-coaching company dedicated to applying the wisdom of the Vedas and Indian spiritual tradition to enrich the professional and personal lives of our guests.

What are the nature-based activities that one can experience at Shreyas?

At Shreyas, guests have an opportunity to spend one hour daily in the herb, agricultural and rice paddy fields. You are guided by our resident team of farmers to learn more about the various items that are grown in house and activities include harvesting, planting, weeding, watering the various food and herbs that go into their food and rejuvenation oils.

Our guests have repeatedly told us this is the best part about a stay at Shreyas; an opportunity to use their hands and feet for a fruitful purpose, get closer to nature and learn from her. It is an immensely therapeutic experience in itself and numerous guests have told us how their stresses just disappeared as they were working in the fields.

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From a spiritual perspective, Yoga tells us that the laws governing external nature are identical to the laws governing our psychophysical personalities. Through the process of observation and mindfully participating in our carefully designed farming activities; you can learn a lot about yourselves.

After spending about an hour at the fields, guests spend time sharing their observations and experiences. Some example of learning points given by our guests are given below

Community based activity – Serving meals to village school children

At Shreyas, guests have an opportunity to experience the real India as we take them to the local villages and provide them an opportunity to serve the local school children and their families in organized feeding exercises. Guests are encouraged to perform the entire gamut of activity required to organize the feed. For example, sourcing the vegetables and herbs, cutting and cooking the food (assisted and supervised by our team of chefs), transporting the food in tractors, cleaning and preparing the area where the school children are fed, and finally feeding them. This exercise which is known as “Seva” or Service is an alchemy for transmuting negative emotions such as arrogance into humility, sympathy & indifference into empathy & compassion, and anger into love.

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Beneath the layers of our selfish ego personality is a genuine desire to give – for the sake of giving, and not for the sake of personal aggrandizement. This aspect of our personality will have to be harnessed and employed in our daily work and personal life.

Guests at Shreyas can see for themselves that serving others is possible without expecting anything from them – a behaviour that can slowly be imbibed in their normal lives. Imagine a world where you can give to others without feeling the need to receive anything from them.

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If you are looking to simply unwind and relax, you can browse, borrow and spend time reading one of the numerous books we have in our library.

If you like watching movies, you can step into your own private home theatre and watch one of over 500 movies available in our library.

If you like to swim, we invite you into our heated and ozonated pool for a few laps. If you prefer a less strenuous time, you can head straight for the outdoor Jacuzzi or the indoor steam rooms.

If your pleasure is to be massaged, then head straight for our rejuvenation center where expert masseurs will pamper you.

If you fancy a bit of cricket, please join us for a professional net training session. All necessary equipment is provided and you have the choice of batting against BOLA, our professional bowling machine or your friends.

If you are looking for a space to do your work in quiet, and yet remain connected with the world, bring your laptop along and we will connect you to broadband internet in your room or various access points across the Retreat.

If you like to walk, then you have over 2 km of tracks that meander through the lush green landscape.

If you want to connect with the environment, you can join us in our agricultural and medicinal herb gardens for spot of farming.

We also offer flexible programmes depending on your corporate requirements. If you’d like to use the retreat for your own conferences or workshops, we would be happy to provide the infrastructure required - conference rooms, LCD projectors, broadband internet and more.

Your programs can be appended with yoga classes, wellness and "stress management" modules, a somewhat different approach to the traditional “hard days” meetings followed by heavy drinking and partying.

If you are planning an outdoor / outbound training programme, why not work with us to structure learning activities that can be played out over the vast expanse of land available at Shreyas.

Whatever be your fancy, we are sure that you will be able to take back something useful from Shreyas. Whether it’s a deeper understanding of your colleagues, a resolution of the issue at hand, greater awareness of nature, clarity of thought, a new direction at work or simply a refreshing change from the familiar, you will definitely see the benefits of a retreat at Shreyas.

Shreyas is an environmentally friendly retreat and care has been taken to retain the original landscape and natural beauty of the place. Every effort has been made to preserve the precious natural resources with initiatives such as rain water harvesting, solar heating, and organic waste disposal. Throughout the project, we felt we had a greater responsibility as stewards of land to replenish and resurrect Nature, rather than just take from it to fulfill our dreams. The landscape architect is Akshay Kaul, based in Delhi

Pawan is the principal promoter and shareholder of Inner Challenges, the life coaching company that set up Shreyas. Pawan is a US investment banker who left a full time career to pursue his studies of the Indian scriptures under the guidance of his teacher, Shankar Narayan. Pawan practiced Yoga at the Jiva Mukti School of Ashtanga Yoga in New York. He is a qualified yoga teacher from the Vivekananda Yoga School in Bangalore teaches yoga and mentors select executives on professional and personal issues.

He remains involved within the world of finance through consultancy, managing funds for investment and teaching investment banking courses through his association with FT Knowledge, the educational arm of the Financial Times newspaper group. Pawan lives at Shreyas with his wife Leesha, and son, Anosh. Leesha studied design in London and is the interior designer of Shreyas.

Rucha is a qualified Therapeutic Yoga Instructor from the Vivekananda Kendra, India and has completed her Bachelors in Physical Education with a major in Yoga from LNIPE, Gwalior. She was a founder member, responsible for setting up the Yoga Center in Manipal Hospital, in Bangalore. She worked there as a therapist, teaching Asanas and meditation techniques. She has also been involved with treating patients in her private practice for the last 7 years.

Inner Challenges is a life coaching company that looks to bring the wisdom of Indian spiritual tradition into our day to day existence. We run numerous programs that look at contemporary topics such as excellence, leadership, emotional & spiritual intelligence, wealth & prosperity and nuances and psychology of investing. Our faculty members are a combination of active speakers, management guru’s, expert facilitators and some people like myself who have spent years in the corporate world and now studying and trying to implement the wisdom of the Indian scriptures.

In addition we run regular yoga retreats where individuals can learn from the physical, physiological and therapeutic benefits of a simple yoga practice. We offer stress management packages and occasionally run retreats for psychosomatic ailments like asthma, high blood pressure, back, neck and hand pain etc. We intend to shortly release the 2005 calendar of programs and this would be available on www.innerchallenges.com

Clients driving down on their own can follow this route.

What is the cancellation policy for reservations?

If cancellation occurs within 30 days prior to arrival, the deposit will be held in credit for a six-month period to permit guests to rebook. Failure to use the credit within six months will result in the forfeit of the deposit.