Matthew Clark, Yoga Philosophy Teacher

Dr Matthew Clark (MA, PhD) has been a Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) since 2004. Prior to that he taught Hinduism there between 1999 and 2003. Since 2002 he has been lecturing on yoga at yoga centres in the UK, Europe, Israel, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the USA. To date, he has presented lectures at yoga retreats, workshops and teacher-training courses for twenty-five different yoga teachers and organisations. He has been teaching Philosophy on the Shala School of Yoga 200-hour and 300-hour Yoga Teacher Training programmes since 2018.

Matthew has published articles and books on yoga, soma and sādhus (yogis). His PhD, on a sect of sādhus (saṃnyāsīs), was published in 2006. His recent book, entitled The Tawny One: Soma. Haoma and Ayahuasca, was published in July 2017. Matthew has been visiting India since 1977, visiting around 1,000 pilgrimage sites and trekking about 2,000 miles in the Himalayas. He first engaged with yoga in the mid-1970s, and since 1990 has been regularly practising a form of Ashtanga Yoga. Matthew also writes songs, plays guitar, and makes records as Mahabongo.