Lessons from Life on Skis: Joy, Discipline, and the Dance Between Light and Depth

Reflections from the path
By Hari Sakti

For ten years, I lived and breathed snow. I was a professional ski instructor – fully immersed, fully committed. I trained to the highest levels, poured my time and earnings into study and skill, and spent long seasons skiing across slopes in some of the most beautiful corners of the world. But beneath the external adventure of it, there was always something deeper moving through me.

Skiing was never separate from my inner path. It was a form of sadhana that held both joy and depth. It taught me about the self in reflection with the scriptures and sacred texts. And so what looked light from the outside was, for me, a practice of subtle alignment and depth.

The Slopes as Spiritual Ground

In the polar winters of Finnish Lapland, where the sun doesn’t rise for weeks at a time, I would step out each morning into a cold, snowy dream. Snow beneath my feet, sky above my head, trees bowing in silence all around. The pastel skies of the north hold stillness that I’ve rarely felt elsewhere in this life, it’s a kind of hush that invites the soul to listen.

Over the years, each run down the mountain taught me to meet gravity with trust and with surrender. To ski is to let go. To stop resisting the slope and instead flow with what’s already moving. In many ways, it mirrors the spiritual path: we don’t fight life – we learn to move with it, consciously and awake.

Breaking Limits, Not Bones

As a teacher, I was often the one witnessing breakthroughs. The moment someone, child or adult, did what they thought they couldn’t. The trembling before a steep slope. The gasp of delight when they finally turned with confidence. What I saw over and over again was kriyā-śakti in action – the soul’s inner power remembering itself.

Our limits are mostly illusions. Mental fences, built slowly and reinforced by fear. But one of the most sacred things a teacher can do is hold space for someone’s expansion. Not by pushing, but by standing beside them – present, calm, believing in their capacity until they begin to believe in it too.

The Teacher as Witness, Not Hero

These years on the slopes reshaped my understanding of teaching. True teaching is never about performance, showing off or even about the teacher. It’s about being a mirror, being present and quietly reminding someone of their own potential. Some days that meant guiding. Other days it meant stepping back, staying silent, and letting a student meet their moment of transformation on their own terms.

Teaching, I learned, can be a form of bhakti anywhere – offering without expectation, presence without pride.

And as nature would have it, no two days were ever the same. Every person, like every snowflake, carried their own rhythm. The slopes taught me patience, attunement, and deep listening. Lessons I now carry into every Soul Flow offering.

Nature as Guru

To spend ten winters in the arms of the elements is to receive a kind of initiation. Wind, snow, dark skies, sudden light, extreme cold – each day brought a new teaching. The earth, in her rawness, became a true teacher. A guide in the form of forests, silence, and sky.

In yogic philosophy, we honour the mahābhūtas – the great elements. Vāyu (air) taught me movement. Āpas (water) taught me flow. Agni (fire) burned in my muscles and will. Pṛthvī (earth) grounded every fall. And ākāśa (ether) – It held everything in stillness.

In the silence of the polar night, I heard what couldn’t be spoken in words.

Joy as a Spiritual Path

There’s a misconception that spirituality must look serious; withdrawn, austere, untouched by the world’s colour. But in truth, the most realised beings often carry lightness, a laughter that comes from deep within. I found that joy can be a timeless current – one that opens the heart, clears heaviness, and brings us back to the present.

Teaching skiing was, in many ways, a path of joy. The smiles of my students, the small triumphs, the shared moments on a slope – this was bhakti in disguise, love made visible, Ānanda on skis.

Discipline Without Rigidity

To ski over 170 days a year, in all weather conditions, demanded immense discipline. Waking up in -35°C, layering up, heading into a whiteout – these were not easy mornings. But they taught me the beauty of tapas – quiet effort, steady commitment, and showing up despite the circumstances.

Eventually, that discipline becomes something else, it becomes devotion. Not forced, but flowing naturally from within. Not as an obligation, but as a rhythm and expression.

Like a seasoned yogi who moves with grace after years of daily practice, skiing taught me that expertise is discipline made light. Behind the ease is structure. Behind the fluidity, thousands of repetitions. And yet, the outer expression softens – it becomes playful, natural, effortless.

Adaptive Skiing: Seva on the Slopes

One of the most meaningful chapters of those years was teaching adaptive skiing – guiding those with physical or mental disabilities into experiences they’d never imagined. The moment a child with limited mobility felt the wind on their face as they skied down a slope… those were special moments that I still carry close to my heart.

To walk beside someone as they reclaim possibility is an honour.

Holding Joy and Depth Together

Perhaps the most lasting lesson of that decade was this: you can carry lightness and still walk with depth. You can laugh with life and move inward simultaneously. You can move fast down a slope and still be in prayer.

Spirituality doesn’t require a costume or performance. It asks for sincerity. And sincerity is found in how fully you show up – in joy, in effort, in devotion.

The skiing years are part of my spiritual DNA. They shaped how I teach and how I hold space. How I listen. In Soul Flow, I bring the same softness and steadiness I learned from snow: to let people find their edge and meet it with grace.

Reflections from the Slopes

These teachings remain alive in me, and now they are infused in everything through Soul Flow:

Nature as Teacher — Let the five elements remind you of balance and simplicity.
Joy as Offering — Let laughter and wonder open the heart.
Discipline as Love — Let consistency soften into rhythm, not rigidity.
Witness, Don’t Control — Let others rise on their own, while you hold space with respect.
The Flow Cannot Be Rushed — Like snow melting into spring, life unfolds in its natural rhythm.

I never planned for Soul Flow to be born when it was. But it arrived in its own timing – after years of gathering, expanding, weaving threads, and slowly growing into itself. Just like on skis, I learned: you can’t force the descent. You wait for that quiet yes; when the mind is steady, the body aligned, the heart open, and the path ahead softly calls you forward.
And then, you simply flow.

From my heart to yours,
Hari Śakti