Build Your Happy Place: A Workshop on Creating Personal Altars

At some point or another, meditators and spiritual seekers become interested in building an altar as a center of gravity for their spiritual practice. While the setup of an altar is often a matter of personal preference, there are more traditional setups that we see evidenced in different contemplative traditions.

In this practical workshop, we'll explore both traditional and contemporary approaches to altar-making, drawing wisdom from Hindu, Buddhist, and other Yogic contemplative traditions while embracing the possibilities of personal creativity. You'll discover the meaning and history behind altar arrangements in the Smarta Hindu tradition and learn how Buddhist practitioners organize their sacred spaces for meditation and contemplation. Finally, you’ll learn a simplified practice of prāṇa-pratiṣṭhā, appropriate for householders, that will imbue your sacred images (or mūrtis) with prāṇa, or the divine life force.

Whether you're looking to deepen your existing practice or create your first altar, this workshop offers practical guidance while honoring both traditional wisdom and personal intuition. We'll discuss everything from classical iconography to selecting sacred objects, helping you craft a space that resonates with your lineage and your uniqueness.

Jacob Kyle is a meditation teacher, writer, philosophy educator, and the Founding Director of Embodied Philosophy. His guiding mission is to re-imagine the modern function of the yoga teacher in alignment with the teachings, texts, and traditions of yoga's profound history. He believes that by building a network of teachers who share a commitment to disseminating the deeper teachings and practices of yoga, we can build a world based on wisdom rather than ideology and divisiveness.

Jacob is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, researching Abhinavagupta's Philosophy of Language and Meditation with advisor Diwakar Acharya. He holds an MPhil in Classical Indian Religions from Oxford (2023), an MA in Philosophy from the New School for Social Research (2017), and an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics (2007). Jacob is a passionate advocate of Kashmir Śaivism and a devoted practitioner of the Śaiva-Śākta Darśana.