Greek Roots & the Meaning of Golden Sun

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My name is Kyriaki. In Greek, Kyriaki is the name of Sunday and comes from Kyrios, meaning “Lord.” Traditionally, Sunday is Kyriaki imera — the Lord’s Day. Over time, this connection between my name, the Divine and the symbolism of the sun became part of the inspiration behind Golden Sun Yoga.

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My connection to Greece is deeply woven into the way I understand symbolism, spirituality and self-knowledge, and I have always felt drawn to the spiritual and symbolic world of ancient Greece. In ancient Greek mythology, the sun was not merely an object in the sky. Helios was the divine personification of the sun, travelling across the heavens each day and bringing light to the world. Apollo, later strongly associated with light, clarity, harmony and illumination, represents another dimension of this symbolism.

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Light reveals what was previously hidden, and this is also how I understand the inner path. Awareness allows us to see more clearly our thoughts, patterns, fears, reactions and the deeper forces that shape our lives. The sun continues to shine even when clouds prevent us from seeing it. In the same way, beneath the thoughts, fears, identities and conditioning accumulated through life, something deeper remains: our awareness, our inner light, the deeper essence of who we are.

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Ancient Greek wisdom also placed great importance on self-knowledge. The famous Delphic principle gnōthi seauton — Know Thyself — expresses something that lies very close to my own understanding of yoga and spiritual practice. The journey is inward, not towards creating a new identity, but towards seeing more clearly what is already there.

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Athena has a particularly personal place in my spiritual path. I experience her as a guide and as a symbol of wisdom, discernment, courage and clear seeing. For me, Athena represents the ability to remain centered, to observe before reacting, to recognize what is true beneath fear or confusion, and to act with greater awareness and courage — to dare. Her presence reminds me that inner strength does not always need to be forceful. It can also be intelligent, steady and deeply conscious.

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The word Golden carries another layer of meaning. In ancient Greek tradition, the Golden Age was described as an age of greater harmony, abundance and closeness to the natural order. A remarkably similar idea appears in ancient Indian tradition. Hindu cosmology describes four great ages, or yugas. The first, known as Krita Yuga or Satya Yuga — the Age of Truth — represents a time in which dharma, the natural and moral order, is fully present. It is associated with truth, harmony, virtue and a greater alignment between human life and the deeper order of existence.

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These traditions developed separately, yet I find the parallel deeply meaningful. Both carry the image of a state in which life is more harmonious, conscious and aligned with a deeper order. I do not see the Golden Age only as something belonging to an ancient past, nor only as something humanity may one day reach collectively. For me, it can also be understood inwardly. A different way of living begins when there is greater awareness, wisdom, balance and connection within ourselves. Perhaps the Golden Age is not only something we wait for, but something we begin to cultivate within.

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This is the meaning behind Golden Sun Yoga. The sun represents light, consciousness and awakening. Gold represents transformation, wisdom and the possibility of a more conscious way of being.​​

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My Path with Yoga

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Yoga entered my life in 2010, and from the beginning I immersed myself deeply in the practice. I began studying with an Indian yoga teacher, Anil, practising hatha yoga and kundalini yoga alongside pranayama and meditation. During those first years, yoga became part of my daily life, and I dedicated a great deal of time to practising and learning alongside my teacher.

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Yoga was never simply physical for me. From the beginning, movement, breathing and meditation opened the door to a deeper inner exploration. The practice changed the way I experienced my body, my mind and myself, and became an important part of a process of healing, self-discovery and transformation that continues today.

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The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit root yuj, meaning “to join,” “to yoke” or “to unite.” This idea of union has always spoken deeply to me. Yoga is not only about bringing movement and breath together, but about moving towards greater integration — between body and mind, action and awareness, the outer and the inner. At its deepest level, yoga points towards the recognition that the separation we experience within ourselves and from life is not the whole truth.

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For me, this is one of the reasons yoga naturally connects with meditation, self-knowledge and spiritual practice. It is not only something we do with the body; it is a path towards wholeness and a deeper understanding of who we are.

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Alongside this inner path, my professional life looked very different. For more than a decade, I worked in Information Technology (IT), in a world built around structure, systems, analysis and problem-solving. In many ways, these two worlds developed side by side: one technical and outwardly structured, the other increasingly inward and experiential.

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Over the years, I studied and practised different approaches to yoga, including hatha, kundalini, Iyengar, Ashtanga, vinyasa, yin yoga and yoga nidra. I became a certified 200-hour hatha yoga teacher and continued my education in classical hatha yoga, prenatal yoga, pranayama and meditation. I have been teaching yoga since 2015 in both the Netherlands and Greece.

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Meditation and conscious breathing have remained central throughout my journey. My meditation experience includes kundalini meditation, mindfulness and Vipassana meditation in the S.N. Goenka tradition. Through these practices, I became increasingly interested in the breath not simply as a physiological process, but as a doorway into presence, concentration and awareness.

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My path later led me towards Qigong and Taoist practices. At Tao Garden in Thailand, I studied and practised with Grandmaster Mantak Chia and Senior Tao Teacher and Distance Energy Healer Han Serhan Keser, with whom I continue to study. Taoist practice introduced another perspective on movement, breathing, energy and the relationship between softness and strength. Rather than replacing yoga, these experiences gradually began to enrich the way I understand it.

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Where My Practice Is Today

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Today, my practice brings together the different paths that have shaped me. Yoga remains at its foundation, but my approach is also influenced by Buddhist meditation, Qigong, Taoist practices, Traditional Chinese Medicine, conscious breathing and many years of personal inner work.

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I do not experience these as completely separate worlds. Again and again, they return to similar questions: How do we inhabit the body more consciously? How do we breathe with awareness? How do we recognise tension without immediately fighting it? How do we remain present when something becomes uncomfortable? How do we become still enough to listen?

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My work today centres around two main areas: Movement & Yoga Asanas and Conscious Breathing & Meditation.

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Through movement, we mobilise and strengthen the body, encourage circulation, explore yoga asanas and reconnect with physical sensation. The practice can be soft and attentive or more dynamic and energising, while the breath remains an important guide throughout. Through conscious breathing and meditation, attention turns more deeply inward. We work with natural breath awareness, pranayama, gently guided breathing, humming and meditation.

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The breath becomes a meeting point between the physical and the subtle, between activity and stillness, and between the body and the mind. What interests me most is not performing a perfect posture or reaching a particular meditative state. It is awareness.

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The moment we begin to notice what is actually happening — in the body, in the breath, in the mind and in the way we respond to experience — something changes. We have a little more space to listen, to recognise what is happening and to choose how we respond.

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For me, this is where the physical and spiritual dimensions of practice meet. Yoga, meditation and conscious breathing become ways of knowing ourselves more deeply, not through theory alone, but through direct experience.

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And perhaps this brings us back to the same ancient invitation that has travelled through Greek philosophy for thousands of years:

Know Thyself.

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This is at the heart of Golden Sun Yoga.