Shyam1's Channel

About the Author
Shyam has been practising yoga since 1957 and been teaching yoga since 1973. He has a
Czech mother and Indian father but was brought and has lived almost all his life in England,
with a Christian upbringing.
At Jesus College (Cambridge University) he studied mathematics. Bored with this, he became
interested in yoga philosophy and Hinduism.
He has had a variety of religious experiences in his life and worships God almost every
moment of his waking hours.
He has a good background (47 years) in yoga asanas, some knowledge of Kundalini yoga
and Tantric yoga, and of Pranayama, Pratyahara and Dhyana.
Yoga Experiences
Shyam's mother fractured her spine and was told that she would always be in a wheelchair.
Fortunately, in 1956, she met BKS Iyengar who helped her to partially recover.
From 1957 until 1996, nearly 40 years, Shyam studied yoga under BKS Iyengar, going to
India once per year for in-depth training in Hatha yoga postures and learning these also in his
classes in London. In 1978, he received his advanced teaching certificate. He was a faithful
student and worshiped BKS Iyengar with the honour due to a father.
From 1973 until 2001, Shyam taught Hatha yoga classes, following in his mother's footsteps
of sincerely communicating the message of love behind Hatha yoga practice.
In 2001 he founded The Loving Heart Centre, his organization for promoting love and
happiness in the world. He has since written hundreds of articles of benefits to mankind,
ranging over all the topics needed by men and women for their personal development and
happiness. All these articles are intuited directly from God, but are also based on his life
experiences.
Although he taught mainly without payment and did much charitable work to promote yoga,
Shyam was always dissatisfied with his progress and wanted to help humanity more. The
biggest change happened in 2002, following special prayers to Shri Ganesh (the Hindu God
in charge of the development of the world).
Although brought up a Christian, Shyam had developed a strong liking for Indian philosophy
and religion, besides yoga philosophy, during his college years from 1972 to 1975. He
subsequently became a Hindu, reading the Scriptures, and learning about the philosophy of
Bhakti (loving remembrance of God) as developed by Bhagwan Shri Ramanuja, founder of
Visishtadvaita.
Following his prayers to Ganesh, he gave up his sacred thread (representing a double
commitment -- to God and to one's wife) and committed to God to try his hardest to make the
world a happier place, specifically by helping all nice people to become happy. He ceased to
focus on Hatha yoga teaching. Shortly afterwards he met Amma (Sri Mata Amritanandamayi
Devi) and received mystic training from her. In 2002, he performed Ishvara Pranidhana
(surrender to God), and from that time, exclusively follows God's will without any variation.
Shyam focuses fully on helping mankind rather than his personal development. He follows the
five ethical principles (yama), and also the five religious observances (niyama), of yogic
discipline. Until 2004 he followed the path of karma yoga. He spent one year engaging in
jnana yoga and now has commenced his path of bhakti.
Mehta, The Loving Heart Centre, www.lovingheartcentre.net
8
Publications
Yoga: The Iyengar Way. Co-authored with his mother and sister and published by Dorling
Kindersley in 1990.
Shyam has written the following non finance related books:
• A Man's Guide to Developing Love and Happiness, ISBN: 1-4121-5210-0
• FutureWorld
• God
• Human Being Self Analysis Kit, ISBN: 1-4121-5380-8
• Indian Marriage, ISBN: 1-4121-5321-2
• Indian Philosophy and Religion, ISBN: 1-4121-5211-9
• Natural Medicine
• People with no Clothes, ISBN: 1-4121-5365-4
• Perfecting Your Emotional Energy Sphere, ISBN: 1-4121-5164-3
• Perfecting Your Love Energy Sphere, ISBN: 1-4121-5169-4
• Perfecting Your Mental Energy Sphere, ISBN: 1-4121-5165-1
• Perfecting Your Physical Energy Sphere, ISBN: 1-4121-5167-8
• Perfecting Your Sexual Energy Sphere, ISBN: 1-4121-5163-5
• Science, ISBN: 1-4121-5235-6
• Spiritual and Religious Journey, ISBN: 1-4121-5206-2
• The 108 Heads of Lord Patanjali, ISBN: 1-4121-5160-0
• The Eight Sacred Texts of India, ISBN: 1-4121-5162-7
• The History of the World, ISBN: 1-4121-5166-X
• The Psychology of the Mind
• Western Philosophy, ISBN: 1-4121-5207-0
• What Men Should Know about Christian Women, ISBN: 1-4121-5450-2
• Yoga, ISBN: 1-4121-5161-9
• Your Self and Mind, ISBN: 1-4121-5208-9
Many of these have been translated into other languages, including: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese
Mandarin, French, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Marathi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish
and Urdu.
Most of these books are available for free download from his web site,
www.lovingheartcentre.net.

His paintings can be viewed on his web site page:
www.lovingheartcentre.net/MyPaintings.htm
Financial Career
Shyam has worked at various financial sector firms:
• Bacon &Woodrow: consulting to the insurance and pensions industries
• Shearson Lehman Hutton: Associate Director, conducting research into the worldwide
life and property/casualty industries (for an explanation of what has happened to
them, see Greed and Glory on Wall Street: The Fall of the House of Lehman)
• Tillinghast Towers Perrin: Life Division as Research Consultant, responsible for
European R&D, consulting particularly on risk and pricing issues
• Merrill Lynch: Director, Global Industry Specialist Group, working with numerous
institutional clients on asset/liability and derivative strategies and on securitisation
• Watson Wyatt: Equity Partner in the Insurance Practice, from early 1999. He engaged
in research and consulting, particularly concerning the application of modern finance
to European financial institutions, and building the firm's asset modelling capabilities
• BNP Paribas: Member of the Financial Institutions Group management committee,
Head of Insurance and Pensions Strategy. He helped BNP Paribas' institutional

clients on their corporate finance/M&A and capital markets issues, including topics
such as shareholder value strategy, capital raising/management, securitisation,
asset/liability policy, and use of derivatives in balance sheet management and
product development.
• Skandia Group: Head of Long Term Financial Risk Management, examining risk,
value and strategic issues for the Group CEO, CFO and Chief Actuary (Sweden).
• Millennium Capital: Senior Investment Banker. He helped Millennium Capital in all
aspects of their corporate finance business: M&A, debt issuance, private placement,
IPO. He was also equity research analyst covering the banking sector (Ukraine).
• Aval Brok: Head of Investment Banking. Shyam is helping Aval Brok in the origination
and execution of M&A deals, and in IPO and capital raising and in their corporate
advisory business (Ukraine).
In the actuarial profession, Shyam had a high profile as a result of papers such as "Pricing of
Insurance Risk", "Quantifying the Success of a Life Office- Cost of Capital and Return on
Capital", "Allowing for Asset, Liability and Business Risk in the Valuation of a Life Office" and
"The Financial Theory of Defined Benefit Pension Schemes" (which he co-authored with Jon
Exley and Andrew Smith). A recurring theme of his has been to suggest that actuarial
techniques should be abandoned, to take account of the numerous developments in financial
economics since the 1950s. He is well known for his many speeches, articles and
presentations on modern finance, having lectured for example at the Stern Business School
of New York University, and at Moscow State, City and Heriot-Watt Universities.
In conjunction with Andrew Smith (Partner, B&W Deloitte) and Jon Exley (Director, Barclays
Capital), he formed 'GEMS', an organization devoted to explaining to finance professionals
working in the investment, insurance and pensions sectors how modern finance can be
applied to the many questions that arise in these industries.
The work of Shyam in particular, and of GEMS generally, has been highly influential in
creating change to the way insurance institutions are run across the world, particularly in
Europe and the USA.
Personal Note
Shyam is divorced and lives just north of London, in Wembley. He has no children. He was
born in Enfield, Middlesex, England on 7th December 1952. His mother was from
Czechoslovakia and his father from Gujarat in India. His education and financial career up to
2005 was all in England, except for six years between 1954 and 1960, in Bombay. He travels
from time to time to India.
Shyam Mehta is a mathematics graduate of Cambridge University and, until he resigned in
2005, was a Fellow of the UK Institute of Actuaries.