2022 November

Join Us in Promoting Diversity and Inclusivity in Yoga

by Rev. Kamala Itzel Hayward (she/her)

This is the story of a dream that I had in 2020. A dream that was made real thanks to the generosity of the Integral Yoga sangha and people like you—people who contributed to the Integral Yoga Institute San Francisco’s (IYISF) 2020 Giving Tuesday campaign.

It all started with my first Yoga teacher: my mother. I still remember her lavender tights. She still remembers that my favorite part of class was hissing like a snake as I raised up into Bhujangasana, cobra pose. I was five years old. And there was no reason to question that I belonged or that the peace and joy, love, and light that the students wished for everyone included me, regardless of who I was, what I looked like, or what my body could do.

My practice has changed a lot over the years—my muscles need more time to warm up and I don’t hiss in Bhujangasana anymore—but one guiding principle has remained the same: perpetuating systems of oppression and living in liberation are mutually exclusive.

The teachings of Yoga identify ignorance in all of its forms as the root cause of suffering. This ignorance includes systems of white supremacy, the gender binary, capitalism, and other concepts that lead to the systemic oppression of individuals. However, this truth isn’t always reflected in the spaces where Yoga teachers are trained or teach. Nor is it reflected on social media or in Yoga publications that elevate one stereotype of “the Yoga teacher” over all others in their cover images, stories, and advertisements: the young, flexible, thin, heteronormative white woman.

So in 2016, after I had been teaching Yoga for 6 years and practicing it for decades more, I was thrilled to hear Lakshmi Nair talk about her work. Lakshmi is the creator of the Satya Yoga Cooperative in Denver, Colorado, which is one of the first Yoga cooperatives for people of color.

I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be a part of a Yoga community where I saw myself reflected in the eyes of my teachers. One that shared my values and my commitment to the liberation of all people, while also having in its deep awareness the context in which we are learning and practicing Yoga: a society that does not share that commitment.

A society that is actively operating contrary to that commitment.

A society that was built on—and, in so many deeply rooted and systemic ways—sustained by the oppression of people based on their race, class, gender, and more. A society that isn’t always aware of or willing to acknowledge its biases, privileges, and limiting beliefs, in direct contradiction to Yogic principles of self-awareness and self-study.

I wondered, “What would it be like to practice and learn in a community intentionally focused on Yoga as a tool for dismantling such beliefs and oppressive systems in service of the liberation of all beings everywhere?”

Then I had my chance.

Four years later, in 2020, I had the opportunity to attend the Black Orchid Yoga Teacher Training, a prenatal/postnatal Yoga Teacher Training offered by Melylah Smith, Alexandra Rossi, and Jane Austin. In an effort to address the devastating racial disparities in prenatal care, they offered the training completely free to Black women.

When I heard about it, I registered immediately. I, along with over 250 Yoga teachers, doulas, pregnant women, and more … all Black. Not only did I love the program, I fell completely in love with the community that was created in the process.

And I loved knowing that, together, we could make a difference to improve outcomes for Black newborns and pregnant Black folks everywhere on the level of body, mind, and spirit.

The experience was so meaningful and powerful, I knew that I wanted to be a part of bringing something like that to IYI. So I went to Swami Ramananda, Executive Director of IYISF, told him my idea, and asked if he’d be willing to bring it to IYISF. Without a moment’s hesitation, he said yes.

So under his leadership, Integral Yoga’s first 100% scholarship-based Black, Indigenous, People of Color 200-hour Basic Yoga Teacher Training was held in 2021.

When I imagined the training, I imagined a space where not only all of the students were BIPOC, but so were all of the lead teaching team members, the monitors, and the support staff. I also wanted there to be folks of a wide variety of ages, body types, genders, sexual orientations, and physical abilities. I dreamed of a teaching curriculum that acknowledged the ways in which the teachings of Yoga have been offered that have harmed others, and how we as teachers could do things differently. I wanted to talk about racism, the gender binary, capitalism, xenophobia, cultural appropriation, colonialism, spiritual bypass, intersectionality, and other forms of oppression that we and our students come to Yoga to heal from. And I dreamed of a panel of guest speakers composed of those BIPOC Yoga teachers who most deeply influenced me and my thinking of Yoga in this way.

Finally, I wanted to make the teacher training 100% scholarship-based, which allowed for the elimination of any financial barriers to participation. Many students paid for the training at the highest level–reinforcing the notion that, while money is a very real obstacle to participating in teacher trainings that many BIPOC face, it’s not the only obstacle. BIPOC also need safe spaces to learn, explore, make mistakes, ask questions, practice, and simply be. Trainings like these help to create those safe spaces. They also increase the diversity of Yoga’s teaching community, which allows for the creation of more inclusive and welcoming Yoga spaces, makes the teachings of Yoga more accessible, and affirms Yoga as a teaching and practice for the liberation of all beings everywhere.

It was a big dream. But it was made possible by the support of community members and Integral Yoga sangha members who contributed generously in the form of donations, spreading the word, and love and encouragement.

The 2021 training was such a success that we garnered enough community support again to hold a second in 2022. And, with your support, we hope to hold yet another.

Lead trainers in 2022’s teacher training program included Integral Yoga teachers Mia Velez, Nitika Achalam, and Rukmini Ando, and anatomy teacher Arturo Peale—and I had the honor of sharing the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, one of the foundational historic texts on Yoga and Yoga philosophy. A team of Integral Yoga sangha members interested in serving as mentors, monitors, and guest trainers fell quickly into place, including Amanda Vigil, Belinda Todd, Cleopatra Altieri, Dharani Diana Diaz, Lorette Rasmi, Muktidevi Demafeliz, Oyámie Kali Ma’at, Ranjani Tutia, Renda Dabit, and Tinuola Bello. And other luminaries in the field of Yoga agreed to serve as guest presenters including Anjali Rao, Jay Miles, Lakshmi Nair, Mukunda Morozumi, Dr. Ram Bhagat, Saeeda Hafiz, Zawadi Nyong’o, and Shanna.

Congratulations to the 13 graduates of Integral Yoga’s second BIPOC teacher training: Aims Nirañjanā Villanueva-Alf, Cassiel Līlāvatī Owens, Erika Holmes Hamsini, Yesi Olivera, Monica Gupti Frangoul, Natya Bradford Niścalā , Rasheena Vimalā Vail, Selena Washington, Sienna Kateri, Simone Sadāgati Adkins, Tangela London-Henderson Jayasri, Tessa Kalyāṇī Anselm, and Tiarra Yamunā Gil.

May you all shine as examples of the glorious science of Yoga.

To voice your support please consider donating on GivingTuesday, November 29th, a global generosity movement that unleashes the power of radical generosity around the world:

Via our GoFundMe page for our BIPOC Yoga Teacher Training Scholarship Program.
Via Paypal to IYISF’s mission and future. We count on your generosity to make a difference in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.
Set up a monthly, recurring donation.

Thank you, Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.

Sevika Ford2022-11-17T08:31:12-08:00November 17th, 2022|Tags: Integral Yoga San Francisco|

Teaching of the Month – Yoga as Lifestyle Medicine

by Sandra Amrita McLanahan, M.D

I first came across the teachings of Swami Satchidananda (Sri Gurudev) in a transcript from a talk he gave in which he said, “We have a natural state of ease and when we lose it we get disease.” I was in medical school at the time, and nobody was really addressing the fundamental root of disease. Over many years, that’s what his teachings and his guidance have been for me as a medical doctor.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, when drug use was fairly rampant in my generation, he also talked about how when you take drugs they gets you on a jet plane up to the higher sphere, but without a parachute. He explained how Yoga can enable you to access higher state of consciousness and awareness, but it does so step-by-step and with good support. These teachings really intrigued me so I read To Know Your Self, a foundational book of Swami Satchidananda’s Yoga teachings.

I also began taking Yoga classes at the San Francisco Integral Yoga Institute. When we came to Yoga Nidra (deep relaxation) and went over the parts of the body and came to relax all of them, I had an amazing experience of letting go of a lot of the stress that I was carrying from being a medical student. And I said to myself, This is a kind of medicine. And, I’ve been studying it ever since.

With the Integral Yoga teachings, I began to realize that “God” is a state of being. If God is omnipresent, it can’t be one person, but it’s a state of Beingness that is omnipresent. We can tune into w-God on our internal radio dial.

I was fortunate to be able to travel to India with Gurudev many times over the years. On my first trip, he talked about how he had been trained as a naturopath and a homeopath, and he believed in natural ways of healing. So, he taught me all these natural ways to assist the body to heal itself and to look at the root causes. Dr. Dean Ornish, then a medical student, read an article that I had written about this in an issue of Integral Yoga Magazine. And he invited me to come and speak at his medical school. After my talk, he said: “Let’s do research together.”

He designed the initial research study, during which I would teach the Yoga practices to all the patients in the study. Since this was in the 1970s, he felt the patients would feel more comfortable with a medical doctor teaching them. Dr. Ornish was the first to show that heart disease could be reversible and, later, also diabetes and prostate cancer.

I also began to do research with Michael Lerner, the cofounder of Commonweal and the Commonweal Cancer Help program in California and another student of Sri Gurudev. We began using Yoga with lupus and cancer patients. After several years, with Dr. Lerner’s guidance, Smith Center for Healing and the Arts was established in Washington, DC, which also incorporated Yoga therapy for cancer patients. Shanti Norris, a former assistant to Sri Gurudev, was tasked as the director.

That’s why I also love reading his book, The Golden Present. It contains life lessons for every day. One reading is about death and it is titled: “Changing Forms.” It says, “Birth and death are changing forms. The plant changes into a flower and the flower changes into a garland. And if you leave the garland alone for some time, it will change into dust. It is the same for the body. The body is composed as elements and the elements are constantly changing. One day, when the body decomposes, the body is dead. But you, the owner of the body, are always the same. This realization of immortality is possible only when you free yourself from your identification with the body. What’s more, it is when you experience the realization of your own immortality that you can be permanently happy. Strive for the eternal, not for the temporary. This realization of the eternal will make you able to be always happy, no matter what the circumstances. The happiness that seems to be coming from your possessions is false, or in other words, reflected happiness.” For a medical doctor trained to look at people as “bodies,” this realization of the eternal was life-changing for me and guides all I do as both a yogi and a doctor.

Someone once asked Sri Gurudev how to get rid of past bad karma. And he said: “There’s the fast way and the super-fast way. The fast way is that from this moment forward never do anything to hurt anyone in thought, word, or deed.” So that takes some awareness, that takes some focus. It’s work. And then he said: “There’s a super-fast way. The super-fast way is realize you never did anything—it was the Divine moving you the whole time.” It made sense to me that this bigger force is moving through us. The force is with us always. We are not really going anywhere anyway; we are eternal. And, we are one Beingness appearing as many.

And that’s what the Integral Yoga Yantra represents. It represents the Oneness, which is the essential Source of all. And then It manifests in all these different forms and names. So, if you keep that in mind, mind then we don’t get caught up in the various differences. Remember that the Essence, the Source, is within everyone.

Sandra Amrita McLanahan, M.D., is a nationally recognized authority on preventive medicine, nutrition, stress reduction, and primary family health care. She founded Integral Health Services, America’s first integrative medicine clinic in 1976. She continued her trailblazing work as Director of Stress Management Training at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute for twenty years, where she worked with Dr. Dean Ornish to document the benefits of dietary change and stress management to prevent and treat cardiovascular disease and cancer. Dr. McLanahan is the author of the book Surgery and its Alternatives: How to Make the Right Choices for Your Health, co-author of Take a Deep Breath: A Simple Exercise Guide to Increasing Your Oxygen Intake and was the medical consultant for the books, Dr. Yoga.

prajna2022-11-15T00:14:29-08:00November 13th, 2022|

The Six Branches of Yoga – Which Branch When?

The Integral Yoga system was synthesized by Sri Swami Satchidananda from his spiritual roots in the Tamil Saiva Yoga Siddhar tradition, the Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita and the nondual teachings of his Guru, Sri Swami Sivananda Saraswati.

The system contains six branches that we can cultivate as part of the spiritual path.

Bhakti – love and devotion

Japa – mantra repetition

Jnana – wisdom- self inquiry

Hatha – physical practice of Yoga

Karma -selfless service

Raja – concentration and meditation

The aim is to promote the harmonious development of every aspect of the individual. It’s not uncommon to be more attracted to some, or one, more than others.

An Integral Yoga Institute Yogi offers these reflections on the branches of yoga.

Which Limb When?

At any moment, or stage of your life, take the pathway that feels the easiest and the most enjoyable. At one point, it might be the path of Bhakti (devotion and surrender), which is all about sensing and feeling into the heart. At another stage, in response to your mind’s objections, you may find yourself grappling with more existential, philosophical questions and you can go to the path of jnana (self-inquiry).

So, follow the easiest and most enjoyable path while remaining open to change. Try not to put yourself into a box by saying, “Oh, I’m just a Hatha Yogi or a Karma Yogi.” Or, “I only go via the path of Raja Yoga.” Maybe at one point in your spiritual journey you are drawn to the path of Bhakti Yoga, but, several years later, you may feel more drawn to Jnana Yoga, the path of wisdom. Or, at another time in your spiritual development, you may feel drawn to yet a different approach.

This is a foundational understanding behind the Integral Yoga system: You are given six different branches or pathways of classical Yoga so that you gain the benefits of these approaches. That will ensure that the entirety of your experience is permeated by the yogic understanding of your essential nature. Ideally, Yoga will infuse all aspects of your experience: the way you think, the way you feel, how you perceive, the way you act and relate, and so on: a complete integration of body-mind-spirit.

When practicing Integral Yoga, some people may be drawn to one particular branch. For example, some may wish to follow an inward facing path, such as in contemplation or meditation. Others may be more drawn to an outward facing path, such as in Karma Yoga, during which one turns toward being of service in the world.

These branches, or pathways, are not mutually exclusive. They provide a holistic approach to integration. Ideally, if you are drawn to one particular pathway, you will also find benefit in including even a little something from each branch. It’s very unusual for one pathway to satisfy all one’s faculties of thinking, feeling, sensing, perceiving, acting, and relating. Through our practice, we want every part of ourselves to become fully included in—and integrated into—our understanding of the essential truth of our being, which is inner peace and joy.

prajna2022-11-07T21:38:38-08:00November 7th, 2022|