by Rev. Kamala Itzel Hayward
The gifts I’ve received and continue to receive from my 20-plus years of involvement with the Integral Yoga Institute San Francisco are countless. But one of the greatest gifts I’ve received is sangha, or spiritual community.
When I first came to the Institute in the 1990s, I was looking for relief from the spiritual pain I was in. In a lot of ways I felt like I was living a double life. I had friends and work colleagues who I saw regularly. But very few of them knew about the deep thirst I felt to connect with something bigger than myself, or about everything I was doing to try to quench that thirst. I had a library’s worth of spiritual books and had read them all. I was sitting in meditation alone in my home for one to two hours every day. But still I had a gnawing dissatisfaction in my heart and mind—a belief that there was more.
It was then that I found the Integral Yoga Institute San Francisco.
At the Institute, I found peace through the practices of Yoga. And not just the physical practice, but also through the practice of the other branches of Yoga as well: the study and practice of the Yoga Sutras with senior teachers, expressing love and devotion to the Divine in celebratory events, selfless service within the community, gaining knowledge through self-inquiry and reflection using practices taught to me by more experienced Yoga students, and the repetition of the mantra passed down to me through sannyasi (monks) from the Guru.
At the Institute, I also made a public commitment to my spiritual growth through becoming a teacher, living at the ashram, and taking mantra initiation. And I discovered true Love: the love of the inner Self, the Divine in myself and in the other. None of this could have happened without sangha.
As human beings, we are social creatures. Being in community and connection with others is necessary for us to survive and thrive. But sangha isn’t necessarily about finding people who are like you or who you fit in with.
It’s about finding others who are on the same spiritual path as you —people who can provide you with presence and positive support as you form and ultimately fulfill your aspirations for Divine Union. Spiritual community provides support as you apply and live the wisdom teachings. It offers an opportunity to witness the teachings in action. And it provides the space to embody the teachings in a deeper and more fundamental way—in a way that takes you out of the illusion of being an individual self and into the realization of your True Self as the Divine Beloved within all of us.
It’s my honor to join in the Integral Yoga Institute’s upcoming celebration of sangha. Together with Swami Vimalananda and Swami Ramananda, we will be reuniting with community members from 1990 through 2020. The celebration happens as part of the Institute’s 50th Anniversary celebration on March 15 from 11:00 am to 12:45 pm.
Rev. Kamala Itzel Hayward is committed to sharing the tools of Integral Yoga to help others experience the present, get clear on the truth in each moment, replace negative self-talk with self-love and self-acceptance, and access a place inside themselves that is Divine and already perfect. She’s passionate about bringing people together and works with thousands of single women every day in the community she built called the Mindful Path to Love (facebook.com/groups/themindfulpath). Rev. Kamala is also in service as a minister, spiritual guide, wedding officiant, workshop leader, teacher, and speaker. Find her online at attunedliving.com.