by Snehan Born

During these unprecedented times, IYI Is offering online classes to help our community practice from the safety of our homes using online platforms such as Zoom and Facebook Live. Online technology allows us to stay connected, practice, meditate, learn and get through this together as a community of yogis. You can find a list of upcoming yoga classes, meditation practices and events at https://integralyogasf.org/online-classes-events.

I am finding that teaching classes online is such a beautiful offering, especially given the circumstances of our present times.  Instructing in this way is different from teaching a class with participants in the room, but can still feel like a group experience for all of us, united in Yoga.  When you join my class, I would like to encourage you to imagine you are practicing together with others as if you were in a traditional class. In fact, you are practicing with others, just from a distance. I will be teaching 60-minute Hatha Yoga mixed level classes on Tuesday evenings, 5:30-6:30pm and Sunday mornings, 8:30-9:30am.

These online classes are being very much appreciated as a balm for the soul, as evidenced by the number of people from around the world who’ve started joining our classes. I feel so blessed to be able to serve in this way and still offer Yoga instruction to our beloved sangha.

Stressful times like these call for our increased efforts to practice loving care towards ourselves and each other. May we cultivate ever-greater compassion in our hearts for all of us who are being affected and send forth our healing thoughts and prayers.

If you are new to taking online classes using Zoom, you may want to visit this “Joining a Zoom Meeting” web page.  This Web page includes instructions for installing the software on different devices including laptops, tablets and mobile phones.  I encourage you to download and test the Zoom platform at least 30 minutes before a class begins.  In this way, you can ensure that your audio and video work well before the class starts.

Snehan Born has four decades of experience with yoga and has been teaching since 2000. Snehan resides and teaches at Integral Yoga Institute of San Francisco and teaches at Mission Blue Center in Brisbane. He has also led Beginner and intermediate level teacher trainings at Satchidananda Ashram, Yogaville, Virginia and The Integral Yoga Institute, NYC. Snehan is certified in all levels of Integral Yoga Hatha and has received additional certifications in Pranayama, Meditation, Raja Yoga and Stress Management from Integral Yoga.

Snehan has lived and traveled extensively within India over 9 trips and has taught and practiced with many yogis there. He has taught yoga all over the US as well as in India, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan and Europe.

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.

We hope you’ll join us!

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.

by Swami Ramananda

As we gather for various events celebrating the 50-year anniversary of Integral Yoga in San Francisco, we are reminded again and again of the importance of spiritual community. We have committed ourselves this month to making good use of the support and inspiration we derive from practicing Yoga together, and contributing to the strength of our community in any way that we can.

Both the Yoga and Buddhist traditions use the word sangha to signify spiritual community – those who share the same spiritual values and offer a source of support to each other. In Buddhism, sangha is considered one of the three forms of refuge for a spiritual seeker, along with the Buddha and the Dharma. Yoga teachings also consider spiritual community to be an essential element of a spiritual path.
Walking the spiritual path challenges us to examine the moments when we find it difficult to be at peace in ourselves and compassionate with others. It requires a steady effort to disengage ourselves from habitual, self-centered thinking and most of us need a regular meditation practice to be free of such deeply ingrained patterns.

Both of these efforts—to self-reflect on our behavior and to meditate regularly—can be difficult when we feel upset or overwhelmed, and we can easily get discouraged when we don’t have any support. Sharing our struggles with like-minded seekers puts things in perspective, helps us develop self-awareness, and brings relief from feeling alone with our efforts.

The support and safety of a group can help us let down defenses and be more honest with ourselves. It can inspire us to have more compassion for ourselves and each other and be a great source of inspiration. When we practice Yoga or meditation together, the group energy helps us focus and uplift the mind beyond what we can do alone.

Our culture instills in us the belief that happiness can be acquired, which keeps us stuck in the head, measuring, judging and planning to arrange our lives. Spiritual community brings us back into our hearts where we can feel our natural connection to the whole web of life. In the heart, we can sense that the events in our lives are part of a bigger picture than our limited minds can know.

I encourage all Yoga practitioners to gather with sangha whenever possible to share the ups and downs of living a spiritual life, to give and receive support. Even when it’s not possible to practice Yoga together or attend a scripture study group, books and videos can be another source of sangha. Technology makes it possible to share the spiritual journey even with those living far from us. We don’t need to walk the path alone.

I invite those of you living close to us in San Francisco to join our weekly scripture study group on Mondays at 6:30 pm, where Swami Divyananda will guide us in a study of the Bhagavad Gita during the month of March. Please also consider joining us for any of the many free events at our 50-year anniversary celebration March 14 and 15.

Swami Ramananda is the President of the Integral Yoga Institute in San Francisco and a greatly respected senior teacher in the Integral Yoga tradition, who has been practicing Yoga for over 35 years. Ramananda offers practical methods of integrating the timeless teachings and practices of yoga into daily life, and transforming the painful aspects of human experience into steps toward realizing one’s full potential.

He leads beginner, intermediate and advanced level yoga teacher training programs in San Francisco, and offers a variety of programs in many locations in the U. S., Europe and South America. Ramananda trains Yoga teachers to bring Yoga into corporate, hospital and medical settings and has taught mind/body wellness programs in many locations. He is a founding board member of the Yoga Alliance, a national registry that supports and promotes yoga teachers as professionals. His warmth, wisdom and sense of humor have endeared him to many.