Study YOGA
FREE Online Summit
APRIL 29 – MAY 03, 2024
Receive profound teachings from the yogic wisdom traditions that thrust you into digestible depths, result in personal revelations, and are anchored in authenticity.
TRANSCRIPT
ARUNDHATI BAITMANGALKAR
Amy:
Welcome to the Study Yoga Online Summit. If you are seeking beyond the sea of superficial yoga flooding your feed, yearning for insightful conversations and community, or are a sincere seeker devoted to the depths of studentship, then the Study Yoga Masterclass series is the nectar that you need. Today I am speaking with Arundhati Baitmangalkar, who is on a mission to raise the bar for yoga teachers, yoga education, and contextualize it for today’s times. Creator of the Aham Yoga studio and community in Seattle, alongside the wildly popular Let’s Talk Yoga podcast, which is in the global top 5% of podcasts, by the way, she is one of the few Indian yoga studio owners in America changing the landscape of the Western yoga narrative. Arundhati has also been a Bollywood choreographer and instructor for 21 years with extensive experience in stage production, teaching and runs her own Bollywood dance school. BollyWorks. She is well-known for being simple in her approach to yoga, aiming to offer greater context and build better resources for everyone. And in my opinion, she’s evidently a huge community builder. Welcome, Arundhati. Thank you for carving out some time to have this conversation with me.
Arundhati:
Amy, I’m happy to be here. Something I didn’t tell you earlier, my biggest listener base is in Australia.
Amy:
Really?
Arundhati:
Yeah, I mean, it surprised me too, but last year we found out that Australia is where we have most downloads, and Sydney is our top city in terms of streaming.
Amy:
Oh, well, I’m proud. That just reinforces to me that the Australian yoga community is seeking so much more depth in their yoga practice, so that’s really exciting. Wow, very cool. So you were born and raised in South India, I believe, but moved to the West coast US a little over a decade ago with your husband, and for this reason, I tremendously value your insight into yoga, given that you’ve grown up with the cultural context yourself, having spent most of your life thus far in India. But you also know and understand firsthand how yoga is delivered and perceived across the globe, especially through that western lens. So with this in mind, I’d love to delve into a few considerations today that may be valuable to the listener as they continue to reflect, contemplate, and evolve along their own path of yoga. So let’s dive straight into the deep end, so to speak. A common message online at the moment is that yoga is “South Asian”. So would you like to unpack this and shed some light on what might be another perspective?
Arundhati:
So, “yoga is South Asian”… So firstly, Amy, even if I turn back time right, I didn’t even know this term South Asian until I moved to America. And I still remember back in the day when someone would call me South Asian or I would hear this yoga and South Asian being paired together. It baffled me a little bit because if you look at just geography, history, culture, so much, South Asia has eight different countries, and to me it was very surprising that we were saying yoga belongs to these eight different countries because culturally, religiously, spiritually–I mean there’s so much more–these countries are very different. The only common thing they have is they are in the same region. And back in the day, before how the world looks now on a map, things were a little different. So when we say yoga is South Asian, to me, you are robbing not just me of my Indian heritage, but also the other seven countries.
And each country has its own unique uniqueness. So I think it’s convenient to use the term South Asian in some contexts. For example, you call me a South Asian school teacher, a South Asian plumber, a south Asian lawyer. It’s okay, I’ll be like, yeah, fine, that’s fine. But when it comes to something like yoga, which is a spiritual practice, it is a cultural practice. And to some, it is a religious practice. So to then say yoga is South Asian for me is it doesn’t sit really well. So personally, I always say yoga is from India. Using the term South Asian doesn’t really add value to it. In fact, it takes away value from it. So you are robbing all these eight countries of their own identit. Today, when we look culturally, not all eight countries practice yoga or have ever practiced yoga for that matter.
So if we trace the history of yoga, yoga can be said, it can be said that yoga comes from the Indian subcontinent because modern day Pakistan was created in a certain way at a certain time, and there’s a lot of history there to unpack. And so Indian subcontinent is where yoga originated from. But does that make yoga South Asian? No, according to me, it does not make yoga South Asian, where is it, Yoga, from? The Indian subcontinent. Sometimes I’ve heard yoga teachers refer to the Pashupati seal that was discovered in modern-day Pakistan from the Indus Valley civilization. And yes, that has merit today on a map that sits in Pakistan, but back in the day it came from the Indian subcontinent. But that’s just one piece of evidence, right? There is so much more in other parts of India, so many texts, so many different moments through time where we have traces of yoga. So to just say, because this one seal was found and also Pashupati is Shiva. I personally don’t know how much of Pakistan + Shiva… how much of that is there. I personally don’t know. So to just take that one piece of evidence and say, because the Pashupati seal was found there, yoga is South Asian. To me, that’s a weak argument. And I say that kindly and respectfully. So yoga is from the Indian subcontinent, but it doesn’t make yoga South Asian
Because we’re talking about yoga, cultural, spiritual, religious practice. Something else, it might still be okay. And there’s a lot more sub context to it because when you live in India, you see these different cultures, how they interact with each other, these different nationalities. So to just club everyone together because at some level it’s convenient for us to do so, for me, it’s not right personally.
Amy:
Yeah, that’s great. Thank you so much for that clarification. And I do wholeheartedly agree that the term Indian subcontinent is a far more preferable term to use instead of South Asian. And of course as you highlighted, context is everything. There may be some situations where South Asian is okay to be used, but there’s this tendency now to just say it all the time in every situation without giving any thought to it. And for people listening, Pakistan became Pakistan in 1947. So it’s still quite a modern nation. And if we were having this conversation, let’s say in 1946, that land would’ve been India and back in the Indus valley civilization, the word Pakistan, and certainly the word even India as a nation didn’t even exist. So when there’s an argument here about things being South Asian or not, what we’re trying to really highlight, I suppose, is the culture.
The Pakistani culture is not really yoga culture. It’s predominantly a Muslim culture, which that has no interest in Shiva or yoga or so forth. Whereas the predominant culture in the melting pot amalgamation that is India, the predominant culture there, Hindu and Hindu culture, and of course Hindu could be said to be a religion, but it’s more of an umbrella term. But I see it as a culture first and foremost, that has been informed by Vedic culture. And Vedic culture is very much the backbone, let’s say, or the foundation of yoga. And that’s not part of daily life for the majority of people in Pakistan. And we’re just using Pakistan as an example. We could talk about Bangladesh or we could talk about other Afghanistan, Afghanistan, I’m sure the Afghani people are not interested in this conversation. They’re not interested in claiming yoga. So it’s not really doing those people either any service. And yeah, I think it’s a complex conversation, obviously. But yeah, so Indian subcontinent gives us at least another, something practical, another useful term that we can use. And when we look to yoga history, yoga culture, we really see it belonging to predominantly what is now modern day India and also Nepal. But other than that, for anyone listening, if you’re not sure about the South Asian countries, this generally speaking includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and sometimes the Maldives.
Arundhati:
Maldives.
Amy:
Yeah. Yeah. So just great to have that clarification as well.
Arundhati:
A lot of these countries are Muslim in nature, so we have to respect that. It’s, it’s also something you said, nobody has claimed it. None of these other countries are claiming it and developing it. And I sometimes think that we try to generalize too soon in modern day yoga because it’s just easier to be like, let’s put this in this category, let’s put this in this category. And I don’t think we always need to take a pause and notice when we say something, how is it impacting the people from that culture, right? It’s convenient to sit on the outside sometimes and say, this is how it should be. And there needs to be a moment of pause for some of these things
Amy:
Because we’re not necessarily getting the voices from the people on the ground in those countries. We might be hearing from voices from folks who are of Indian or Pakistani ethnicity who are born and raised in the west, but are the people actually in those countries on the ground, are they wanting to uphold yoga? Are they wanting to live their lives so that we can retain the teachings? I’m not sure. And that’s obviously a question that we have to ask ourselves. And the geographical borders are very easy to define or outline, but the borders of culture can be a little bit fuzzy, let’s say. So when we’re talking about yoga, we’re talking about, well, what is the culture that it belongs to? We don’t need to talk about modern day geographical borders necessarily. And I think there is a risk out there of people on social media building their platform, their personality and their profits by politicizing yoga exclusively and bringing in this narrative. And so again, as I mentioned, I really value your perspective on that because it is a different perspective and it’s also coming from someone who has been born and raised in India. It’s not that you just have Indian ethnicity, but you’ve been there on the ground.
Arundhati:
I’ve been there on the ground. And like I was telling you before we started recording, I have witnessed these clashes between, when growing up in India. I’ve witnessed Hindu, Muslim riots, India, Pakistan riots, schools closing down for weeks on end, people dying, having to in the middle of the day get home in the middle of riots. I’ve been part of that. And when you see it like that, you have a different worldview that forms. But I want to say something that my teacher would say, follow the yoga, not the person, because you said social media. I also don’t think we should learn yoga on social media because it’s a great place for inspiration, for exposure, and even to get inspired and learn some yoga, but it’s got 60 to 90 seconds of context. So as a consumer, I have to remind myself to verify, to not be lazy, to not expect to understand these layers within 60 seconds, 90 seconds, go do my due diligence, think critically, not get lost in trends, just because now this is trending. My yoga is now this. Next year, something else will trend. Three years ago, something else was trending and that was yoga. So to really not be blinded by some of these things, you can appear very knowledgeable on social media. So to take that as consumers, to not let us be led very quickly into anything and everything is yoga,
Amy:
There’s the risk–this leads to something I’ve observed, and this is subjective–I’ve got to preface it by saying this is a subjective thing, but I do feel like there’s a lot of virtue signaling online in this context, trying to build a platform, build a community, build a business on certain messaging that really, I think wholeheartedly is just a layer of virtue signaling to capture attention. And yeah, that’s what you’ve just mentioned is very wise advice to think critically, ask questions, and not be too swayed too quickly, and to continue to inquire
Arundhati:
And discernment.
Amy:
Which are teachings in yoga, yoga philosophy anyway, so yeah. That’s wonderful. Is there anything else you want to say on this before we move on?
Arundhati:
No, no, not really. But I would like, because I’m guessing a lot of yoga teachers will be in your summit that as yoga teachers, we have to be tolerant of someone else’s opinion and respectful. And it is not about creating echo chambers of I am right, you are wrong. I know more. You don’t know anything, especially with 30, 60, 90 seconds of context. Take an extra moment and have a dialogue with that person about the topic in question, right? So say, Amy, you don’t agree with me that yoga is South Asian. Talk to me directly about it. Engage in respectful conversation instead of just slander. And because that whole Ahimsa and Satya and all that, we talk about that, put that into practice, be curious and ask for context. Say, Hey, I thought it’s this. I still think that yoga is South Asian. Can we talk and we can agree to disagree and still be civil with each other? Because I think sometimes social media, especially because we engage like that, that’s how you and I met, it can be very polarized.
Amy:
Yes, definitely. But it also strengthens someone’s argument if they can uphold a conversation about it in a very steady, emotionally neutral way. And that’s really wonderful advice again, because yeah, can we engage in a conversation with someone to look for clarity, look for their personal context and experience. And that’s why I wanted have you on, because it’s just purely offering those listening in a different perspective. We’re not here to say what’s right or wrong, but we’re here just to expand our knowledge and perspective and to inquire and as you said, think critically. Yeah. So that’s wonderful and super important for yoga teachers especially. So let’s shift the focus toward a more individual experience and certainly a more yoga studio based experience. Let’s talk about music and yoga music in the yoga class. So why, why not use music? So for yourself, as someone who owns a yoga studio and you mentor many other yoga teachers, what is your personal viewpoint on this topic of conversation?
Arundhati:
I want to start by acknowledging that we all universally love music. I have been dancing for 21 years. If a song plays, my brain cannot disconnect from it. In fact, when we go anywhere, a restaurant, socially anywhere, one ear and half my brain is listening to what’s playing. So I have nothing against music is what I’m trying to say. But in the context of yoga, this is something I learned from my teacher. He always taught us your breath is your music, and to really tune into your breath. And that when music plays, and I’m talking about popular music, modern day music, when that music is playing in an asana class, your brain and your ears, they’re listening to that. So now that is a sensory experience, but it is an external experience. Whereas a lot of yoga practices are meant to draw you inward, to take your senses inward towards the stages of pratyahara and deeper sensory withdrawal and deeper.
So when we are listening to music, external music, then we are, it’s a distraction. Furthermore, depends on what is playing, right? I’ve been in classes here that sometimes Britney Spears will be playing. Now I can listen to Britney Spears in my car. That’s different. But when I’m trying to go into my koshas and into my existence a little more, hit me baby one more time, doesn’t sit really well. Or examples of, I’ve been in classes where there are songs that are singing about heartbreak and pain. If someone’s just recently gone through one or has been through one at some point, it brings up memories and painful experiences or loss and death and grief. And the worst part for me is when you play music or continue to play music in savasana, and I’ve been in classes, I don’t know, it might be an American thing and I could be generalizing too much, they turn up the volume in savasana.
So for me, my brain latches onto music very differently and it starts to choreograph it. And I know just in the pose itself, my body wants to move a certain way. To me it’s a distraction. So I’m not saying music is bad, don’t do it like that, but in my understanding, that is a distraction. And our senses have been stimulated all day long. And so when the students come into class, less is more. The reason why I think music is played in classes is because a lot of yoga is taught in gyms and health clubs and scenarios like that where music was part of the conversation, right? Music keeps you engaged, distracted. So in some workouts, it’s a great support system, but in yoga, it’s a little too much for me. So when you start to tune your frequencies to listen to your breath, your entire process of yoga is becoming more internal.
And it’s okay to notice if your mind is bored, if your mind needs that constant stimulation, your next dopamine hit. That is the nature of your mind. So sit with it and notice that you are being bored, you’re bored of yourself, you can’t sit with yourself. And over time you learn to engage with yourself instead of just numbing it with something else. And sometimes people will say, oh, but yoga and music have a deep connection and there’s a lot of history to it. I agree. But it is not yoga and music, it is sound and yoga and a lot of sound is different. Music is different. Playing any sort of music and calling it sound, and hence it is yoga isn’t the best way for me. A lot of music is noise in a yoga practice, certain types of sound, yes, have their place in some yoga asana context.
So I like my students’ senses to withdraw in practice. So for me, there’s no music. The only things they hear are their own thoughts and their breath, maybe some other people breathing around them and the instructions. And that’s the norm in the studio, honestly. And we talk about the nature of the mind and to notice the nature of the mind and how to anchor the mind. I also think sometimes we lean a lot on our playlist, and that could actually rob a yoga teacher from stepping into their skillset a lot more because you are hoping the playlist will do some amount of work for you, but that playlist is never really going to enhance your personal teaching. And a lot of yoga is communication and working through that. So yeah, I personally don’t play music. The moment I’m out of a yoga class, I sit in my car, yes, I play music and till I drive into the studio, I’m listening to music. But when it comes to being in class, we don’t play any sound.
Amy:
Yeah, I totally resonate with everything you share. I think in Australia here, things haven’t got quite as extreme as the US, but definitely particularly in hot power yoga, vinyasa classes and things, there’s a lot of music going on. I’ve been in classes with a lot of hip hop and students like it, but for me, I find it really discombobulating. I just feel really, my Vata just feels, which sounds like such a cliche thing to say, but it does. I feel really, it is distracting. I feel like I can’t focus on my practice properly. And I think that we are so conditioned to have some kind of stimulation. It’s like our nervous system relies on it, and almost people need to be acclimatized, just slowly weaned off sound and all this extra stimulation. And I feel like there’s going to be people tuning in saying, oh, well, I use music because the building next door is loud.
Or I use Sanskrit mantras or different music. And I do get that. And look, I can appreciate, particularly in Shavasana, I know teachers that have no music, but they put a little bit of music on in Shavasana because there might be CrossFit going on next door and people dropping weights. And so I get that. So there are obviously certain circumstances, but music choice is obviously an important place to begin. And as someone myself who’s also mentored teachers for many years, I personally feel like many yoga teachers utilize music because they feel uncomfortable with silence. The silence between their voice, their instruction, the space you’re giving to students, it feels strange to leave that space empty. And I think that we have to really kind of question, have that inquiry, why am I really using this music, even if I am using mantras or what have you.
Yeah, and even instrumental music is I think more preferable over music, even with mantras, and I know that you’ve mentioned this on social media, but something that I responded to is that I often, if I do have to use any sound, I’m just using a drone of the tanpura, which is very traditional, which is still to me having some cultural context there. If I’m going to play music. And it’s very meditative and traditional music from India, classical music from India, it is healing. It works on that sound level first and foremost, at least through my studies, it is music, but there’s something inherently more, I don’t know what the word is, but deeper than that traditionally, if that makes sense to you. I don’t know if you want to expand on that at all.
Arundhati:
No, it makes sense to me. There’s nobody talking to you, right? It’s not lyrical music. So here’s how I’d look at it, right? I do agree. Sometimes, yes, there are people dropping weights, there are people talking to each other outside in a gym. In one of my first studio locations that I used to rent when I was here, you could hear the toilet flushing from upstairs. So there are those moments where you’re like, I wish this wouldn’t happen. And if you have to mask that, mask it with something that’s not distracting, white noise, some sort of instrumental music that is there but not there. So there’s something to mask it. But it’s not lyrical music. It’s not pop music. It’s not the latest. I’ve been in classes, Amy, where the instructor will look at me and be like, you have to give me Bollywood music.
And the people are doing yoga to Bollywood music. Just because something is Indian doesn’t mean it needs to sit with yoga. Just because something is from that region doesn’t mean everything is a part of yoga. So a little bit of discernment. I personally do caution people against using sacred chants in a yoga class. Again, just because it sounds a certain way. We don’t do asana to Gayatri Mantra. We don’t play something in that, any of those chants. And we don’t do yoga to it. It has its place, but we don’t do asana to it. I usually would say if you have to use something, just use something that will mask it and it’s not distracting, like you were saying, use sound, use white noise. And also set expectations. Set expectations with your student about there will be distractions. Distractions is part of life. But are we trying to control the external environment so much that if one weight falls on the outside, we’ve lost our peace.
Growing up in India, our Shavasanas were never quiet. You would hear the street, the honking, the sounds, the noise, the street talkers, the neighbors, it was just noisy. It was like doing Shavasana in the middle of a market. It was just so busy. But you found your calm in that storm. And I think that is the messaging we have to still give our students. So it’s okay if there’s some amount of noise. Yes, after a point the volume and stuff can be too much, but silence is a luxury. I remind my students in America here, silence is a luxury. Not many countries have this opportunity, but your silence is within, your peace is within. And don’t let something falling outside, take that away from you. So also bringing that up.
Amy:
That’s great.
Arundhati:
Teaching sensory withdrawal sound. Okay. Oh, door closed. Okay, it’s gone. You don’t have to hold onto it and lose your peace for the next five minutes for that.
Amy:
Yeah, that really highlights how, as yoga teachers, if we are doing our job well and we are taking our students through this introspective sort of pathway through their practice, we have to trust that actually they may be in a space and a state where they may not be even disturbed by those noises. And we as teachers, of course, we care. And so we might be a little concerned about the noise, but we are in a different state. We’re more alert, we’re guiding the class. But if we’ve actually taken them through a truly introspective practice and taken them inward, then they ideally are in a state where they’re able to transcend those external distractions. And your example of life in India is so on point. I mean, when I go to India, I feel so at home, I feel so peaceful. I love going there. I love taking groups there for that reason. It’s like, look at the serenity and the beauty and the peace within the chaos. How can you transmit that.
Arundhati:
Calm within the chaos. And I also think, just as a side note, for me as a teacher, I’m very aware of if it flusters me, it’s going to fluster them. If I act like, oh my God, this is such a big deal, it’s going to be an even bigger deal to them. So just noticing, oh yeah, somebody’s cell phone rang in Shavasana, it’s fine. Next time, please put it on silent. And really noticing how we’re conducting ourself in these moments of distraction.
Amy:
Yeah, our composure is then reflected and taken on by the students. Yeah, that’s all really wonderful and a great perspective. So given your experience of being steeped in the Indian culture from birth and having grown up in India and also living and training yoga teachers in the West, what are the, in your opinion, traits and qualities we should be seeking out in finding a teacher to study steadily with? What are the important or essential values and actions of a yoga teacher that has integrity and also authenticity?
Arundhati:
This is my personal list that I have compiled over the years. One of the main things I look for, and that really resonate with me is humility. A teacher who doesn’t really have to say, but their actions are showing me their yoga. It’s the invisible yoga. So for me, humility, simplicity, simplicity in word, in thought, in action, how kind they are. Kindness and generosity is not an act, it comes naturally. And by kindness, I mean not just one dimensional kindness. Sometimes telling kindness means telling the student or me, Hey, that was not good enough. That was not right. This is how you want to do it, or this is a better way of approaching this. So for me, it’s humility, kindness, generosity, and tolerance. Just how tolerant are they of all my questions, of somebody disagreeing with them and can they see that disagreement not as a personal attack, but just as someone’s curiosity, sometimes ignorance, sometimes ego in display, and sometimes somebody’s early stages of that yoga evolution and also being in a space where they can sit and have as much respect and empathy for the person disagreeing with them and putting the limelight on yoga, not on themselves, tracing everything back to something.
In yoga, for me, it’s not about the personality. I’ve noticed a lot of western modern yoga, not just western. Modern yoga, the personality of the teacher is more in front. The yoga should be more in front. We are just moments of time through which the knowledge moves on or passes on. So we have generosity, kindness, humility, tolerance, respect and respect for everyone, and not just people who agree with you, people who disagree with you, embodying compassion and empathy, not having sympathy, not avoiding something, but embodying compassion, empathy, all of these tie in with each other. And also not trying to be in control of everything and letting the student be on their own journey. So for me, that is very, I mean, there’s a lot there. Each one of these are more applicable in different moments and different contexts, but those are the things I really look for. I don’t look for, oh, how advanced is their practice? For me, this is advanced, right? If you can have respect for somebody who’s disagreeing with you, somebody’s lashing out at you, and if you can still be compassionate, I’m not saying be a doormat, but you can still be compassionate and be kind and just recognize that this is more about them than it is about you. Those for me are very important markers and just not boasting about themselves, letting their work speak for themselves.
Amy:
It comes back to what you said before about following the yoga, not so much the teacher. I’m going to ask you a question that’s still within this question, sort of sub-question. And it feels because of, let’s say my ethnicity, it feels like a bit of a controversial question, but I know that you train many teachers, you mentor teachers, both in your immediate community and online. I know that you have a lot of Indian folks in your community that come to the studio and that study with you. And so I have these two realities that coexist in my universe. And then I want to ask you a question. I think it’s really important to highlight and uplift and support those of Indian ethnicity in the West to teach yoga, to have opportunities and so forth. I love the Indian culture, I love India, and I have deep respect for the traditions of India.
And so this is really important to me. But at the same time, I also know, and I’ll use Australia for example, it is a very small percentage of the population here that is of Indian ethnicity. And most people migrate to Australia with no interest in teaching yoga, and they want to pursue other careers. So they’re not fighting for these positions or opportunities, and they’re quite capable of pursuing a teacher training or what have you if they want to. So these two things coexist for me. It’s like I want to uplift the Indian community in my country, in my area. And yes, there is a very small minority of Indian folks teaching yoga. There’s only so much we can do in that sense. But at the same time, I think we should be uplifting teachers based on merit, not on ethnicity per se. So ethnicity is not a permission slip to be guaranteed teaching spots or success or fame or popularity. So these might seem like two conflicting things, but I do think that they can coexist. So does a yoga teacher to be credible, need to be Indian? I mean, I know what you would say to that, but would you like to speak on this a little bit?
Arundhati:
Years ago, Amy, years ago, about eight years ago, Aham Yoga is 10 years old. Eight years ago, or even nine years ago, somebody once this one business yoga, somebody who was trying to sell himself as a yoga business coach or advisor met me locally. And he was telling me the only way to make it, and I’m doing air quotes for the listeners, is to sell how Indian I am. And I remember that day because it was the first time that thought had even come into my head. And I remember telling him, I want people to come to me because I’m good at yoga, not because I am Indian. And fast forward a few years later, I see this I am Indian, and hence I am more credible of a yoga teacher being sold a lot in popular yoga. So for me personally, it doesn’t matter what ethnicity the teacher is from, as long as their teachings are authentic and they’re living the yoga, they’re walking the talk.
So in short, I don’t think you have to be Indian to teach yoga. Not at all. At the same time, I hear you when you say you want to uplift the community, you want to do more, but you can’t force it on anybody, especially immigrants, right? Because immigrants come with a very different mentality, and I’m immigrant here when you look at America. So it is a personal choice. I also tell people, some of my students will tell me, they’ll be like, one of my students used to say, she’s like Aru, when I go to yoga studios, people look at me because they think I’m Indian, and now I can do everything in yoga. And a lot of us are not raised in this context of this is yoga, this is Asana. We get subtle cultural elements handed down, and we are not necessarily taught to make that a profession, make that commercial in some way. So it’s a slippery slope. And I would say, you let people come to it. You just cannot bank on this is my ethnicity and hence I have a greater say. Yes, you have a say, but you also have to put in the work to be credible, to be authentic. I don’t know if there’s anything you got from that, but it’s not a permission slip to not do the work.
Amy:
But I suppose–that makes total sense. You’re speaking for those in the Indian community–But on the other side of the coin, there is appropriation. There is total disrespect toward yoga from the western world, but at the same time, because someone is not Indian doesn’t mean they are any less capable of having integrity and upholding the essence and the value of yoga. And so I think that if we want to be truly inclusive, we don’t want to spotlight someone because they are of a certain ethnicity or diminish someone because they are of that ethnicity. I think we need to stop looking at ethnicity and start looking at the integrity of the person and their dedication to the path and to the practice.
Arundhati:
There is a lot that has to be fixed when it comes to appropriation, a lot. And at least in America, what I’ve noticed is a lot of, and I’m speaking only from the Indian immigrant community because that’s who I’ve interact with, they’ve stepped out of mainstream yoga because it has been very hurtful to be in some of these contexts where there is shared appropriation of yoga. And I’ve been in those situations myself, and it is so deeply personal and painful that you don’t want to go back in there. So I think the responsibility lies on both ends, okay? With us wanting to, if it means something to us, to step into the yoga world. So I always say, don’t just complain, do something about it. Do some action. And that action is subjective to different people. And it also comes on the other side where recognizing what appropriation has done is also a part of conversation and educating yourself through summits like this and podcasts and talking to the people who are from the culture, all of that. So I think it has to be on both ends. It is not only up to us to come and fix it, and it’s not only up to say the western community to come and fix it. There is both have to step in.
Amy:
Yeah, it’s got to be in relationship. Yeah. Thank you for that clarity. Yeah, because I think there’s definitely truth from both sides. If you were going to say there were two sides, but the only way to move forward is in a unanimous way, and with everybody having the desire to uphold the essence and the, for lack of better description, it’s a bit cliche now, but the roots of yoga and to not let these deeper multifaceted teachings be lost. And I think, again, I am a little bit ignorant to the state of yoga in the US. Obviously we see it, we see it online, we see how it’s represented, and I think it’s not quite as extreme again here in Australia, sometimes it’s a blessing that we’re a little bit slow in Australia and behind everything. In many ways it hasn’t got as extreme in terms of the appropriation and the ghastly dilution of yoga as it has in certain situations in the United States. But irrespective of that, I think it’s really important that we all together unite to work together to ensure that we are offering something with greater depth and just constantly in that state of critical thinking and inquiry and trying our best to understand cultural context and asking questions and having conversations with people such as yourself to see if we’re doing the right thing and how we can do better.
Arundhati:
So I think it comes to two things for me personally, is if your own yoga practice is deep, right, and you are really connected with yoga and not the people teaching yoga, then you’re in a safe zone because there is so much richness inside the yoga that you will never be bouncing around. For me, that’s part one. And because we’ve been talking about, we talk to teachers and separating our personal agenda from the yoga agenda and knowing that when we step into these teaching environments, it is only about the yoga. It is not about anything else. And we shouldn’t be really, we should teach in many ways to inspire and to create impact, but not to impress anybody. And if we can separate ourselves out of that equation, that’s why I keep going back to that one line I heard 11 years ago, follow the yoga, not the person. Follow the yoga, not the person. You are an ambassador of yoga, everything, something I tell my students, everything you do, your actions impact yoga. Remember that. So choose your actions accordingly in your personal life, up to you what you do. But when you’re in front of a room, you are representing yoga at that point, and I don’t take that very lightly. So it comes to those two things for me, and really not coming to yoga to boost your self worth, external self-worth.
And to really connect with yourself in your practice if that happens. And that happens through many ways, but I think having a credible teacher or a mentor is one of the most grounding things. And being with a teacher, your clarity should be enhanced, your contentment should go up, your compassion should go up. And if your teacher is not stirring these qualities within you, your ananda, your bliss coming forward, and you notice you’re just more angry, more divided, more polarized than before, then to me that is not yoga teachings. I’m not saying you have to be passive about anything, but notice are you going closer to anandamaya kosha, or are you going further away from it? And to me, that is the three C’s, clarity, contentment, compassion. If those three are going up in the presence of your teacher, then there is you, you’re somewhere on the right track. So if you are not moving towards that sense of peace within in different contexts, pause, do more work, find a better teacher, things like that.
Amy:
Yeah. One thing I noticed that you really stand for is that yoga is built on our similarities, not our differences. And you’ve stated that very clearly. And one particular thing that I see and value greatly in your work is how you build community through your sincere yoga education and inquiry. You’re not distracted by or nor do you drive any polarizing agenda despite what we’ve spoken about today. I know that this is conversations that can potentially create that environment, but you are inherently not at all like that, and you really stay in your lane, so to speak, and simply stick to the yoga, which is, in my opinion, both virtuous and really invaluable to us all. So for anyone listening, I really urge everyone to relish in the incredible insight you’ve shared on your Let’s Talk Yoga podcast with so many incredible guests. Although it’s so nice to put you on the other side of the microphone today. Is there anything else you would like to add before we wrap up the conversation together?
Arundhati:
I like how you said yoga is built on our similarities, not our differences. And if we can just acknowledge that in all moments of learning, right? There will be moments when you and I, Amy, we won’t agree on everything. That doesn’t make you less, that doesn’t make me less of a person. It is all in natural process. And to recognize as yoga teachers our own raga/dvesha, asmita/raga/dvesha, all of that, the four limbs of avidya is am I overly attached to my identity of a yoga teacher, a yoga student, this yoga is mine, and I have defined it this way and I’ve cherry picked these things and I’m going to protect it at all costs. And at the same time, oh, I don’t like these parts of yoga and I’m going to just discard them and discard everybody else who says anything about those things, in my mind at least.
So recognizing attachment, aversion, our ego coming in, our own ignorance and just practicing detachment in many ways, I can go on and on about that part of it, but just recognizing that and knowing that we’re imperfect. None of us know all of yoga. Learn a little yoga, learn it deeply and let it go. If at the end of the day you are not feeling peaceful in your yoga journey, go do more work. But you have to go to bed each night feeling a little content, not upset about the yoga world, because I think yoga is beautiful in many ways, and you have to find that connection in different ways.
Amy:
That’s wonderful guidance. For anyone wanting to connect with Arundhati, please head to her main website, which is letstalk.yoga – If you’re interested in taking an online yoga class or even inquiring into teacher training or mentoring, et cetera, you can head to ahamyoga.com. And again, please do go and check out the Let’s Talk Yoga podcast. It comes with super high recommendation from me, really enriching conversations, very insightful. But links are all available for you now on the summit webpage, so you can go and check them out. And don’t forget, you can upgrade to gain lifetime access to all these wisdom fueled conversations. Thank you for tuning in, and of course, thank you, Arundhati, for your time and your immense ongoing contribution to supporting the global yoga community in becoming better students and better teachers, and thereby upholding yoga with greater integrity. This has been a really wonderful conversation. Thank you so much.
Arundhati:
Thank you, Amy.
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A beacon for those craving a connection to tradition and timeless wisdom, Amy Landry has cemented herself as a global yoga teacher, teacher trainer, mentor, mama, ayurvedic practitioner, podcast host, speaker, and eternal student.
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