Jivana Heyman 0:37
Hello. Welcome to the Accessible Yoga Podcast. I'm Jivana, my pronouns are he and him, and I'm joining you from Chumash land, which is known today as Santa Barbara, California. Thank you so much for being here. Hope you're doing well. I'm excited about this conversation that I had with Anjali Rao. Anjali is a great friend of mine and someone I've worked with for many, many years. I'm so happy to have her here. She and I worked together at the Accessible Yoga Association, our nonprofit arm. She was the president and helped me run that organization for many years. I love working with Anjali. I love having Anjali as my friend, and I'm so excited to share this conversation with you today, because mostly I'm just so proud of her because her new book is coming out. She has a book called Yoga As Embodied Resistance: A Feminist Lens on Caste, Gender, and Sacred Resilience in Yoga History. It is such an incredible book, I just can't say enough good things about it. So anyway, I'll just let you listen to this conversation and remind you that there's links in our show notes if you want to order the book or join us for her book launch, which is coming up soon. So thanks again for being here and here's my conversation with Anjali Rao.
Jivana Heyman 2:00
Yoga insurance is boring, and while injuries don't happen all the time, they can happen. Luckily, I've never had a claim filed against me, but I feel confident knowing I'm backed by great coverage from beYogi. I offer online classes, I teach in person, I provide digital content, and for all of that, I'm protected under one policy that offers more than the standard professional and general liability coverage. And that's what I love about beYogi, they go beyond insurance to make sure yoga professionals get the most value. They provide resources such as guides, articles, webinars and other member benefits to make insurance something you actually use, not just pay for and forget. Plus they're offering an additional $20 off if you go to beyogi.com/jivana, and I'll put that link in the show notes. Honestly, the peace of mind alone is worth it.
Jivana Heyman 3:11
Hi everyone, and welcome, Anjali. Hi!
Anjali Rao 3:14
Hi, Jivana. So lovely to be here.
Jivana Heyman 3:17
Thanks for being here. How are you doing?
Speaker 1 3:21
I'm doing well, getting better with my jet lag, I'm back from India after nearly three and a half weeks. So I find myself, as I get older, the body and the mind and the heart takes longer to kind of reintegrate. So I've just about finished getting through the night of like six hours straight without waking up.
Jivana Heyman 3:46
And so the heart meaning it's hard to leave, hard to come back and leave. Your family, your parents are there, right? Any more family?
Speaker 1 3:52
Yeah, yeah. My parents, my cousins, my aunts, uncles, many people. It is getting harder and harder to leave, absolutely. Wow.
Jivana Heyman 4:02
Yeah. It's far. It's a long distance. What's the time difference? About, like, how many hours?
Anjali Rao 4:07
Oh, I think, like 13 hours, nearly. (Wow) Yeah. So it's like, exactly the opposite. (That's the worst!) Yeah. 12:45 here is like 1:30 in the morning in India. Oh, wow, yeah. So it is, it's exactly the opposite in terms of our circadian rhythm, our sleep time. So it takes a long time for me to get over it, especially when I come back. It's interesting. When I go there, I don't feel it as much, maybe because I'm excited. When I come back, it takes me a longer time to kind of get over it. But I'm excited to have this conversation with you. Congratulations on your 30 years of teaching.
Jivana Heyman 4:52
Thank you. I know I wanted to, well before we started, I had an intro, and I'll talk about our friendship a bit there, but I just want to say. It doesn't feel like the other conversations. I mean, a few people I've interviewed are friends, but and I feel close to all the people who who've been here, but it's just different with you. I don't know, you know we, well, we don't talk that much, but we text or message like a lot, so like, with a lot of conversation as an ongoing and, yeah, it's been a while.
Anjali Rao 5:23
Absolutely one of my few friends in yoga land, and I'm so glad and cherish this friendship a lot. So thank you. Thank you for being there. (Thank you.) All the ups and downs and the peaks and valleys of being, being in this world together.
Jivana Heyman 5:43
Yeah, you know, it's surprising how much drama there is just, I guess, just being human. But also in yoga, it's like, I don't know what it is, people doing people things.
Anjali Rao 5:57
Yeah, I think, you know, yeah, I can say so much about it, right? I mean surviving capitalism, teaching yoga in a capitalistic world -- what does that really mean, surviving this political chaos. It's horrendous, and we thank God for community and thank the Goddess for community and friendships and our practice.
Jivana Heyman 6:21
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm incredibly grateful for you, because I do think having a friend who's a yoga teacher is so important, and there are things that you understand that other people don't understand in my life. You know, it's just like my husband gets tired of hearing about a lot of it, and so it's great to have a friend like you and I have a few others, but people who are really in yoga and know exactly what I'm talking about. It's just, it's so sweet.
Anjali Rao 6:47
And yoga in the western world is so different than, like, if I were to do this in India, or if I were in India, it would be sort of different, I would imagine. I don't know. I've never taught yoga in India, but I can imagine that it's a different experience. So I think we each are coming from our own experiences.
Jivana Heyman 7:09
Oof, yeah. Yes, yoga in the U.S. is really something. Well, mostly I wanted to celebrate you, also. Congratulations to you for the release of your new book, which, when we release this, I think it's going to be coming out, or had come out soon. I'm not sure the exact date, but I mean, it's around this time, and I just know that this is a project you've been working on for years, and that was very emotional. And of course, I mean, writing a book is always challenging, but I know this one was your first book. (It's my first book.) And it's something that you're very close to. So yeah, how do you feel with that, with the book coming out?
Anjali Rao 7:46
I am, you know, trying to practice the teaching of non-attachment to it, as much as I can. I don't know whether I'll be successful, but like you said, I've been working on it, or studying and, you know, researching and all of that for years. And it's not something that I've taken lightly. It's something that I have, and I continue to work, I think this book is only the beginning, I hope, for not only my own work, but also other people, other students, other teachers, practitioners, who read it and say, 'Oh, wow, I've never thought of it this way, or I did not know about this particular thing, and I want to learn more about it.' So I really hope it sparks curiosity and inquiry into all these questions that I ask and talk about. So I'm excited. I'm excited and hopeful, in some ways, that it is hopefully going to open a few doors.
Jivana Heyman 8:41
Oh god. I mean, it's incredible. I just want to say, like, I talk about your book so much already, and it's not even out in the world. Almost every class I'm teaching, somehow I end up referring back to this book. And I think, well, people haven't even read it. They can't read it yet, but I got to read it early and I actually read it twice, because it's quite dense, I found that I really needed to think and reflect, because there's just so much there. Honestly, you put so much there. But I'm very excited about it. I'm very excited about the yoga world, you know, having access to that, to your work, and to this book in particular. Do you want to describe it? I mean, I could describe it, but maybe I'll let you describe it a little bit first. Really, it feels to me, like this book that there's two things. There's almost like two sections, right? Do you want to talk about that?
Anjali Rao 9:34
Yeah, sure. First of all, I want to say thank you. Thank you for, you know, igniting this idea, putting the seed in my own mind that I could even write a book. Because I was doing this work and one day you were like, why are you not putting this out into, like, in a book proposal? And and you were the one who, you know, you not only said that, but you followed it up with next steps about how I should go about doing it. So without you, honestly, there would be no book. And like you said, the book is almost like a part A, part B. Part A would be, and though it is not divided into such things in the book, but it is actually that. The first would be like offering a foundation of what yoga is, what caste is, what history of Hinduism sort of is in relationship to yoga. So that would be sort of the beginning, the foundations of that. And those are all extremely politicized and controversial topics so I had to really research that and make sure I'm sharing it from a very nuanced perspective, rather than like a sensationalist perspective. That would be the first part, and the second part is really delving into time periods in yoga history, from the Upanishads to the Puranas to the Bhakti to later on, the pre-colonial, colonial times. And I have talked about four sort of people, four women, who are from these different periods, and we delve into the dynamics between caste, gender, and patriarchy and all of that within yoga history, the threads of that within yoga history, and really trying to deconstruct that and demystify that, because not many practitioners are even aware of these things. So I really try to offer, for some folks, it'll be a completely brand new introduction, and for people who have already have thought of it, or already know of it, I hope it offers more insight into some of these threads. So it's a feminist lens on yoga history, where I deconstruct the dynamics of power and caste and gender.
Jivana Heyman 12:04
Yeah. And I realized I didn't even say the title of the book, which is Yoga As Embodied Resistance: A Feminist Lens on Caste, Gender, and Sacred Resilience in Yoga History. I think you summarized it really beautifully. To me, it felt like, first of all, that first section felt...I was very grateful for because it can be so hard to find information that I trust. Of course, I trust you because I know you, but you know, I think just from most contemporary practitioners, there's like so many voices out there. So it's just nice to have, like, you know, a perspective from you on, and especially like you talked about, you know, yoga in the West being different from in India. And I think you have a special place having experienced both. Like, I feel like you have this view that's so broad that most people don't, you know being Indian and actually really understanding the culture and then living here for so long. How long is it that you've lived in the U.S. now?
Anjali Rao 12:07
It's going to be 30 this December.
Jivana Heyman 12:41
30 years. (30 years.) Yeah. So, I mean, you do have a special perspective, I think, and I feel like that's reflected in the book, you know, because you kind of see both sides.
Anjali Rao 13:26
I do. And I see that yoga is sort of being homogenized across the world, right? So this notion of yoga as asana, as physical fitness and capitalism and commodification is not unique to the West. It's being sort of taken over all over, you know, the world, and I only see that in the Indian part, because I come from there and I come from a big city. So those are the some of the things that I think make it more homogenized, you know, the Westernization, the globalization of economy and all of that. So, yeah, I've offered, what actually you described it, and I really liked what you described in your review of the book that I've tried to really offer, like a panoramic view of what yoga is, because it is so vast and so complex, to the best of my ability and knowledge. And sort of the evolution of the teachings, in some way, with a lens which has not really been offered, again, to the best of my knowledge, which is a feminist lens and an intersectional feminist lens, because from a person with caste privilege, I'm also bringing in the insights into caste hierarchies which exist through yoga and larger Indic history.
Anjali Rao 14:59
So what we need to really consider as yoga practitioners is that yoga was never developed, never was evolved in this sort of a vacuum. It was never a pristine thing that was not untouched by what was happening around. In fact, a lot of the pressures for the development came from what was happening around. So in terms of establishment of caste and establishment of, quote, unquote, a monolithic sort of religion. So all those things are very complex, and people may not even know it. Some people may not even have heard of some of the things that I've talked about, and some of the things may have been glossed over and people want to know more. So I hope, I really want to, like, bridge scholarship and practitioners, because I do think that it's a thing. I mean, I worked enough in Accessible Yoga, and I know how important, you know how important that value of accessibility is to me, to really bridge scholarship and practitioner was a big part of the way, why I've written the book. It's not an easy book. It's not something you can read and just kind of like flip over. Maybe that also you can do, I don't know, but I hope it's something which will make people pause and take notes and ask questions and dig in other ways, like, oh, what does this really mean when she says that? You know? So, I really want to bridge that sort of a divide between scholarship and practice. That's my hope.
Jivana Heyman 16:37
Well, I appreciate that, but I think there, and I think you do, because I was able to read it, and I'm not much of a scholar.
Anjali Rao 16:48
No, but you're an experienced, smart teacher.
Jivana Heyman 16:52
Yes, I'm an experienced teacher, but I'm just saying I was able to read it. I had to read it twice. But, I mean, I feel like I had to take my time, like you said, but I want to go back to something else you were talking about, and that is the relationship with how yoga is part of the culture around it. And I found that to be kind of a theme within the book. And I think it's what you refer to me in the subtitle, as sacred resilience. But it feels like, what I found really exciting about the book is how you kind of focus on those threads where yoga was coming from, you know, like grassroots movements, or like the indigenous practices, or like, from individual people who are kind of outside of the culture of women, or non binary folk who are just, like, doing it on their own. And then that was kind of then, like, often, that was pulled in to the kind of mainstream. I thought that was a kind of interesting thing that you were able to do. You're not just giving a simple history of yoga here. And I think that's what I love about this book, because, I mean, I've read yoga history. But to me, there's, like you said, a special lens or a special view that you have, which you're calling this feminist lens. But I don't know if people really know even what that means, right? It's a very broad term. I think it has to do with, like, seeing how some marginalized community's work is then kind of absorbed into the general culture. Yeah? Is that what...?
Anjali Rao 18:22
Yes and no. I mean, a feminist lens is actually really also breaking down the foundations of patriarchal...right. I mean, lot of the teachings were birthed and generated by men, so at least what has sort of been passed down, right from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras to Mahabharata to all of that. And it's far more complex, but most of the teachings which have been passed on are either commentaries by men or translations of commentaries, and all of them, most of the really influential ones, through centuries, and it's not really right now, through centuries, go back to first a Brahmin man and then Euro American man, right? And those are important perspectives, but what I'm trying to also say those are not the only perspectives of everything. And what are the perspectives that we are talking about? We're talking about the conceptualization of a physical body, of what does spirituality really mean? What does liberation really mean? So all those questions were answered by a specific group of people with a certain worldview and lived experience, but it's really not encompassing of the rest, and those were not really absorbed into the mainstream until it went through a male lens and a male prism. So my question then is, is there something like non-patriarchal spirituality and what would that be? Because at the end of the day, yoga is a spiritual practice. It is about moksha. It is about liberation, and kaivalya, called different things from different traditions. But at the end of the day, it is that, right, it is about liberation. But who is defining what that liberation is? How have we learned about what is liberation? So those are the questions that I ask in this book, and I offer, hopefully, different people who have answered this in different ways, some of them, and also, at the end, I offer reflections to really make it practical in some ways. At the end of the day, I'm a very practical, tangible person. I love nerding out on things, but I also want to know how it's going to impact my life, my practice, my teaching, the space that I want to hold as a teacher, facilitator. So I really hope to bring in like, practical ways of applying this, you know, sort of, quote, unquote, academic research. That's my hope.
Jivana Heyman 21:09
Well, I think, in a way, you've done it through, like, telling the story of these particular figures in yoga as well. I feel like you make it much more accessible, I think, like in the second part of the book, when it goes into their individual stories and their teachings. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, because I think that's the piece that's going to really make people excited. Because I think these are people, these are figures who have been largely ignored or hidden through history, probably because of the lenses you're talking about. Like, the way yoga is often seen through the male gaze, yeah? And here are these incredible figures, and it was so moving to read their, it wasn't always their story, but sometimes their teaching, like, what they were sharing with the world.
Anjali Rao 21:59
Yeah, yeah. Many, things. Like, the first one is from the Upanishads, who is then, you know, quoted in the Mahabharata. So I talk about how certain things are picked up from the text, like the Vedas and the Upanishads, and then they carry through different epics, for example, and then that again, becomes influential in other ways to different regions. So I try to bring in those aspects of how culture is disseminated, how culture is shaped, you know, and the richness of perspectives that are lost when we are homogenizing culture, right? So I talk about gender and gender essentialism and what yoga, the teachings of yoga talk about gender essentialism. So that that comes in my first story, if you will. And then the second is to really talk about sensuality, spirituality, sexuality as a continuum that it's really not, you know, pleasure is not a bad thing. And so I know in the ascetic path, we have pleasure as being this evil thing that we are not supposed to do. But actually, in many of the teachings, which are also there in the Puranas, for example, and other traditions like classical dance, where pleasure, or shringar rasa, or, you know, the aspect of beauty and joy, and that is really not a bad thing. That's also a part of the human experience, and that can be transformed, alchemized into something liberatory, right? And then there are other people who have challenged patriarchy, who have challenged gender norms, Bhakti practitioners, who have come from all across the caste, class spectrum, and who have challenged patriarchy and monarchy and all of that. So different sort of resistance movements through history and through different paradigms and through different mediums. One does it through a debate. One does it through dissent. One does it through, you know, embracing the naked body. And one does it through emphasizing her own agency and saying what my story is really important for me to be shared to the world, and it has nothing to do with my not being educated in a certain way or whatever. So I have really tried to bring in different perspectives from different religious traditions as well, because yoga has got all these elements which are perhaps not as well known or ignored or misunderstood. So I really have tried to bring in different traditions. Some of them are from the Sikh, some little bit from the Islam, and then there is, of course, a the Puranas and what we later call as Hinduism. So those are the threads of histories that I hope to kind of woven in through into the book.
Jivana Heyman 25:13
Yeah, that's amazing. I really hope that people will order the book. If people are listening, they can order it. Also, it'd be great in teacher training programs. I feel like it's the kind of book that yoga teachers need to have access to, like the most current information about yoga history. And this, I think, rather new perspective. I mean, obviously it's not new, but it's like bringing a different angle than we generally have to yoga history, right?
Anjali Rao 25:43
Absolutely, because my thing is that if yoga, and yoga is a microcosm, right, our practice, our teachings, all of that, it's a part of the larger macrocosm. And my hope and intention is that, a lot of essentialism is going on in the world today about everything, like from yoga to our history, our collective history to, you know, and this is sort of essentialism is not conducive for actual liberation, actual societal, collective transformation, right? Because we are flattening everything, and my hope is that...
Jivana Heyman 26:23
Could you explain? So essentialism is that, you know, just like black and white thinking. Is that what you're saying? Like, very simple versus...
Anjali Rao 26:30
Yeah, essentialism is polarized thinking. It's also saying that this thing exists in a certain way, and there is no other way to think about it. So it's being very prescriptive, definitive about a practice, or a concept, or a experience, or a tradition. So my thing is, let's really look at yoga as not as an essentialist practice that is completely frozen in time. It has evolved. It has changed. It has developed. It has innovated. And when I say it, it is like, huge. And depending on a person's lived experience, we experience these things, these concepts, these teachings, differently. So for people who are caste oppressed, not all of yoga, or most of yoga is probably not liberatory. Some of these teachings have harmed people who have been oppressed by caste. So those are the things that we have not named enough and examined enough, not explored enough. And it's time to really look at that from that perspective. And again, you know, this is a very special book, because the forward is written by Thenmozhi Soundararajan, who I have to mention, who's a Dalit feminist, and whose book, Trauma of Caste, itself talked about the harm and oppressions of caste, both here in the Western diaspora, as well as in different parts of South Asia. So it is a special book and unique book, and I hope it really helps to inspire practitioners and readers to question and to not be afraid of uncomfortable questions. You know, on the mat we are always taught by our teachers that discomfort sometimes may not be harmful, that we have to kind of breathe into the discomfort, not push ourselves into harm, but to really build some sort of capacity. And I hope this book will help to build capacity for asking difficult questions of ourselves and of our society.
Jivana Heyman 28:55
Well, I know it will. That's why I'm so excited and grateful. I'm very grateful to you. I know how much work it was. I have a sense, because I talked to you about it as it went along, but I just know you poured yourself into it, into the research and writing, and it's, you know, I mean, it's grueling work, and I think we're all lucky to have the results, to get access to the results of your reflection and research. I'm just so excited for people to read this book, and I think you're going to be surprised at the reaction. I think it's gonna be incredibly positive, and people are just gonna be so grateful to be able to finally read, you know this book that we've been talking about so for so long.
Anjali Rao 29:45
Yeah, I hope so. I hope it helps and supports people in all the ways. And, you know, I'm also open to like...I know that it'll not be easy for many people, and there'll be criticism as well. So, like I mentioned, I think with you only that, I really hope to hold that with non-attachment, and, you know, accept that as well.
Jivana Heyman 30:10
Yeah. I mean, one of the challenges of writing a book is that it's finished and it exists in time. And so it's like, you have to stop writing, stop editing, and then that's it, and it goes to print. And, I mean, yeah, there could be later additions, but usually you're just stuck with that. And it can be hard, you know, going back and looking at my books that I've written a few years ago, I'm just like, oh my gosh. I don't know if I would say that now. You know, like, I've changed, but this is it'll be, there's a date on there, and that's what you're thinking at that time, and then, yeah, you have to just let it go. I think non attachment is exactly right. I mean, it's out into the world. It's free to do what it needs to do. But anyway, I think it's going to be incredibly impactful. And I'm very excited. (Thank you.) But I also wanted to spend a moment talking about you. (Me? What about me?) Well, I wanted to ask if you might might be willing to share a story or a practice or teaching, because what I've been asking all the guests who've joined me for this season is to reflect on their journey, just like I'm trying to do reflecting on 30 years of teaching. And I wondered if you had some story or a teaching or something that really stays with you today, and kind of still has that impact? You know, how, like certain moments in time stay with us. I was just wondering if you'd be willing to share anything?
Anjali Rao 31:36
I think it's a lovely question. And thank you for asking me this question because, you know, sometimes you forget, so it's a great reminder. I have two, actually, and the first one is, and I probably have shared with you personally, is when I decided that I wanted to be a yoga teacher. It was right after, I'm a breast cancer survivor, so I started yoga asana classes from a studio nearby, because I really liked the teacher. From our conversation, she seemed really solid. Lynn, this is Lynn. So I went to her first class, and I was, like, blown away. It was a gentle yoga class. There was nothing very, you know, glamorous, you know. So it was just a lovely experience where I actually felt the connection with my mind, like my mental space and my physical space. Till then, I had, kind of like, disconnected in some ways, because I think that's a part of trauma. You kind of, just as a cancer survivor, you know, you kind of like disconnect that. So that was like, that moment I knew that I wanted to share this practice with other people who are going through cancer. And I was like, I want to share this, what happened with me. Because something opened up, something connected, something sort of sparked. And it was not a fun experience, but it was a very emotional experience. It was a very visceral experience. And so I went to my teacher, and I said, I want to teach this. And she said, you know, come to my second yoga class. It was my first yoga class. She's like, why don't you come to my second class? So, long story short, I went to practice every single day, and I had two young children, so I had to kind of figure out how to manage that and go to my practice. And one more thing which Lynn did, which I really loved, I was really struggling in the practice, like, asana practice. I just gone through surgery, two young children, so but what she did was she gave me a little corner. I mean, she let me be. And I did whatever...I mean, I couldn't do 90% of the things. She gave me blocks. But I was like, no, I will not use blocks. You know, young and foolish. And then after some time, I started using blocks, and I started using all the things, and I'm like, oh, wow, this is amazing. But she just let me be. She did not force her opinions on me. She did not try to over correct me in any way. And I really enjoyed that feeling of freedom when it came to my own body, and I realized that it was agency that she was teaching me, that I have agency over my body, which is something which we don't get sometimes. That was my first experience, and I knew that I wanted to teach and share yoga. I did an internship to teach yoga for people with cancer, and I taught at Stanford. So that is one of my biggest...I still look back on that. And I always told, told myself that if ever I get to teach teachers, that is what I would share. That, you know, the biggest gift we are giving our students is the sense of connection and agency with their own experience, right?
Jivana Heyman 35:02
I love that. I mean, that's a huge part of Accessible Yoga, obviously.
Anjali Rao 35:05
Exactly. That's why your work resonated with me so much, because I was like, this is what I was drawn to, in terms of yoga. So that's my first one, and the second one was my 300 hour teaching training was actually, the exam was me teaching philosophy. We could choose anything, and I chose to teach on yoga philosophy, not yoga philosophy. It was, it had to be very, very specific. It was "Heyam duhkham anagatam," from the Yoga Sutra. So I did this whole entire, workshop, practice, teaching around that. And love talking about it and teaching about it. And we had to record it, and we had to, like, share it and get feedback from our teachers. And most people did a yoga class of 90 minutes, and I did a yoga quote, unquote, yoga philosophy class. And I knew that I touched something within me that I wanted to kind of continue. So those are the two things I would say. I still go back to my studentship of yoga and think about how beautiful and wonderful that experience was.
Speaker 1 35:05
Yeah, but you said you wanted to teach after your very first class. Had you done yoga before when you were in India? Was that something you had...?
Anjali Rao 36:29
I had never done yoga before in India. I hated it. I thought it was boring. I was a dancer. So that was my big part of my physical practice, was classical dance, kathak. So I did not like yoga asana at all. We were taught yoga asana and pranayama and all of that in high school, but I did not like the teacher, nor did I like it. So it took me to come to the US and learn from people who had, you know, their different trainings here. So that's why I feel like yoga is such a wonderful way of really connecting people from so many different parts of the world and lived experiences and backgrounds. It can be a place of real, beautiful connection, you know? So we have so much to be grateful for.
Jivana Heyman 37:25
Yeah, and then I love that your other story was about teaching yoga philosophy, since that's what you do so beautifully. And you mentioned, I think, is it Book Two, Sutra 15 or 16? And which one is that? (15.) 15?
Anjali Rao 37:39
Yeah, it's still one of my favorite. I love that sutra.
Jivana Heyman 37:44
"Future suffering is avoidable." I don't know which translation you like, but just so people, if they didn't know the sanskrit, but I wanted them to know which sutra you were talking about, because it's so it's such a beautiful one.
Anjali Rao 37:53
Thank you for reminding me, yes. Yes. "The future of suffering is avoidable." That's one of my favorite sutras.
Jivana Heyman 37:59
Yeah, it's really powerful. Wow. Anjali, thank you. I don't want to keep you forever. I mean, I'll probably keep talking to you when we're done recording, but I just want to keep all our listeners. I don't want to keep them forever, but I just want to thank you for being here and for sharing those stories and also about your book. I'm very, very excited. Anything else you wanted to say, anything wanted to share?
Anjali Rao 38:20
Nothing, thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. And the book is available for pre order. It's coming out on October 14th. I will also be doing a reading circle. It's on my website. I hope to you know, really get into the book in deeper ways, and connect with community. So that's another place where you can learn with me. And we are doing a launch event also. So Jivana has kindly agreed to be a host of the event. So please come and celebrate this book. I don't think it's only my celebration, I really think it's a community celebration that we are getting together to talk about these things in relationship with each other. So I'm excited about that.
Jivana Heyman 39:08
I love that. Yeah, I'm very excited to celebrate with you. We'll have links in the show notes to all of that, so people can check it out. Also, you mentioned Thenmozhi's book, so we'll have a link to that as well, so people can read more about The Trauma of Caste, since you mentioned it. And, yeah, I'm just very excited, very excited. I really think the yoga world is not going to be the same! [laughs]
Anjali Rao 39:31
Oh my god. I hope so. I hope it opens doors, and I hope it disrupts homogeneity. That's what I want. I would say we are living this beautiful, big, complex, diverse world, and also should embrace that.
Jivana Heyman 39:49
I love that. Thanks, Anjali.
Anjali Rao 39:51
Thank you, Jivana. (Okay, bye.)
Jivana Heyman 40:02
Managing the business side of yoga can be a constant struggle with difficult technology and fragmented systems, and that's where our sponsor, Offering Tree comes in. They're an all in one platform designed to bring that sense of ease back to your business. You get a beautiful website, scheduling, and email marketing all in one place, which means less time on your computer and more time on the mat. They're even hosting a free webinar on October 9th at 11am Pacific, all about how to plan holiday promotions in a way that feels authentic and aligned with your teaching. Business Coach Niki Riga will show us how to grow our business while deepening our impact. And as a thank you for being part of our community. OfferingTree is offering you a free trial, plus 50% off your first three months. You can sign up for the webinar and get that discount to the link in the show notes.
Jivana Heyman 40:58
Hi everyone. Welcome back. Hi, Deanna.
Deanna Michalopoulos 41:00
Hey, Jivana. How's it going?
Jivana Heyman 41:03
Good. I think, yeah, I'm good. How about you?
Deanna Michalopoulos 41:06
I'm good. I've been in Ireland, in West Ireland, for a week now, and it's good to be here.
Jivana Heyman 41:13
I know it's exciting. How does it feel to be out of the U.S.? It must be a relief right now.
Deanna Michalopoulos 41:19
You know that, I guess it does. Like, wherever you go, there you are. But it's also like wherever you go, there your feeds are. So I think I'm still pretty informed and entrenched in everything happening in the world, and I don't really plan to, like, put my head in the sand. But you know, it is good to be here.
Jivana Heyman 41:36
Yeah, and I know you're going to be away for a long time, right? You're not going to be in Ireland all year, though are you?
Deanna Michalopoulos 41:43
No, no. For the next year my partner has a sabbatical, and so we're here for the year. It kind of depends on where he ends up with his design contacts. So anyway, I'm looking forward to like, being in new places for the next year and experiencing different cultures. And it's all very interesting.
Jivana Heyman 42:01
Wow, that's so exciting. I love traveling. I mean, that's been one of the best things about, you know, leading Accessible Yoga Trainings around the world, and getting to travel and meet yoga teachers everywhere, and also online trainings. It's so fun. Like, we have a training starting, and it's like, I think half of the participants are from outside the U.S., which is so exciting to see that interest in Accessible Yoga really expanding.
Deanna Michalopoulos 42:23
I'm really excited to find a studio here, try out a few. Now that I've been here a week and I'm kind of settled, there are a few studios, and, yeah, I like going places and sort of, like, it's part of the whole culture here. Like, check out a yoga studio and see what that...
Jivana Heyman 42:37
And I might be coming there, right? I think next year, maybe September, I think. I'm planning to come to the UK and Ireland. It's unclear right now exactly where I'm going, but I've always loved my Irish students that I've had, they have a special place in my heart. So I don't know what it is about Irish people, but just very dynamic, funny, lively, you know.
Deanna Michalopoulos 43:00
Good storytellers.
Jivana Heyman 43:03
It's so great. Well, I hope you enjoy it. And what do you think about this conversation with Anjali?
Deanna Michalopoulos 43:09
I love this conversation with you and Anjali. You're friends and Anjali's book is coming out in about three weeks, you know, from our conversation here. And I'm just so excited for her book, and it was really interesting to hear her talk about it and to hear her describe it, because I've read a sneak peek, and it's an incredible book. Like you're, I think, as a practitioner, you're going to savor it, and you're going to want to repeat sections over and over again. And I'm just really excited for this book.
Jivana Heyman 43:40
Yeah, it is amazing. I know, I mentioned I've read it twice, and actually yesterday I went back to it, and I was kind of reading it again, and I realized I need to start at the beginning and read it a third time, because it's very dense. It's like, I don't know, it's the kind of book that you need to spend time with. She did so much research. I mean, I know how hard she worked on this, but it really, it really comes through. It's like there's just such a fullness of research and like, a depth to it that's really remarkable. And I honestly, maybe I just don't know about academic books that much, but to me, it felt really special in that way, that there's like, real information here that we can use.
Deanna Michalopoulos 44:22
And just, I just want to call out, Anjali's writing. It's beautiful. It's beautifully written. And I just feel like the bands of nuance that she threads into everything she writes and the stories is, yeah, I think we all have a lot to learn about how to talk about things in that way.
Jivana Heyman 44:40
She is a great writer. I don't know if she recognizes that in herself, but I always tell her that she writes really beautifully. She has a wonderful, I don't know, easy way about it, but also, she has an incredible vocabulary. I'm always struck by the words she uses. And I was actually rereading or flipping through the book yesterday because I'm going to quote her in my new book. And as I'm working on a book right now, I'm thinking, wow, how did she how did she do this? It's amazing. I also love the balance that she found with history and storytelling, and how it doesn't feel like you're just reading a history book. There's these beautiful examples of these four practitioners towards the end of the book that are just really touching and inspiring for people that you know, mostly women that just are relatively unknown in the yoga world and are great, like incredible and have such powerful teaching. So anyway, I was really grateful to her about that, to have that to share that with us.
Deanna Michalopoulos 45:37
Can I quote just like a few sentences? (Please.) "The long arms of yoga history also have embraced movements of resistance against oppression, a remembrance of these rebellious, resilient voices can inform and inspire our own endeavors of resistance against contemporary dominant cultures." I mean, just beautiful and so timely, and you know exactly what we need now to, like, reach far back, to gather these stories and, like, synthesize them, metabolize them, and bring them into our practice and lives now. (Yeah.) All the lessons from them.
Jivana Heyman 46:13
That is beautiful. The other thing she talked about in this podcast conversation, she was talking about how yoga has been, what are those words she used? Like, made into one thing, like homogenized, she kept saying. And I think that's really useful for contemporary practitioners to recognize that the yoga that we're practicing today is kind of a mixture of a lot of things, and we want to be able to define it and say yoga is this thing, but really it's so much more complex than that. And I think sometimes it can be hard, especially maybe with our busy lives and busy minds, to hold complexity and to hold different ideas at the same time in our mind that yoga can be so many different things and that it has such a complex history. In the book, she talks about it being like a quilt, you know, which is a cool analogy. And there's actually a section that I was quoting because I'm writing about different paths of yoga and relate to meditation right now. And there's a section I was reading, she says, and this is from her book. It says, "Nothing is created in isolation. The concept of purity of a people, a practice, a concept is a fallacy. In truth, practices, concepts, systems, religions and institutions are built from their predecessors. This notion of collective creation can shift power constructs regarding who is considered as an owner and an expert and why." And I really love that this idea of just, you know, we're trying to see it as a homogenized thing, but actually it's more like something that's built on the past over time. And so it's nice to be able to look back and kind of reveal some of those pieces that have been lost in history. And I feel like she does that so beautifully. And I really appreciate that.
Jivana Heyman 48:11
It reminds me of another writer, Georg Feuerstein, who I really love, and I think is important for yoga practitioners to know. He passed away a few years ago, but he just did such incredible work around yoga history. And I know Anjali is a fan of him as well. And I was looking back at his book, The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy, and Practice, which is this huge encyclopedia of yoga. And as I was looking and reading it, I was like, wow, this is like, I can feel the same feeling I get from him, that I get from Anjali, which is just this expansive understanding of something that just feels so enormous. I don't know. It's just really touching to me and kind of amazing. Anyway. So congratulations, Anjali on your book, and I'm so excited to celebrate with you. We're going to have a book launch with Anjali, and one of her teachers actually will be there in conversation with her, and we're hosting it at Accessible Yoga. We can put a link in the show notes so people can join for this free book launch and learn more about it from Anjali herself, and hopefully order her book. And we can put a link to that, for that as well, for ordering the book in the show notes anyway. And I'm grateful for you, Anjali, for the book and for your friendship and for this conversation.
Deanna Michalopoulos 49:30
I love this. Yes, our book comes out Tuesday October 14th, the parties on Friday, October 17th, and then I believe Anjali is hosting a reading circle on our own platform. And so if you want to dive into the book with her, with her guidance, which I'm really looking forward to that, that starts the following week, on Friday, October 24th. We'll drop all those links in. (Cool.) So we actually, Jivana, shifting gears, we have a few responses and questions this week. (Yay!) So, you know, I'm going to start with a question from Becky Aten, who works and supports Accessible Yoga. And here it is. It's a complicated question. "The yoga communities I'm part of tend to be very left leaning. I'm curious about perspectives on how to offer yoga to folks in more conservative communities. For example, I was raised as an evangelical Christian fundamentalist, and yoga was very controversial. As I'm doing more community outreach as a yoga facilitator, I've spoken to a handful of folks from religious backgrounds like mine who question whether it's okay to practice yoga as a Christian. Some will engage in asana practice, but not chanting or meditation. I know it's a bit out of the usual scope of Accessible Yoga, but I'd be really curious to hear more said about this topic." What do you think?
Jivana Heyman 50:52
Yeah, that's a good question, Becky. I agree with you. It's pretty complicated, and it's a hard one. I feel like the key word there in that question is fundamentalism. And I actually think that fundamentalism is one of the biggest challenges we're facing in the world today, and that fundamentalism is what keeps us stuck in binaries and in fighting. And I actually think that's one of the strengths of yoga, is it helps us move beyond that binary. In fact, I don't know if this is really related, but in the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali talks about asana, like the benefit of asana, when you become established in it, is that you transcend binary. You know, the duality, he calls it. And I think it's interesting, because yoga offers that potential of seeing beyond the limited ways that we might already see things or perceive things. But I also don't think we can force anyone to do that. And so regarding that part of the question, you know, how to encourage someone who is in a fundamentalist religion to consider something like yoga. I really don't know, honestly, how to reach someone like that. It reminds me also a bit of like being in a cult. I would say that I was basically in a cult myself in yoga, and it's limited thinking, you know.
Jivana Heyman 52:19
I think we just do our best to be friendly and open and welcoming to people regarding how we teach, and that is the basis of Accessible Yoga. I think Accessible Yoga is about making people feel like they can be safe with us. At the same time, we can't force people to come. So if they don't want to practice yoga, if they're not interested, that's fine, you know, they're not going to. Even though I want yoga to be for everyone, I recognize that it's not going to be, right, not everyone's going to practice, and that's fine. They can find their own way. But I just would say, for me, I do my best to welcome people without changing yoga, I would say, and I think that's maybe the other element to consider, is that we don't need to change yoga to make it work for other people, necessarily. Like, we can adapt practice related to someone's disability or even maybe their belief system, but only to a certain point, because I don't think we want to, what's the word you know? Like, yeah, do you know what I'm saying, Deanna? Like, change yoga just for them. Like, that doesn't feel like the way to go.
Deanna Michalopoulos 53:22
Yeah, sort of like, slice and dice the practice and only offer the pieces that...
Jivana Heyman 53:28
Which is part of what Becky was asking. You know, she said some will engage in asana, and that's okay. Like, I don't mind if people come to yoga and just do asana, but I'm not going to limit what I share just to make people feel safe there. I think that I'm not going to lie to them, honestly. I'm not going to not tell the truth. Which is yoga, right? Satya, truthfulness. The truth is that yoga is a spiritual practice, and I'm not going to lie about that. I would say yoga is not a religion. People could practice yoga as a religion if they want to, but yoga, per se, is not religion. It is spiritual practice, and I think that's useful to mention, that they're welcome to practice part of it, and also to be Christian or whatever religion they have. You can do both, because yoga actually is more of like the basic fundamental technology of spirituality that can help people go deeper in their personal religion or spiritual practice. So I see there's nothing wrong with them practicing it, but they may not perceive it that way, and that's really them up to them, right? And for personal decision and personal choice, and that's where we always go with Accessible Yoga, is that we get people that choice and agency and how they want to practice. What do you think, Deanna, what do you think about that?
Deanna Michalopoulos 54:44
My goodness, it's so complex, you know, like, meeting people where they are is so important. And also, like a fundamental tenet, I would say, of Accessible Yoga, right, offering people options in order, you know, to create an on ramp for practice and experiencing the fullness of the practice in themselves. And so, yeah, I like what you said, though, about like, you don't feel like you would need to change yoga. Like, you know, it's very nuanced, right? Like, sharing the practice in its fullness, and yet also kind of not...how do I want to say this? Like, you know, you're not trying to make a point with their practice. Or like, you know, like, be adversarial in your teachings in, like, a passive, aggressive way. And I know Becky, you're not like saying that at all. But it's like a fine balance, right between, like, offering what you offer, making it accessible, and maintaining fullness of the practice.
Jivana Heyman 55:38
I think I can give an example. Well, two examples come to mind, actually. One is that within the yoga tradition, it's clear that people can choose their vision of the Divine. You know what I mean? In the Yoga Sutras, for example, if we're talking about classical yoga tradition and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, you know, he's very clear that he's offering, again, like this kind of technology or means to to an end, and that you can use whatever form you like. And he says that very clearly, use whatever meditation technique you want, or whatever. You can repeat OM, or you can think of a divine being. And he doesn't say what that is. And so it could be Jesus Christ, right? That could be the form that you envision, so you could actually use that vision of the Divine and still practice yoga in that way. And I had an example of that myself. I had a student once a long time ago, who was. I had been teaching mantra repetition, and as meditation I was repeating. I was teaching people to practice Om Shanti, which means peace. And she came to me after class, and she said, I'm having trouble keeping my mind focused on Om Shanti when I meditate. And I started to tell her, well, it's okay. That's normal, when you're start, when you're a beginner, your mind wanders. You know, like, that's what most people, the problem most people have, our mind wonders. She said, well, the reason is because my mind is constantly repeating the Lord's Prayer, so I can't focus on Om Shanti, and then I just kind of to laugh to myself, which is that I, you know, she's basically meditating on that prayer. Her mind is constantly repeating the Lord's Prayer. That's incredible. Like she has a very strong meditation practice already, and my job is to recognize that, that she's already doing it. She's already meditating. So my effort to teach her Om Shanti, was actually taking her away from her practice, right? So that's what I'm saying, is that you can have a religion and also practice yoga, as long as you find a way to integrate them without disrespecting either, I would say. And that's a personal journey, right? Anyway, thanks Becky, for that question. I hope that was useful.
Deanna Michalopoulos 57:54
Thanks, Jivana. We actually now have a voicemail from Lori Dearwester Vice. So I'm going to go ahead and play that now.
Lori 58:02
I agree. If we could all continuously exude loving kindness and do no harm, that would make everything ideal. I also think it isn't necessarily simple to embody ahimsa. For example, I accidentally flung a spider through the forest this morning as I was trying to look at it closer, because I didn't know the spider was attached to my shoe until I moved my foot to get a better view of the spider. The whole thing reminded me of that scene in Seven Years in Tibet where Heinrich Herr tells the Dalai Lama you can't possibly not harm the worms and build a movie theater. Of course, the Dalai Lama's answer was that Heinrich was smart and he should be thinking about it. I also think most humans, since we now know that microscopic life exists, more of us do have some awareness of how complicated embodying ahimsa that could be. I do still go towards. As a teacher, I think Accessible Yoga options and ideas are super useful, because what helps one person could harm another. We really need equity, agency, and variation so each person can access the tools of yoga.
Jivana Heyman 59:18
Wow. What a great comment, Lori. Thank you for that. I think Laurie was referencing a post I made on Instagram or on Facebook maybe a couple weeks ago, or just like two weeks ago, about ahimsa. I think I was talking about how if we just practiced ahimsa, our classes would automatically be accessible, right? But that's the primary teaching of yoga. And so if we practiced ahimsa, which is non-harm and non-violence, it's the first of yoga is ethical teachings, right? The first limb of Ashtanga Yoga, the yamas, starts with ahimsa. And the other thing about Ahimsa is that we could say that non-harm or non-violence could also be defined as loving kindness or just love and caring for people. But I appreciate what Lori said, because I do think it's easy to get stuck on these teachings and realize that there's no way to be perfect. It can be disheartening, you know, to think that she killed a spider, or you know that when you walk down the street, you're stepping on some animal or insect and killing it. Like in Jainism, which is closely associated with yoga, a religion from India. One of the primary teachings in Jainism is ahimsa, non-violence, and people will wear masks, before we were masking, they were wearing masks to avoid inhaling insects and killing them. And they would sweep the path in front as they walked to move any bugs away so they wouldn't step on them. There was just incredible care. So they take ahimsa, even now, there's many people in that religion and traditions, who take ahimsa extremely seriously, and it's quite moving and profound. So I don't want to say I can't tell people where the line is, like where, where is the balance, but I do think it's a personal reflection, and part of our personal practice to decide where that line is in terms of how much harm are you going to cause in your life. You know, I think it's just part of our journey as humans, because I do think it's impossible not to cause harm in the world. And I don't think ahimsa is a teaching about perfection. I think it's about direction and helping us align our actions with our goals and try to move in that direction of non-harm, of kindness and care for others.
Jivana Heyman 1:01:54
And I sometimes think perfectionism can actually be a way for the mind to avoid dealing with it at all. Do what I'm saying, like extremism, just saying, oh well, if I can't be perfect in ahimsa, I'm just not going to do it at all. I'm not saying, Lori is saying that, but I just think some people use that as an excuse, and I just feel like that's not it. It's about an orientation towards kindness and care for others. And that's what I I feel like yoga is about. It's just like deciding what it is that you can control in your life. Where do you have choice? And then consciously deciding what choices you're going to make. Do you know what I mean? In the tradition, there's some teachings that say that all we get to do is decide where we put our attention. That's the only choice we ever get to make in our lives. So where are you going to put your attention? For example, okay, this has been on my mind today because I saw a social media post this morning that really frustrated me, like, I just completely disagreed with it. I don't want to say what it was, but anyway, I started writing a comment. Like, you know, just like all these people in the world who write these angry comments on social media, and then I'm like, no. My practice is to not cause harm. Even though I think I was right, I don't want to give someone the feeling that they're wrong and that I'm right and they're wrong, you know, I don't want to harm them. So what I decided, I sat with it for hours, actually, and I decided that I would send them a private message. And so I wrote that person a private message. I mean, we kind of know each other, barely, and I explained my concern, and I tried to do it as kindly as possible, and without that confrontational feeling that I had right away. And it's someone you know in the yoga world and it ended up being a great conversation. We went back and forth many, many times. I mean, we had a whole conversation about it, and I felt really good about my choice to pause and to not just jump into the comments and disagree, and to reach out to them privately and to voice my concern, and actually, in many ways, they were right. I mean, we I think we both had really valid points, actually. So it was great. I think it was a great learning for me personally, and I hope what I shared was useful for them. But I'm just saying, like, that was a practice for me. of ahimsa was like pausing and recognizing that my actions, even though I feel like I'm right all the time, it could be causing harm. What do you think?
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:04:27
Yeah, I mean, that was beautiful. Thank you. I want to say that yeah, like, it's when you said, like ahimsa is an orientation toward life, right? It's a question you constantly have to kind of like, bring to the surface and reflect on every day, because we live in a capitalist society. And I think often we don't, maybe, want to admit to how much lifestyles, and, you know, what we do every day is actually harming someone unseen. And so it's like, do I need, you know, a new bath towel? Like, you know, how much do we know about how what into that bath towel's creation. So all of those things, ahimsa, like, you know, you're never going to be perfect, especially just living in this society, but yeah, just constantly bringing attention to the question of, you know, how much harm? Like, do I need to throw away the ones I already have and then harm the Earth? Just having that orientation and attention makes a difference if everyone is practicing that.
Jivana Heyman 1:05:31
And I'd say even a deeper aspect of him says the harm we do to ourselves. Because, you know, I think Patanjali is speaking on both things, he's speaking about our actions, but also about our own mind and the way we talk to ourselves. And so I feel like to me, you know, the inner dialog and the like I always say, like, I would never talk to anyone, the way I speak to myself. Do you know what I mean? And I just that's a practice of ahimsa, to recognize that. And when I hear myself being self critical or putting myself down or criticizing others in my mind, that I pause. And that's a real practice of meditation, to be able to recognize the sound of your own thoughts, and to reflect on them. And if they're causing harm, if they're truthful, like, go through the yamas, right? Not just ahimsa, but all of them. Satya, asteya, brahmacharya, aparigraha. What is that content of your mind and how can you use those teachings, not as a way to criticize yourself more, but to actually lift yourself up? The last point I'll make, which is, I believe that the teachings are to support us, right? These aren't external laws that someone is saying you should do this or else you're a bad person. It's about a pathway to freedom, and that non-harm is how we end up being free. So, yeah, hope that's helpful. Thanks again, Lori, that's a great comment. I really appreciate your sharing. Thanks for leaving a voicemail. I loved hearing her voice, didn't you?
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:07:16
Yeah, everyone, we'd love to have more voicemails. So send us a reflection, questions, feedback, we'd love to hear it.
Jivana Heyman 1:07:24
Great. All right. Should we leave it there today?
Deanna Michalopoulos 1:07:26
Let's do that. Thank you, Jivana.
Jivana Heyman 1:07:29
Yeah, thanks, Deanna, and thanks again to Anjali for this incredible conversation, and I hope to see everyone at her book launch. All right, bye. (See you soon.) Bye, Deanna.
