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Who owns yoga? I ask this question to myself as a student and as a future teacher. CANNOT WAIT to embark on my teacher training journey at Blue Banyan Yoga in Mt Airy section of Philadelphia. The tutelage to occur under Sophie Simpson and Jake Miller. In conjunction to their fantastic direction, the school offers auspicious leaders and experts including acupuncturists, anatomists, and other healing educators. The psyche behind the postures to be included deeply in this year's adventure. I am simply not someone to quit "schooling" myself. Call me the Van Wilder of my day - I don't want to live without obtaining knowledge. Learning through formal and informal instructions to be ever present in my life.
But, okay for real - who owns yoga? Is it me, the student-to-be-trained? Is it the leaders of their studios thus far? Is it Krishnamacharya? Is it anyone or anything at all? I tell you what I think. Yes and No to all. Like universe, like the practice of yoga, balance to all answers and questions. Influx and output, there is no absolute here. Yoga is mindfully "the practice of tolerating the consequences of being yourself" (Bhagavad Gita/and or scriptures inference...) My drive to gain more knowledge and awareness of this art is a sought dream I get to achieve soon; yoga has been a conversation and outlet through which several more family and friends have discussed with me as of late. To that end, it explicitly brings me pride in being a part of this phenomena. Inwardly, I find the increase and trend of yoga to be tempered by those of us who "live" yoga in its concepts, and not just the physical components or asanas of it. Although, re-read that last one for me. "...I find the increase and trend of yoga to be tempered by those of us who 'live' yoga..." Again - "those of us". "OF US." Judgment, much? How could I be an owner of yoga when personal judgments fly subconsciously upon anybody else who incorporates it into their lives? Forget postures. Forget breathing. What about flexibility? In mind and spirit? What of that glorious balance upon which yoga stabilizes its core, upon which I as a student and especially as a future teacher am supposed to cleanse such judgments of others?
Who owns yoga? It's not an animal or mortgage to own. There is no end or termination to it. Perhaps one of the few blessed entities as such. Its 'soul' purpose orients around noticing ourselves, around accepting and becoming aware. To confront it as a tangible item, that is not noticing. That is not being aware. So, perhaps not who owns yoga, but instead to whom does yoga belong? Maybe the answer is each of us. Any of us. All of us. Union of breath and body, the physical and the energetic, we each carry within us the spirit of yoga's powers already. If we choose to access it mindfully in asana or meditation or Ayurvedic qualities, so be it. And so be blessed. This practice belongs to me. It belongs to you, too.
Om shanti, namaste.
