We've reached the end of materiality
Where does self-worth truly come from who am I where do I come from why am I here and what my purpose is?
At some moment we wake up and realize that there is an unlived life, and there's an unfilled body
And yoga gives you a tool to be able to find that answer for yourself
So that you can kind of hear what I like to call a quiet voice of wisdom
How much is your presence your awareness in your body? What level of presence do we bring into all of our interactions I?
Feel like the future is it is mindfulness really the untrained mind is your biggest enemy
How long did you spend with Guruji about 10 years? What was it like when guruji passed?
You know I think there was a spiral and and the spiral ended up with me going into a period of very very dark depression
And I would wake up every day, and I would plan different means for my life that
And I would just sit there in what felt like the shattered glass of a broken heart
I was like. I am I do like I do not take like a pharmaceutical :
And so I still wake up some mornings and feel like I want to quit we go back to the practice I go back to
Faith I go back to belief I go back to the foundation of the spiritual journey, and I keep going
This week on the show we have Keno Macgregor and she is the international yoga teacher author and entrepreneur
You probably saw her doing these incredible handstand videos on her Instagram account with over 1 million followers
Some people say she wears skimpy clothes some people say she's turned yoga into a business and she shouldn't have to
But she says she does whatever she wants and she is very congruent with who she is as a person and let's face it
She is an og of yoga she's been going to India for 20 years she trained with Guru Ji
One of the founders of Ashtanga she put in 10 years of hard work
Going there every six months every year whenever she could whenever she had to and now
she is back to tell you that yoga can change your life because it gets you more in tune with who you are as a
Person, and I have to agree with her my practice in yoga started six months ago after my documentary of dorian yates
And it has changed my life as well, and so we actually didn't talk that much about yoga
We talked about spirituality what it's like to be a human and how we really need to deeply connect with ourselves
And she's no stranger to having hard times where there was a young woman when she was 19 at nyu doing way too much
MdMa haven't we all or whether when guruji died in 2013 she went to some major depression, and it's an amazing story
And I was so honored that Keno
Really got open and talked to us about the ups and the downs and the depression and the excitement and it's just an amazing
Episode and she's an amazing person so sit tight you're going to enjoy this a lot, and you're also going to enjoy
What's coming in the next month?
Which is the business accelerator our fifth class in history this is our most successful digital course of all times
It's eight weeks where I show you how to turn your passion into a business
The same way I did with London real and turned it into a seven-figure media company
I am on these calls with you every single week two hours live pointing out what you're doing wrong pointing out what you're doing
Right we have an ninety-six percent completion rate
I've got max keeling who created the investment coach a whole business advising on personal finance
I've got claire Lim in hong Kong who just opened up a movement space
I've got graduates doing amazing things would you like to be one of them? Well come check it out right now?
It's London real TV forward slash bisbee
I said there will be a limited number of places so join me on this crazy ride and let me show you how you can
Turn your passion into a business and now I give you, miss Keno McGregor
This is London real. I am brian rose my guest today is kina McGregor the international Yoga teacher author and entrepreneur
You've written four books and have co-founded the Miami life center as well as the very first
Yoga television channel home stars which launched earlier this year you are one of a select group who received certification to teach?
Ashtanga Yoga from the very founder himself in India and you now travel the world helping others learn this practice your new book the yoga
Assignment is out soon. You know welcome to London real. Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here. It's awesome to be here
I was wondering when you land in London. Do you consider our city one that has any yoga game?
of the curve when I guess
Well actually I'm here in London this time to take classes with my teachers grandson
our sharat roy so he's here and there are probably somewhere between
200 and 400 people total for all of his classes
I would say that yoga is really popular here in London whenever I come here to teach
I feel really welcomed by the yoga community here
And I feel like London and the United Kingdom in General, really
Embraces yoga is it because it's kind of got that colonial British connection
And so we're up the learning curve in kind of more Indian practises food culture or if you think of something else gosh
I hadn't really thought of it like that. I feel like
the thing that
most draws people into the practice is the idea of the search for meaning and the search for something real and
I feel that the more the more
Sort of material possessions one has the more we realized that permanent happiness cannot lie in the accumulation of material possessions
Or material wealth and perhaps. It's
logical for
A former colonial power to realize that happiness has to be found within rather than in the world without Mm-hmm
You remind me of my my shaman my ayahuasca Shaman, and I did some ceremonies with her and she's like
I want to go back to the jungle
But the plant medicine says my work is needed here in these urban environments where?
Everybody gets a little mental
We get caught up with the joneses we worried about our title and our private possessions and all that stuff
Do you think kind of yoga is needed even more in these major urban centers?
I feel like yoga's needed more in every human being because the human struggle
You know is is so essential to the yoga journey and the human struggle is really who am I?
What am I worth where do I come from?
right and the more disconnected we are from our purpose and our meaning the more we need that and
I'm finding that people as much in the cities are really yearning for that as much as people
Who say live remotely and are trying to find meaning in their lives so I almost feel?
Because I get this benefit of traveling the world and seeing really people from all over the world
I mean I've been already to asia and Australia and travel it's a bit around Europe and then
Been all over the Americas already this year and the years not even over yet, and I think what what I'm noticing?
Globally is that we're all searching for the deeper questions answers to the deeper questions
and it's the idea of
Value and the idea of worth where does self-worth truly come from who am I where do I come from what am I worth?
Why am I here and what my purpose is and yoga gives you a tool to be able to find that answer for yourself?
to be able to really attune your inner hearing so that you can kind of
Hear what I like to call a quiet voice of wisdom has always been with you
And it's always ready to speak to you at any moment
and it's really through the quietness and the stillness of the mind that I think we can find that voice that wisdom and
That's the sense of that's real truth. You know and I think we're all searching for that
I almost feel globally that it seems a little bit like there's a critical
Mass
and and we're we're searching for meaning and we're searching for a way out of maybe what has been the accumulation of the
The rat-Race getting somewhere through the accumulation of of things of objects of materialism
And it's almost like globally. I feel like we've exhausted materialism. You know we've perhaps even
Exhausted our material resources. We're reaching resource scarcity in certain places
And we've reached the end of materiality and it's the idea that now again
I feel there's almost a global a global shift of
Where's the deeper truth are we ready for it globally and I really hope we are yeah, and I do too
What are some of the signs you see that we're at this critical point where it's like. Oh my gosh
This this can't be sustained or these people are obviously kind of breaking down
well
Gosh, I think I see that in how many people have followed a career path that had been given to them
So you know we've been fed these things myself included you know get a good job get a good education
earn a good living and retire someday
So there's this sort of dream of consumerism this dream of you know you could even say the the corporate dream
You know or get a good education?
And get a good job and save money and retire and there's many people that they started that path and then at some moment
They realized this isn't gonna make me happy and I meet people like this from all walks of life from all countries
From all ethnicities from all genders and all ages that if some moment realized hey, you know what I'm going on this path
And it's not making me happy
I was on that path too, and I woke up to a deeper truth at some moment it may sound completely ridiculous
But I was on the path to I've won. I really wanted to be to work in law
But from the time I was a little girl. I remember saying to my parents. I want to be a supreme court justice
I want in the united states. I want to change the world. You know. I want to be a voice for
Minorities, and I want to be a voice a voice of justice and truth in the world
And I remember that I you know I
Started doing debate really intensively in high school to sort of get myself on that path and get into a good debate school
So then I could get into a good law school and then you know and sort of go
I had the whole path
And then there was a moment a moment in my senior year in high school
when the debate season had ended
and I didn't have to prepare for the next year because I was going to school you know going to college and
I had a few weeks off and I woke up one morning, and I just took a breath in I remember
I woke up I looked around and I thought I am so much happier
And I scratched my head, and I thought for a moment. I saw what's missing and I realized that. What was missing was debate
Which I suddenly realized I have created the la I've dedicated the last four years of my life
To scheduled arguing, and I really saw a debate as scheduled arguing
I argue with people on Saturday from 12:00 to 6:00, and then on Sunday. That's my weekend. You know I again
I argue with someone again from 12:00 to 6:00 again
And then were judged on who wins the argument and I just had this sort of wake up
Moment of I don't want this to be my life
I don't want to do this so I just dropped that completely and I I was in a little bit of a
Searching state of where am I going to go from here and sort of what's next and I really had no idea
You were kind of depressed at 19
What was next disillusioned for sure?
Yeah
And did you not know whether you're gonna go to college at that point and didn't know which way your life was going well
I knew I was gonna go to college. I mean, I just felt like well. I'll still go to school
I guess I wanted out of my parents house and
And I loved them dearly I guess it's just every teenager wants out right so I knew I was gonna go to school
But I had this I had this sense of all the schools that I applied to were debate schools and pre-law schools
So I only had two schools that were not pre. Law school. So I felt like I applied to ten schools
I think I got into nine out of ten or something like that
and then I sat with two of them that I was choosing between
Because all the other ones were this sort of trajectory
That I just sort of took myself off of when I opened up to another reality
And I didn't know where I was gonna go from there
And I wasn't really sure and you know I definitely was a little bit lost in searching for a period of time
now if I told the 19 year old key know that
Going inside your own body on a mat maybe once a day for 45 minutes to 60 minutes will solve all of your problems
What would she have said I think she would have said what exactly is it that I'm gonna be doing on this mat
Okay, because that same question is asked by a lot of new yes, and even people watching us are gonna be like okay?
How much can you get done with?
alone with yourself on a rubber mat and then you're talking about it as the
Salvation and all of this amazing stuff, and how do you explain that to people well?
I guess there's two parts of it right so um let's dressed the part of alumnus
Yoga is never meant to be an entirely
Solitary experience although it is a solitary and individual journey
Let me explain that a little bit more you are meant to learn from a teacher
You are not meant to sit there, and think well. What should I do today?
I think I'll forward bend or I think I'll back bend. I'll think I'll do this or I'll do that
You're a mensa find a teacher. Who's a guide and the way that the yoga practice works
Is that someone who's walked the path a little bit further holds a torch so you can follow in their footsteps?
And then because you have a teacher then this idea of faith and this idea of trust opens up and this idea of understanding
Things that are not easily understandable by logic begin to really sort of take root in your heart
So first of all you need a teacher so for anyone out there feeling like I just don't know what to do
I'm on the sticky mat and I'm here floundering around you need a teacher and teachers have become more accessible um my first
Real teacher was all the way in India and I needed to travel all the way to India to meet him now
you can have good guides that are available at least at the introductory level online and
So you can really find that connection to lineage to practice to tradition and to real teachers, and it's just much more accessible way
So that's sort of the first look you're never alone. We shouldn't feel like you're floundering on your own, okay
Do you need a teacher alright? So that's part of the process is this human connection. That's trust this
learning of mastery from someone else absolutely and then the second part is really a
Notion that I call body intelligence, so we understand intellect right we understand
it's measurable your Iq you can be sort of Mensa level Iq you can rid of take a test and get into the
gifted program as a Young child
and then there's a recent development called emotional intelligence right there the relatability and
The Empathy level that you know a person is able to really develop
And I feel like I want to present something new called Body intelligence
How much is your presence your awareness in your body?
So this sort of modern life that you were mentioning before of you know
We're in cities, and we're running around and we have our to-do lists and we have all these things that are our minds
And we have a lot of things that are unprocessed unfelt, so I feel like what's going on is at some moment
We wake up and realize that there is an unlived life, and there's an unfilled body
So there this body that we have
and we treat it you know just as a place for our heads to rest on this thing and carry our heads around and
There isn't the sense of aliveness of feeling in the body
So the first thing that yoga really asks you to do is by twisting your body into these positions are not always comfortable
you begin to feel
Areas of your body that are on lockdown that have that you've really exited at some moment in your life there
We exit the body for a variety of reasons primarily trauma when the present moment is too hard for us to deal with
We cut off a part of our body and we sort of Detach ourselves from it
we escape from the feeling rather than really be present to what we're feeling is that intentional like do I just cut off my
Leg my leg, I mean is or is that just something subconscious that happens?
I think that the
Patterning is built it is sort of the patterning to escape or exit or cut off a part of the body is laid at
such a young
Let such a young age that it is not really a conscious choice
It's not like someone's you know you're experiencing a difficult situation, and you're like
Oh, let me not feel you know my legs because of this it's because something hurts you so much
You don't have the ability to process it to feel it
You don't have the training in the conditioning and really the mental courage to just open and be present with it
So it's an automated response. It's sort of just a natural protection that comes up
Just like when you reach your hand into a flame you pull your hand away from the flame, okay?
So we've kind of locked down parts of our body. We don't know we're doing it now
We don't give our body the credit of it having feelings and kind of some kind of intelligence as well absolutely okay
Can you talk a little bit more about the intelligence in my body is it emotional intelligence? What's going on in there?
well
we feel like there's both emotional intelligence and
Wisdom really in the body and a way for you to think about that is have you ever?
Thought and thought and thought and thought and thought about an answer
But it it just couldn't come to you like a really important life decision
And you think about it and you think about it and you think about it, and it's like here are the five reasons
Why you should and here are the five reasons?
Why you shouldn't and you sit and you when you vacillate between these two extremes and then you and you can go into that mental?
Storm forever for the rest of your life, you can debate it right there?
You can debate yourself should I do it should I do it should I do it should I not again back and forth and then?
It hits you boom like a moment of clarity and you know it in your gut this is what I'm gonna do
There's wisdom and you said gut there yeah, and we use words like with my heart Mm-Hmm, and it doesn't feel right mm
Right and so these are all
References that our mind isn't figuring out that there are something in our body that makes us feel something absolutely, okay?
And we don't honor it in our current western world and in this decart. Ian's view where everything happens up in the brain
I think therefore I am yeah, right, and then there's the second though right I feel therefore. I am which is rousseau
which is sort of a higher level you could say or not even a higher level because I don't like to think hierarchically because the
Thoughts are very important. I think therefore
I am you know the quality and nature of thoughts has the ability to really
Control what we're expecting and our expectations from reality I feel therefore
I am is very identified with the emotions right in the emotions the emotional world
But the body's intelligence is neither thinking or feeling, but is being right, right?
Well, I started practicing some yoga about six months ago
Yeah, and I still want to hear what happened to you in India, so we will get back to this
but I did it on the back of
Filming our first documentary film which I think I mentioned to you and it was one of our most watched guests of all time
It's a sixth time Mr.. Olympia a guy who spent 17 years of his life building the the biggest musculature possible
probably the opposite of what yoga would do and
you know he was known for being this bulk of
270 pounds lean on stage and beating everyone in the world and being the most like developed male body on the planet and
He invited me down to Spain and he wanted to teach me how to lift weights was one thing
But he also wanted to show me his new Yoga practice yeah, and he got a message years ago
That basically said to him what's wrong with your body, you can't move it
You can't move your hips and he just put the feelers out and he started practicing this yoga and it's this beautiful moment in this
film when I take this guy that used to be this hulk of a man and we're practicing yoga on the beach and at the
end of it
I almost cry and it's just all these emotions came out, and I find it with a simple yoga practice of an hour
Sometimes things really come up out of my body
And I don't know where these emotions and thoughts come from but I must say there's something there and I come from an engine in
Background I was very dakar dean for a long time
literally my body was there to carry my brain around to the next pleasurable experience and
But I can't ignore. There's something here
You know do you hear this a lot from people absolutely you know the this idea that the body can't lie
You know the body doesn't lie and the mind can play mental gymnastics
And trick itself into this or that and sort of you can speak a lie with your mouth, but your body
always tells the truth right and this is like what what um good poker player is called a tell your body will always have a
Tell because your body's telling the truth no matter if you're telling a lie. I miss this simplicity this utter
Transparency of the body is something that yoga brings up to the surface in everyone
which is really really beautiful because imagine if we could just be totally transparent and totally ourselves and
Totally in touch with all of all of our happiness and all of our joy
But also all of our pain and all of our loss and not need to cut anything off and just to be totally and completely
present HMM
So it forces you to be honest with yourself be present with yourself
So back to some of these components of you know first of all there's a teacher there
Yeah, there's a student-teacher relationship makes you kind of embrace new things trust
There's a human component, then there's the time alone, and then there's the truth with the body
What are some of the other big components that you tell people when using my yoga?
Well, there's an element of devotion and reverence and this is the search for meaning right because you may not realize that
You're searching for meaning or searching for
Depth, but I feel like what ends up happening. Is that as we begin to search?
as we begin to feel then
What comes up what we're we're led to it are these deeper questions that the spiritual questions and and this is something in that
Many people don't realize when they come into yoga
Is that yoga is a physical discipline with a spiritual intention?
So it brings you through the through the physicality into something that is transcendent of the physical and it's almost like hey
Wait a minute. I didn't you know I didn't really realize I was I was doing something spiritual
I thought I was just doing a forward bend, but as you describe your emotions come up to the surface
And then it's almost as though when you finish your yoga practice you go out into life and life looks a little different yeah it
Strange because I've trained Brazilian Jujitsu, and I have lifted weights, and I've done lots of body motion
But yet
This you know practice of these
Positions on a mat in kind of this scheduled way and with this preciseness and body movement and intention and breathing
Takes my brain to some level that you know so often times would need you know a pSychedelic component
Go there. Yeah, I still it still flabbergasted me and yet. I can regularly get there on a Monday afternoon
Yeah, how do you explain that to people?
Well gosh, I think the idea is that we all have the capability to know the deepest and most eternal truth
I we're all built with that. It's in there inside of us. You know so it's in here. It's in me
It's and everyone who's watching
I mean, it's the truth of the sentient being and we have a spark of the divine within ourselves
And it's it's all of the things that we do to divorce ourselves from that
Presence of divinity and the Yoga practice I feel is a gift of grace because it's a tool that
Teaches you how to drop your mind into presence to drop your mind back into that root into the truth of who you really are
We begin you know if we begin the traditional yoga teaching
Yoga is the cultivation of the state of stillness when the mind is still you can perceive the truth of who you really are?
All right, so who's the truth of who you really are you are not your thoughts?
You are not your emotions. You are not this body
you are a spark of divinity or spiritual being you are infinite and vasts you know and
Worthy of love made of love itself made of light, and then if we think about that as you know
We're walking down the street. It's overwhelming
You know if you think of as we're getting on the Subway or the Tube?
It's that you know no place to put it but in the practice as the poses this unique combination of these poses
which organize the body to bring your mind into unfilled places inside of the body the breath which ties your
Minds that the conscious and the subconscious mind together as well as your focal point
Which is redirecting the organs of the senses from the external world into the inner world though that unique combination?
Brings you a moment and into Meishan a memory
Almost as though the shadow of the divine passes in front of your eyes
And it's one of these things where traditionally
It said that just to touch that for a moment just to get a glimpse of that leaves you eternally changed forever changed
When did you first feel that?
Well, I think after my very first yoga class my very first ashtanga. Yoga class. I did a few
I did my first class when I was 19, and then I did some other some yoga out of books and some random classes
But when I was 22 years old, I walked into a guided ashtanga yoga practice and at the end of this practice
I still remember to this day lying in the end in the final relaxation
My body was utTerly exhausted
Covered and drenched in sweat and then I just felt almost like the vibration of my body settle and then there was this
Silence in my mind so as though that stream of thoughts of likes and dislikes and preferences and just that never-ending
Inner dialogue it just stopped for a moment, and it was that silence that forever changed me
It just really kept me coming back for more because it opened up it opened up my mind to the possibility of peace
It opened up my mind to the possibility that there could be silence
Because I think up until that moment I never never experienced the silence in the inner world
And you didn't have to go through 20 years of practice to get there that would surprise, ya
Well, I feel like most people who end up really really committed into the practice very quickly have some kind of
Epiphany moment some kind of spark and then you spend the rest of your life kind of getting grounded in it you know coz you
Can kind of get you know what a high?
but but that that initial kind of enticement
the way I think about this is well, you're married right yeah, well I'm
Cohabitating for a long time okay, so yeah
well, I'm married and I still remember the first moment that I saw my husband's right and so there's that moment ah
Right. Oh wow moment and then there's there's the excitement of you know you first meet them is something in your body kind of wakes
Up, and then if you're gonna stay together for a long time right, then you have this idea that hey
We go to work at this right?
we need to you know learn how to respect and love each other and what that means you know in terms of
respects and reverence and devotion and dedication
And I think the cultivation of the lifelong practices like that we have that spark that wow that all
That gush of emotions that rapturous ecstasy that comes, and then we realize hey we have to put in the work, right
And that's just like your practice hmM. So the excitement is Gonna. Go away
You can try to get back there to revisit that excitement
But that's futile you have to put the work in and then go to this long-term
Kind of respect of the art and respect for what it brings you every day and not go searching for those highs again
Well what'll happen is if you hanker towards the highs then you've essentially traded in the addictive mind for yoga
and so then you're searching for the next fantastic experience when the experience of
Your body today is the truth right if you're look if you spend your life?
Hankering or yearning for highs and running from intense lows?
You're such - doing the opposite of Yoga yoga Stillness equanimity
Being open and available to whatever is so whatever arises
And then what's amazing with that as soon as you get into that state well
It's like those little epic those moments that you thought were epic in the beginning that moment of wow that moment of divine rapture
The one of the things happens is that you kind of slip into a state where it's not that they're not there
but they're not as special anymore because you are living so close to that state right you said before you're a
Yogi 24 hours a day yeah
Not just when you're teaching or practice can you explain that well the commitment is not just to do the poses right?
But to really embrace the yogi life
And so this means that the practice has to change the way you
Inhabit the world and it needs to change and sort of bear impacts on every decision so to bring consciousness
Into every decision there are moral and ethical precepts that are traditional in the yoga practice
But specifically what it means is being very very aware of moment to moment. You know to ask yourself
Is this is this how I need to be asking or is how I need to be acting right now
So you know if your drive and someone cuts you off? Do you need to honk your horn right now?
You know and it's that well wait a minute
Maybe you do because it's safety and you need to you're about to hit them and so you need to let them know so maybe
Do or maybe you?
Suddenly have an inner dialogue that you're about to latch on to
About how terrible all the drivers are and how no one drives well anymore and can you believe this and better than it can go?
On and you can find yourself lost
Almost in a chance of complaints and as a yogi that always you
Commitment to the Yoga path is in that moment you got to do your practice
you've got a draw your attention inward follow your breath root into your body be aware of the
unpleasant
Vibrations of someone cutting you off in traffic and just observe them and feel them and as soon as you give them space
Well, they'll just go away
You know every emotion is a shelf life as long as you're not feeding it, right?
So if you go, and you'd latch into the complaint, and then oh my God, they're a terrible driver and look at the car
They have and did it and then you know again a trance
And then you're in this kind of trance state where your mind is hooked into that for who knows how long?
Is this something your guru teaches you or does this just become obvious gosh. That's a really good question
my Guru
Sri, Capita B Joyce whom I met in India
was
Sort of like yoda you know a man of few words
but very wise words and
Guru Ji as I called him his instruction for the mind was you do your practice you think about God?
You live your life you think about God right?
And so this is really the highest call to truth
And so he didn't really he wasn't really into much specific instruction in terms of your like
Psychological inner journey there are some really important texts that will help that can help give some direction on that
but this is something again the practice itself is the
foundation if you take an action that is outside the yogic path like if say on the way to your yoga class you honked at
Someone and beeped at them and flip them the bird or something as soon as you're practicing
That is Gonna come up to the surface
And you're gonna feel this remorse just the sense of you know did. I really need to do that in that moment
Is that you know was that did I really need that who knows maybe?
Maybe they were rushing because they have a sick parents in the hospital
Maybe they were out of it because their dog passed away gosh. Did I really need to beep at them?
I'm so sorry right and so thinking of God
You didn't have to describe what that meant but you can take it on as thinking okay?
Think of the higher power the higher purpose and that'll get me
Hmm the traffic then just gonna cut off absolutely, okay?
What was that like going to India studying with Guru Ji, right?
Uh you know you're this white American girl going over there
Can you break it down like what was it like and what was it not like?
That I would expect it to be like in a Hollywood movie
Well the first thing that it was was just very far away
It was just a very long airplane trip. I mean it was almost 20 years ago that my first trip was and so this was
India not as you would experience india today, but India before cellphones really hit the market before the technology boom
Sort of sort of like a different
India and in India that some part of my heart is nostalgic forward some part of my heart is really happy that you know
That there's a new india so you know the past is gone. We embrace it
We love it And then there's a turning of a new page and love the new as well
When I first went to India I didn't have anyone's address except for Guruji's address, so I
remember that I've read his read Grady's book and I knew I wanted to go to India so I bought a ticket and
I got a 10-year visa out of pure faith and because it was a better deal
I think that like the six-month Visa was something like a hundred dollars and the 10-year Visa was $120
So I felt this is a good deal
My mom said how do you know you're gonna like it, and I you know I said I don't sleep of Faith
And it was 24 hours of travel just to land in India okay. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Miami in Miami. I'm a native floridian, okay?
It was a rare variety, but there's more of us now these days, okay
Yeah, and I landed in India and the first thing that that and still to this day
It hits me every time I go there how similar the plants are to Florida
So they're palm trees and palm trees in Florida
I was living in New York at the time and when I went to India and I went to India and the temperature was more
Like, Florida
so I there was an element of my body that sort of felt comfy there because the humid air and the tropical the
Tropical sort of you know plants and the foliage around and it was you know quite familiar
It was completely non familiar was the language the people the culture. I went into a car
That was sort of called a taxi, but these old ambassador
Vehicles I've never seen one of those before and I got in the back
and it was like a four and a half hour journey and
This car dropped me off at the house of shrieking Pattabhi Jois
which is where he was teaching and
I just dropped my backpack and walked in and the gray G was the first person I saw and he looked at me had to
Write a letter in order to request being able to get into the yoga Shala and the rule was if you don't hear back
You can go
What does that mean that means you send this letter and you buy a ticket from Faith?
And if you don't get a letter back from Guru Ji saying you can't go you're good, okay?
That's a fascinating the opposite of like travelocity confirmations or whatnot you know what I mean, we get like a travel confirmation
So instead of man, that's the first leap of faith really it was then now it's month now
It's much different now. You get a confirmation things are quite different now, but you know so I dropped my backpack
I walked and I looked into Guruji's eyes and the first thing
He said to me was you wrote letter, and I said yes, guru Ji. Wrote the letter tomorrow is 6:00 a.m.
You come first thing
I did my face was on the ground my hands were on his feet in the traditional gesture pranaam
And I had all the people said you have to bow down to him
And I didn't want to bow down to someone. I've never I didn't know what this meant
I'm gonna Bow down to someone
I was studying feminist studies in graduate school
And I had I had you know spent a lot of time on the plane
Thinking of power was going to explain that while I do
Respect this as an element of traditional Indian culture you see I'm a modern American woman
And I don't need to bow down to any man. Thank you very much
I had this whole
Spiel Written in my head and before I could say what was up or what was down?
I was flat on the ground my hands on his feet. Thank you guruji
It was like my heart lifts up and took over and I knew I'd met my teacher at that moment
Why why did you do that my heart?
Just slept up
You know why do you fall in love with someone you know something in my heart just said yes
Felt the energy, and I think what it was and I look back now, and I can see they're there
I guess there are two things the first is that I'd never met anyone like him in my life
And it was just his presence his power
Gave me faith and gave me hope and it was a service in the presence of peace when I looked into his eyes and so
I wanted that it was like something in me said, yes
And the second thing was that
He was an answer to a question that I was asked and it didn't know I was asking it
Which is you know how to believe in yourself how to have faith, you know?
how can I live a more peaceful life that's really why I started the yoga practice and
Gray Ji was that answer to me, and he gave me faith
Hope and really a foundation for the practice, and I'm just so grateful for that hmM
You know there's a line from our recent movie
Where ito portal says when you find the right teacher learn whatever it is they have to teach you
Yeah
Is is is this a component that you feel with him as in he's really teaching you about
Yourself in this case the practice was yoga or is it kind of more than that?
Well if you ask guruji, you know you asked him
Oh, you're such a special man like all you must live in the state of what's called in Sanskrit ultimate Samadhi
Which is like this?
Final end result of the practice of Yoga are in final peace and greed you would laugh and here just say I'm a sinful man
Just they teach you a sh
Tango Yoga inhale raise your hands exhale fold forward you know and so he really was just presenting himself as just this this you know
Yoga teacher and that wasn't a tongue-in-cheek joke ya know you really been critics
he said it again and again and and and
And I think it's the idea that he just wanted to be a person. I am a person
I'm teaching you this method
Don't worship me
you know this is a method and it's up to you to apply the method and that was very important for him the
methodology of the practice and at the same time so there was always this
You know this this sort of dualism of I'm this simple person
But when you were in his presence is there something you realize wow you say that your simple
but whenever I'm with you whenever I was with gray g it was as though all of my obstacles all of my
You know all of all of the things that were bothering me
Just if I were around him he was in the room. It was like. They were gone
Wow, and what did he teach you well guru g's main lessons for me?
So many there's so many lessons, right? I'm the guru g's main lesson to me specifically
Was to be stronger and this is something
I'm not a naturally strong person not physically and also not emotionally I
Can kind of cave in and cry and I used to have a really thin skin and just take everything really really personally?
Wait, you went to nyu you get your master's degree and feminine studies. You're in the big city
Sound like a weak woman. No, I guess not but I'm over at the same time fall apart like at every moment
You know and and and just take and and the other thing that I really kind of had kind of no backbone about is I
Used to say yes to everything everything at all times
Just like everything is okay
But you know sometimes things aren't okay and and you know so I just kind of was this amoeba
That was just sort of floating around the world you know and and and practice wise like I couldn't do a headstand
I couldn't do a push-up to save my life
I was so weak the idea of doing a handstand was beyond anything
And I mean in another thing it was really difficult for me to take this criticism. You know, so if I did something and
you know if I if I if I got a bad grade and something it would break me you know and
And I just and if someone said some spoke Harsh words to me
Then it would really I would think about it for days and days and days after remember it ten years later
You know and so so this sort of that this would really affect me, and I remember
Guru Ji is just saying to me whenever I reached a point of self-satisfaction
Whenever I reached a point in my practice where I thought okay. This is it. You know you have to be stronger
You know you have to be stronger. How strong. Do you need to be know you have to be stronger?
Just again, and when I thought it was stronger when I thought this is it when I thought these are all the poses
I'm ever gonna learn. I'm good. I can finally do that handstand kino lift up more. Kino. You have to be stronger
how strong do you need to be you know I've kept on thinking like what is this and now I look at my life and
I don't know what it is, and how guru Ji saw this in me, but I have met so much criticism
I have met so much difficulty and
Adversity in so many situations in my life
I'm not someone that in my life people have told me yes right from the beginning everything that I've done has been met with no
No, no a thousand those key. No you have to be stronger
how strong you need to be strong enough to believe in your dreams and never give up you want to try this headstand and you're
Not going to do it. So this was like right probably the first time I did Headstand
I fell over I almost cry poor me. You know. I can't do a headstand for me
You know and then I got up and I tried it again get back up try it again
Okay fall down again. Get back up try it again fall one thousand times get up 1001 times try it again
Do it again learn how to move the mound and that seems impossible with Faith alone?
And this is something I learned in the practice
So it took me a year to do headstand it took me two years to do a forearm balance five years to do a handstand
Fifteen years to do other poses think about this, what is your dream?
How long are you going to work at it when the world tells you know when everything says you failed
That didn't work out you failed it that that didn't work out you failed it that - that didn't work out
It's been ten years you've been trying to you been trying to live your dream
Are you gonna quit today?
Or are you gonna keep believing if your dream takes you five years ten years twenty or thirty years are you?
Going to stay the course you know you have to be stronger. How strong
Do you need to be as big and bold as your dreams are?
And he said that to you or that's go ahead with chemo you have to be stronger
and didn't he was do you think he knew he was teaching you that it wasn't just
physically stronger
He would have to have known on some intuitive level you know because there were other people that he that were basically doing
Worse than I was and didn't get told to be stronger
And so that was also something that was kind of this zen riddle about practicing with him
You know someone would be doing one pose and from the outside
It looked slightly disastrous and greed you would walk up and say oh good and you would think hmM?
What's good about that then you would look at you and you would think again from the outside all of like the olympic
you know marks of like the alignment is good here and the shoulder is good and that this is an alignment of it and he
Would come up to you and say well bad you know and you're thinking well
What's bad? You know and so it was never this kind of cookie cutter approach
It was really about meeting the person where they were and giving them exactly what it is that that person needed to grow wow
Sounds fascinating hmm, and you've obviously got this stronger message because you seem pretty strong. Yeah, I mean, it's still something
I think about every day. I mean I like to think that I'm stronger now, but there's still dreams
You know it's still things that I face. You know and honestly since the time I look back
And it can realize this that's come about in the last
Couple of years that I realized the pattern in my life that I can trace back full time
I'm about nine years old and I've suffered through periods of cyclical depression and during these periods of depression
I wanted to quit on me on life
And so I still wake up some mornings and feel I want to quit you know
I know what to do with it now, but it's not like it's gone, and I still wake up some mornings
And I think man
Is anybody listening does it doesn't matter?
And then you go back to the practice you go back to the practice
I go back to faith I go back to belief I go back to the foundation of the spiritual journey, and I keep going
How long did you spend with Guruji um?
About ten years okay, that's a long time. Yeah there or back and forth working for us, okay
you know so
my first trip was two months my second trip was six months in India make their trip uh six months in India so I sort
Of you know uprooted my life and spent a lot of time in India and kind of just went back and Forth between
Traveling living abroad and
sometimes going back home to see my parents and then being in India I found out very quickly that
If I didn't have an apartment, I could very easily save a lot of money which could get me a long ways in India
So I sort of moved back in with my parents after graduate school and just said you know one won't be here for a little
Bit I'm an only child my parents were pretty happy to have me back and I practiced in their garage
You know back out their car and practiced in the garage and taught yoga classes and say it's all my money
I went back to India wow and this is 10-15 years ago 14 15 17 years ago
Okay, before Instagram before yoga Ba before Youtube before youtube oh my gosh, not before you - yeah, say
it ain't so
Wow, okay, so and just so people know you were learning ashTanga yoga from Guru Ji
Can you give us like?
Quickly a brief history of even yoga and like why ashtag as opposed to another practice from people that just don't know because I'm guessing
You know this yeah, I mean, I'm and I'm already you know yoga or some script historian
But I'll give you the best sound bite that's possible, so yoga is an ancient spiritual practice
that's grounded in the inner search right and
yoga as a spiritual path is really as old as humanity itself and
It can be traced back to the time of the Rishi's which is the time of the vedas over 5000 years ago in
India's Historic past
The Yoga Tradition was always meant to be again part of a spiritual journey that was meant to be taught and what's called Guru parampara
Which is direct transmission?
from the teacher to the students so it's never something to be done kind of on your own always have a teacher who is the
original teacher
God is the original teacher and this is the idea that that the yoga practice itself is a gift of grace
It's a gift of knowledge
and this is a
Sacred spiritual practice now Yoga then gets passed on in various shapes and forms and different traditions
And there's this concept of Asana and Asana is the physical practice which is a foundation
To create health and healing in the body and also to create stillness in the body now
We have the sort of codification of a systematic approach to Asana
Documented about five hundred years ago and in a text is called the Hatha Yoga, Pradipika
Hatha Yoga Pradipika is beginning to talk about and describe in detail. How Asana itself the yoga poses actually begin to create
energetic shifts and spiritual awakenings in the body and then this kind of continues in different lineages and different practices
Into our current day experience of yoga the most important thing to find in yoga is to have a practice that has a lineage
Not just a charismatic and beautiful teacher, but a lineage because if you have a teacher who's not a student
the question becomes
You know just I would say it becomes questionable about how much?
yoga in a traditional sense that person is doing not to say that they can't be an amazing teacher and an amazing spiritual voice there's
the question of if you're going to be practicing yoga look to see it has your teacher been a student have they gone on a
Transformation do they continue to practice themselves?
Because this is really really important when we begin to kind of loop ourselves into a style of yoga whether it's Ashtanga
Yoga or any real any of the spiritual lineages that are available in Yoga the the poses themselves?
I think are secondary to or the order of poses are really secondary to the notion of a spiritual lineage
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