Dear Yogis,
I’ve felt really fortunate over the years about who chose to become a part of our community. Since our founding in 2010 Revolution Yoga has always had a beautifully diverse staff serving a beautifully diverse population.
The community holds one another, looks out for one another and treats each other as equals, growing together. The way I’ve gently attempted to build community has always been based on merit, compassion, capability and an earnest desire to connect to inner peace and share that path with the world.
This naturally resulted in a very diverse crew of all different external identities but a uniting, almost indescribable inner characteristic that makes Revolution so special.
All are welcome here not because we declare it so but, because every single teacher and staff member sees themselves reflected in the students and the students see themselves reflected in the staff.
Yoga teaches about a samana or equal vision of all beings that does not discount their material (external) differences, struggles and pain. It actually holds full compassion for the nuanced differences of the material existence of each being as their birth is meaningful.
Their material form is the vehicle for the important work they have to do in this world. It is essentially the precious temple for the soul.
Yet through the vision of seeing a person’s deeper identity as pure consciousness, it means all people should have access to equal resources, equal opportunities, equal compassion, equal peace, equal truth, equal nourishment and equal protection.
Because even in our individuality we are all a drop of the same thing, something all powerful, all pervasive and divine.
As our teacher Ashley Lall said (who has included an important article above for this newsletter), “If there is a whole and that whole is experiencing trouble in one part, the whole would do everything in its power to nurture it, and help it heal because it’s a part of it.” We are one whole human family and if any part is suffering we all suffer.
If that’s the case we all should work to heal the conditions that cause the suffering and give the resources for that part to heal itself. There are many marginalized populations in our community and in our country who are suffering.
America was built on the backs of people who were stripped of their own culture, access to the wisdom of their ancestral identity, and access to their cultures’ tools to bring them to experience their inner consciousness and peace.
They lost autonomy over their material bodies, their lives, their futures and their wellbeing. This kind of trauma affects generations of progeny. And we as a yoga community are responsible for attempting to create the conditions for trauma to be healed.
This underlying current of inequity has always been bubbling under the surface. At a time when the material world is showing its true colors- that this whole construct is due to impermanence we can see clearly that we’ve been building castles in the sand that have crumbled from a tiny little virus.
It has toppled all the material things we mistakenly thought would save us and brought to the surface all the ugliness we for whatever reason couldn’t see until now. And here we are with the realization that the way things were was inequitable and unsustainable.
In the yogic texts it says that the earth can bear so much but it cannot bear a liar. And we have been lied to. Our history books have left out important swaths of details on the experience of our BIPOC and LGBTQ+ family.
Even many in the yoga world leave out swaths of yogic teachings to package it up and sell to Western sensibilities in a way that disregards where Yoga came from. As we become more informed it’s important to keep an open heart, open mind, to softly let go of what does not serve peace for all and to adopt new practices as quickly as possible to make everyone feel safe.
Yoga has an inherent quality of inclusiveness when practiced properly. The problem is even the western yoga has the same problem as America. When we are not taught the whole of the truth we will never find truth. When we start cutting out meditation, philosophy, Sanskrit, and stories that inform the teachings that we love so dearly we inadvertently cause harm.
This is something the whole teaching staff at the studio always attempted not to do. Because when you view yoga on the surface without the deeper meaning and understanding it can be weaponized and cause himsa (harm). Whatever we may have done right it doesn’t mean there is not more work to do.
This anti-racist self-work and advocacy, the understanding that I benefit from the structures of a society that is weighed against people I love dearly because of the color of my skin, the research on the history of oppression present in our culture, the problem that capitalism is inherently racist when you examine its origins, intergenerational trauma, all this work began for me at the start of my “yoga career” but reached a fever pitch after the senseless killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery as people are finally starting to wake up. I hope this moment encourages every American to do the work and stay humble enough to know there is ALWAYS more work to be done. Especially as yoga practitioners it is vital we understand these things. That anti-racism work is yoga work.
Paradoxically the revolution of consciousness is spreading exponentially yet there is a torrent of hopelessness that many have been feeling in the midst of the incalculable change we’ve all had to undergo as well as the uncertainty of what each new day will bring.
I was reminded by our teacher Carmen Rubio last month that an important Ayurvedic teaching is to never lose hope…as losing hope is the disease that precedes all symptoms. So how do we move from a place of hopelessness to inspiration?
Our ability to be present. From that presence deciding to serve the whole. It’s often when we lose track of the moments we are in –concerned or uncertain about the future, crippled by the past that we can’t see things as they are.
We merely need to look at nature around us with a sense of presence to feel intensely inspired that all of her children should live in peace and the thoughts, words and actions of our lives should contribute to that.
Merely look at the people around us as precious with a spark of divinity to feel inspired to serve all beings.
Look at the inherent beauty of the earth that we inhabit as life continues on despite our own struggles.
Remember that in this very moment there is a peace and perfection within you that is reachable if we only pay attention. When we return to that space of inner consciousness through presence we find our inspiration and let that be the thing that effectively changes the world for the better.
A friend told me that even if this ends up not being “my personal battle” it’s important to set the stage to possibly inspire the person that does end up changing the world. So I stand as an ally to all beings and hope that the business I’ve built offers the resources to inspire you all to be the change we wish to see in the world.
I’m with you. I’m listening. I’m learning. I’m willing to do and be better for you all.
In love,
Amanda and the good folks at Revolution Yoga
Originally shared in our July 2020 newsletter.