The Exchange is Rich

Thanks for being here, and thank you to my dear friend Zubin for being here. Thanks for inviting me, it was fun. It's just been such a pleasure over the last two days of watching you teach and learning so much. So Zubin and I first met in 2011 on a hay bale when he came to Ojai. He was working on his book, Conversations with Modern Yogis.

Really it's such an interesting question you were pursuing for that book, which if I have this right, this question of what specifically is American yoga? Do I have that right? I think I was fascinated by what's happening, and it was more a question to open up this exploration, not really something to be answered directly like that, but yes, that was where I start, what is contemporary yoga in the US. And so now that book has come out, Conversations with Modern Yogis, and something I felt in that day we met and during that interview, and also that I so feel in your teaching, is this very open, available, curious quality, and something you speak so much of and so well of is this skill of observation, which I imagine some of that comes from your photography. Can you speak more on the importance of the skill of observation in the practice and maybe even the teaching of yoga?

I think that that interest in observation to me came even before the photography. Starting up in different cultures, being born in the UK of an Indian family, spending time in India, there were a lot of different things going on at the same time, and I became a cute observer of that, not entirely sure why, but there was a lot to observe and to understand because there was a lot I didn't understand, there were these two sometimes complementary, sometimes conflicting cultures, and that situation where I was trying to make sense of to start with I think brought me into the pursuit of photography, another pursuit to try and understand the world. And I think quite quickly I realized that it's not something to understand, it's something to observe and learn from and be inspired by, but perhaps not find the answer. Do you think you could say the same of yoga, that it isn't something necessarily to understand, but as you just said, something to draw us forward, to inspire us, to deepen us? Yeah, I think very much so.

Yoga as a practice, these set of tools for me to use to hone our inquiry, to make our observations subtler and subtler, and that understanding is again something not to find the answer to, but to find little tasters, little thoughts, little connections that begin to build into something bigger. Can you speak more of just in your, whatever the practice may be, but what are some of the primary, I don't know if this is the right word, benefits or results or rewards of being able to see more subtly? I think it makes one less reactive and it makes every experience so much more interesting. I think it's easy for us to come to a quick answer, in this situation I've made up my mind this is what's happening, and then everything shuts down and the interest starts to dissipate. I find with not looking for the answers, but the focusing on the observation and the curiosity that most things are endlessly fascinating.

Can this skill of observation and seeing more subtly, can this be taught? Yeah, I think you can give people skills to hone their observation. Is that an answer? That's good enough, I'm going to take it a step further because it's a question that I've been wondering as we've begun this endeavor here at Yoga Anytime, in the attempt to share the teachings of yoga, as intimately as we can, one of the questions that I've been holding and starting to wonder about is, can yoga be taught? As someone who's teaching yoga, yes, that's a question I ask myself frequently too and I think we can share our experiences of yoga and I feel very strongly that the understanding of yoga, whatever that might mean, is stronger in community, it's stronger together.

With that, I'm not sure if that's teaching yoga, but through this endeavor to teach yoga, I think as a teacher, my understanding of yoga gets much richer and hopefully, myself as a student, I know I benefit hugely from that experience too. The teaching of yoga brings us further into yoga. Maybe it's not possible to teach it, but the teaching is an important part of the understanding. You use the word student and teacher a lot. Can you unpack what you see as the difference between these two?

Speaking for the student side to start with, when I'm in someone's class, whoever's class it is, I consider myself their student, I'm trying to understand their approach to yoga, what they are sharing, what matters to them. So, conversing myself as a teacher, I'm trying to convey what my experiences have been in my own practice of yoga. I don't think there has to be this traditional kind of power dynamic. In fact, that's one of the things in yoga that I really try and oppose. Actively this concept of the guru and you just sitting there taking whatever is told, I think is not helpful, probably has never been helpful, but certainly not a practice for today and this culture we live in.

I think that's probably, for me, the difference teacher and student is listening to someone else's thoughts and seeing what that inspires in me. Why is it so tempting to not listen to another's approach? Because it's hard work, it questions, you have to question yourself. You might not always want to do that, you have to be ready to let go of some things you may hold very dearly. But again, I think with this idea of subtler and subtler observations, it gets to a point where you can't really hold on to that anymore, it just doesn't feel comfortable, it doesn't feel right, you have to let it go.

But then you're left with what? You left a drift maybe and that can be an uncomfortable place. So how can the medium of video be effectively used through the internet to help share these teachings and help invite our friends around the world to move towards this place of subtle observation and more inner listening and yoga? Well, simply the internet allows you to reach a vast greater number of people. But how we do that, I don't think we have that answer yet, I think this is way too new and it's for us to work towards figuring that out.

We've had conversations about this a lot in the past few months and the way is to find interaction, I think that's an important way. This media of TV that we've grown up with which is so one directional, I think one of the real magical things about the internet is it has that reach but it also has the opportunity to interact, to exchange and to form community in a really different way. Now really what a virtual community means, I don't think we know yet, I think it's way too early. Thank you, Zubin, for being with us and thank you and so we hope to be continuing this conversation not only with each other but also with you. So let us know, can yoga be taught?

How can we use these mediums of video and the internet to help foster a world and global community of yogis? Teach us how to use this platform that we have right now, other possible platforms, it's only through the exchange that we're really going to make this richer, not just the two of us talking to each other. Thanks for being here, see you again.