Race Corona, On World Yoga Day
While global peace may be unattainable in this lifetime, inner peace certainly is.
Standing in solidarity with #blacklivesmatter for this World Yoga Day, a group of seemingly ordinary global citizens, representing all corners of the world, from Australia to Iran, from America to India, from the United Kingdom to Indonesia, came together under one umbrella, unity.
This LIVE on line event hosted by the Yoga Barn [link below], located in Ubud, Bali, began with an 8:46 honoring of the ancestors through an exquisite orchestra of world music while the ‘representation’ allowed movement to emerge from within and pour outwards as we stomped our feet upon the earth, shook our bodies, flayed our arms and manes of hair, eventually culminating in a stance of stillness.
As we sat for the panel discussion, the overarching question was:
In line with the universal meaning of yoga to unite and give rise to Oneness, given the current global climate how can yoga bridge the undulating divide which gives rise to separateness, the antithesis of yoga’s intention, meaning and purpose?
One of my favorite closing mantras for my yoga classes is:
‘We come to the practice of yoga, not so that we may be perfect, but so that we may make peace with our imperfections.’
From this place of acceptance, grace and humility, the teachings of yoga are perfectly poised for profound impact in this imperfect storm. I choose to name this storm ‘Race Corona.’
Their intersection is what gives rise to the unrest that is currently taking up residence in our bodies, our hearts and is rippling throughout the world. Incarcerated for a crime that no one wants to take responsibility for, there is nowhere to hide from the truth. Truth being that for too long, one set of people have been unjustly treated, covertly and overtly, for the sole reason of a difference in pigmentation.
It is far easier to reconcile with ourselves by hiding in denial — how could this be happening at this time in history? Yet, for those who dared to see, and for those of us who are subject to and therefore absorbents of this inhumane cruelty, discomfort became normalized in order to survive.
Race Corona claims that BIPOC are affected by and dying in disproportionate numbers to others. An incomplete truth, it fails to further state that perhaps the reason for this is due to the fact that we are the ones on the frontlines — in supermarkets, hospitals, post offices, sanitation services and many other services that are ‘essential’ for any civil society to function effectively.
Unexpectedly though not surprising, the tide swiftly shifts from pandemic to pandemonium. It takes eight minutes and 46 seconds to spin the world’s conscience on its axis to humanity’s deprivation of spirit.
Institutions meant to uphold morals, laws and values all come under [justifiable] attack, including the world of modern day yoga.
With an estimated 300,000,000 people in the world allegedly practicing yoga, what the hell have we actually been practicing?
When I initially arrived to yoga in 2001, it was shortly after 9/11 which, up until that point, had been considered the worst catastrophe in the developed world. I was still reeling from 1,000,000,000 people being genocidally removed in less than 100 days in Rwanda while the said civilized world remained largely silent.
Seven years later, while tucked away in an ashram in South India chanting mantras, it was illuminatingly clear to me that yoga had a key role to play in the attainment of global peace. And so my story began.
From the streets of Compton, Los Angeles to villages in Kenya, from the high rises of New York to the bamboo-built yoga shalas in Bali, people arriving on yoga mats are invariably either running away from something — like a stressful job or relationship — or running toward something — be it a stronger lower back or self-realization.
Either way, for however long we are on the mat, its potential to provide a sense of safety, a loving and non-judgmental place where we get to simply ‘be,’ in a world that can feel terribly hostile is immense.
Are we willing to place the same amount of devotion and effort that we do into contorting our bodies into intricate postures into being uncomfortable with ourselves and therefore with those who may appear different from us on the surface?
How would our lives and therefore our world be transformed through this willingness while we’re being lovingly held in the arms of yoga?
It is not enough for us to say, ‘we’re all one’ when the world that is being reflected back to us — of which our presence is an integral part — reveals an image that is anything but One.
Oneness is attainable only to the extent that we dare to relinquish the separateness that holds us hostage from another by the use of power over dynamics, under the construct of race.
Let your next sankalpah be one that says,
‘I’m setting the intention of being uncomfortable, in the name of LOVE.’
And then, notice what arises,
On, and off your mat.
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