I was recently certified as a yoga instructor. As I go about starting my new endeavor, “Slow Yoga for Savvy Bodies,” I am struck by common themes that animate both from my yoga and the nonprofit consulting I did for most of professional career. One concept that seems at the core of both practices is "charity," in its many manifestations--tolerant attitude, impartial love, helping attitude, and kindness. It occurs to me that yoga training might help develop and encourage a new generation of leaders who will advocate for, and create access to, health and wellness.
As some of you might know, there are many strands of yoga, some tracing back to India over 5,000 years ago. Yoga was developed as a way to achieve harmony between the mind, body, and soul on the path to enlightenment. And if nonprofit work is not a religious calling for us, it does provide at least a type of spiritual feel good about the work that we do.
Yoga is not just body awareness, but also a call to service. Karma yoga is the Hindu path of service to others. One yoga teacher states:
“Our children are our future and the leaders of our next generation, so I volunteer each week to teach children about holistic health and plant-based nutrition. We practice meditation and yoga and make smoothies together.”
Another benefit of yoga practice is the understanding of how linked we are to our environment, each other and our planet. Hatha yoga is a practice of asanas (yoga poses), pranayama (focused breathing), inner connection and reflection, connection to community, care of oneself, and service to others.
Yoga reminds us of the significance of maintaining self-care amid the mayhem; it prepares us to care for others. In other words, caring for the self makes one better able to care for others. The meditation, breathwork, and asanas (physical poses) of hatha yoga can be self-soothing, serving to heal mind, body, and soul, preparing one for the work that needs to be done. It can provide the philosophical and spiritual foundation for social action. Many of the related philosophical texts, such as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, are intended to help transform the human spirit—changing how we move through the world and how we interact with others.
Yoga philosophy, not unlike other religious philosophies, teaches us to love both ourselves and our neighbors. Regardless of how you feel about religion, many social justice movements started from a spiritual basis.
We can reclaim the term “spiritual.” We can recognize that many of the foremost activists in movements for social change have been guided by a spiritual practice (e.g., leaders in the American Indian Movement and the Civil Rights Movement). If we are grounded in a yoga practice that is as much about transforming the human spirit than the human body, yoga can indeed be the engine for both personal and social transformation.
One does not become an accomplished yogi overnight; it takes hard work, consistent practice, and mental concentration. Similarly, nonprofit work can be never-ending, an ongoing struggle for justice. Yoga teaches self-confidence--how many nonprofits do you know that do the same, particularly for the young or disenfranchised? Yoga teaches self-respect and respect of others and encourages altruism, ideas I have heard repeatedly in my long history with the third sector.
Another goal of yoga is to attain a sense of detachment. The Bhagavad Gita (another text on the philosophy of yoga) teaches that detachment is doing the right thing for its own sake, because it needs to be done; it's a moment-by-moment process of accepting reality as it presents itself, doing our best to align our actions with what we think is right, and surrendering the outcome. We need to maintain detachment enough so that when political leaders call for hate filled strategies, we can stay calm and loving, and our actions can follow with our spirit intact. Like the Dolly Parton Song)……“I love you just as you are…” Need I say more? Namaste.
What other connections do you see? Email me, and I will compile and share what I receive.
