Who Owns Yoga?

By Leslie Hendry|March 31st, 2010

Thoughts On An Endless Question

“No one owns Yoga,” said Sharath Rangaswamy, the grandson of the late Ashtanga Yoga guru, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.

Sharath paused comfortably, sanguinely sitting in lotus. He looked around the room, and then continued, “You don’t own it. I don’t own it. No one owns it.”

We had gathered at Ashtanga Yoga New York and Sri Ganesha Temple in New York City in May, 2010, during Sharath’s world tour. During the silence that followed this pronouncement I glanced at a fellow Yoga practitioner, who earlier that morning was elaborating on her apartment in Mysore, India, the city where Ashtanga Yoga practitioners go to practice for months at a time. This acquaintance commented on her balcony furniture, her new ceiling fan, her oven, her volunteering, her recent training at the yogashala, her relationship to the yogashala, her friends there, her tuk tuk driver. All was hers. The result of the conversation seemed less of an exchange of experience and more of a list that eclipsed my own experience of India. I surely didn’t have all the coveted things that this person had when I was there. Mulling Sharath’s statement around in my head, I wondered if this type of dominion was what he meant.

Who Owns Yoga?

The habit of claiming mine to something in which we are intimately involved is part of our lovely friend “Ego.” Strong attachments can lead to wanting to own and covet more of what we love. We identify with those things we love and the attachment deepens. We fall in love with Yoga because it makes us feel good, stretches us, relaxes us, de-stresses us. We buy into the accoutrements of Yoga: the mat, the rug, the clothes, the trips, the workshops, the experiences. We identify as yogis and yoginis. But wait.

“We are not yogis or yoginis,” Sharath said, to a ripple of giggles at this gentle Indian’s speaking of the word yogini.

Now I was further confused. What was he saying?

Sharath’s entire life has been about Yoga in one way or another. He grew up in a Yoga lineage. His grandfather studied under Sri T. Krishnamacharya, whose students include many of today’s most influential teachers: B.K.S. Iyengar, the late Indra Devi, Srivatsa Ramaswami, A.G. Mohan, and Krishnamacharya’s sons T.K. Srinivasan, T.K.V. Desikachar and T.K. Sribhashyam, along with the late Pattabhi Jois. Sharath’s mother, Saraswati, and uncle, Manju, are longtime Ashtanga Yoga teachers, having learned from their father. This family’s life is imbued in Yoga. I sensed this wasn’t about dominion the way my Western mind thought of it as; there must be something more.

I recalled the copyright debate regarding the Bikram style of Yoga. In 2003, Bikram Choudhury, an Indian-born Yoga entrepreneur, whose following includes celebrities, star athletes and supermodels, obtained a copyright on a sequence of 26 Yoga postures, also known as hot Yoga, practiced at a room temperature of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. How unyogic, people cried. Yoga has been around for 5,000 years, and has been shared with the rest of the world. How can anyone claim ownership? Yet it is our Western system, the U.S. to be exact, where Bikram obtained the copyright to protect the commercial value of his registered property. In 2005, a group called Open Source Yoga challenged Bikram’s copyright ultimately settling the case, but not settling the question.

When I spoke with Bikram he recalled a conversation with one of his students, Janet Reno, the former White House Counsel under the Clinton Administration, who said, “When in Rome, do as the Romans.” Yet with the U.S. case, the Indian government awoke to a usurping of a cultural treasure. Asana, or Yoga poses, have been around for thousands of years, they cried. To copyright something that has been in the public trust of another country seemed completely unfounded. India has now galvanized to better protect Yoga poses and other national treasures. But if Bikram Choudhury can trademark Yoga and is, therefore, protected from others teaching it, and therefore profiting from, Bikram Yoga, how can we say no one owns Yoga?

We don’t walk out our door, Yoga mat in hand, to buy Yoga at a store as if it were a consumer good. We pay for a class, a transaction that compensates the teacher – someone who has dedicated his or her life to Yoga – for their time and knowledge. Was owning Yoga a question of legalities? Profit? I sensed Sharath’s cautionary words were directed towards a modern interpretation of Yoga. He was trying to tell us something, but to contemplate this I had to delve deeper.

Traditionally, Yoga in India was practiced by renunciates, generally men, who eschewed the life of a householder, a householder being someone who would marry and support his family and in many cases extended family, in order to study Yoga. Yoga in this form was to inherit or adopt a lifestyle or path involving the spiritual study of Yoga philosophy. These Yogis studied the Vedas in religious fashion in an attempt to cease the life/death/life cycle. In fact, in the Vedas, instruction on the physical elements of Yoga is minute compared to the voluminous historical texts written on Yoga as the path to enlightenment.

Westerners, on the other hand, have gravitated to the physical practice of Yoga like wildfire. Every day a new yogashala, or studio, opens somewhere in the U.S., gym memberships have the advantage of Yoga classes and Yoga is a billion dollar industry. As a culture who values physical appearance and empirical evidence, we are lured by the results of Yoga, how it makes us feel and look. Most of our Yoga introductions are through a class performing consecutive postures. Some people look at Yoga for a work out substitute, some add Yoga to their regimen to stretch, others begin in an effort to reduce stress. Few are introduced to Yoga in a Vedic theory class.

So our Yoga path begins.

Pattabhi Jois said, “Practice, practice and all things coming.”

The founder of the Shri K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute, Pattabhi Jois, left his house as a young man after a Yoga demonstration he saw in Hassan, Karnataka, in 1927. He was immediately drawn to the teachings of his guru Krishnamacharya. In unconventional fashion of the times, he was not renouncing life as a householder but embarking on a study that would endure throughout his life. Through Norman Allen, the first Westerner to travel to India to study with him, Pattabhi Jois introduced his own guru’s teachings of physical asana practice to the West. Over the years, he made many trips back, teaching Ashtanga to rooms packed with devotees. Yet during his lifetime, Pattabhi Jois did not book lecture tours on the subject, he did not focus on the exact, precise alignment of every posture in class, instead, he focused on the practice: the continuous flow of breath and movement, and most importantly, devotion.

"Practice is the foundation for the actual understanding of philosophy. Unless things become practical and we can come to experience it, for what use is it? Yoga hinam katham moksam bhavati druvam (which means, without practical experience how can the pursuit of liberation ever be possible?)” [From an interview of Pattahbi Jois in Namarupa Magazine titled “3 Gurus,” Autumn, 2004.]

Whether intentional or not, Pattabhi Jois and many of his contemporaries bridged East and West not by theory but through practical, physical asana. Yet, Pattabhi Jois insisted “Yoga is not physical, very wrong.” It is not the “ultimate benefit of Yoga.” [Namarupa Magazine, 2004]]

It’s hard to deny that Yoga isn’t physical. What is then, the ultimate benefit and how do we understand it? As though searching for the Holy Grail, I ventured to one of the most physically challenging well-known Yoga schools in Los Angeles to see for myself if there was anything beyond sweating.

“I was the first to bring Hatha Yoga into the states for medical purposes,” Bikram told me after sweating through his entertaining class. As the only Yoga teacher to be accredited by the State of California Board of Secondary Education, and with his charismatic teaching approach, imbued wirth cursing and irreverence, I witnessed his unique approach to packing “Bikram’s torture chamber,” as he described it through his Brittany Spears-style headset. He had just returned from a trip to Hawaii to speak to the members of the Pentagon about Yoga and world peace. Not to mention that Bikram Yoga is featured in the January 2010 issue of O Magazine, the mother of all marketers.

Svelte bodies abound Bikram’s school, some practicing in bathing suits, gearing up for an hour and a half of intense sweaty heat, I felt I was part of an NFL summer training camp. Trying to introduce my knee to my forehead in dandayamana-janushirasana, Bikram called out to the class of one hundred students, “Leslie, what are you doing?” “I don’t know,” I thought, as my quivering standing leg fought my will not to lose the posture. I’d been introduced to him before class, so my name was fresh, but others were tested with monikers such as, “Blue Shirt” or “Hey Chinese.” Anyone on the street would’ve thought those were fighting words, but no one stormed out of the room, egos unchecked.

In Bikram’s book, Bikram Yoga, he explains that through Yoga, unhappy societies, like the U.S., can learn from the failures of older cultures, like India, by focusing priorities on “humanity, Spirutalism, and love…we can seek to promote the continued evolution of all life. The ultimate destination of human life is mental happiness and peace through the realization of love.”

Although I heard nothing like this stated in his class, I did see the attraction many had to his tough love approach. The unassailable fact is that most Yoga in the West is physical, some schools to the nth degree, yet people return to practice and sweat out their demons.

Through the physical practice, muscles are strengthened and limbs are stretched, but as Yoga practitioners become devoted to the physical practice their relationship with Yoga inevitably grows in tandem and takes on incremental meaning and effect. The practice becomes far from simply physical. What Pattabhi Jois and other gurus have known, is that through the practice the mind is opening, the mind is balancing, the mind is calming. A union forms, a dedication, a devotion to make space for Yoga takes place. It is believed as asana practice develops we purify internally. “When Yoga is performed in the right way, over a long period of time, the nervous system is purified, and so is the mind.” [Pattabhi Jois, Namarupa Magazine, 2004]. Jois continues, “pratyahara, dharana and dhyana naturally becomes more established and then greater clarity of mind and increased receptivity of self is brought about.”

As Yoga helps our minds to calm and our bodies to strengthen, the benefits become more and more patent; the dedication deepens and a devotion to an inner calmness widens. In Ashtanga and other forms of Yoga, practitioners follow their dristi, breathe ujjaya breath, suck up the bandhas, sweat and stretch. Our relationship to Yoga grows, and hence the union between the small self (who we are) and the big self, (how we transcend) develops. We stretch internally through our minds and our soul. We adjust to this practice, our eating habits change, sleep patterns change, our health changes, we approach life with a greater receptivity to something more internally profound. We venture off the mat and read and inquire into this Yoga that adds so much to our lives.

So our Yoga path progresses.

Inside Bikram’s office, photographs filled with family, his guru, and a restaurant wall of celebrities, he sat back with his legs resting on top of his desk like an oilman, still in his teaching attire, a small black sash of shorts. As one of the most well-known Yoga teachers in the country, I asked Bikram what he thought his role was in defining Yoga. “I get them on the right track, mind and body. They learn. People go off into different directions in life; I get them back on the right track.”

Bikram started practicing Yoga at the age of four with Bishnu Charan Ghosh, brother of Paramahansa Yogananda (author of Autobiography of a Yogi, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles). At the age of thirteen, he won the National India Yoga Competition and was undefeated for three years. It is true he has benefited enormously creating Bikram Yoga, which he claims is simply Hatha Yoga done under his creative sequence. But when asked, now that you franchised Bikram Yoga, can you tell me, “Who owns Yoga,” he furrowed his brow and blasted a response, “Who owns Yoga? No one owns Yoga. Yoga is everything, air, God, love.”

“Do your teachers teach this?” I asked.

“Of course, everyday.”

The Sanskrit root of Yoga is yug = to join, harness, yoke, junction, connection. Some believe Yoga is a union within our selves, a union to the higher self, a higher power, some say, to God, and, to which, is universal. It is part of a collective public domain accessible by all individuals around the world and capable of being shared by all, at any time. Everyone has the ability to tap into the higher self, whether it be through Yoga, church, community work, helping others, love, or reverence towards mankind. “Self realization is your birthright, in this lifetime,” said James Butkevich, long-time student of Pattabhi Jois and teacher of Ashtanga Yoga. “No one owns that. With enthusiastic hard work, sweat, self-discipline, and the love of everything that’s good, it is possible.”

Claiming rights to a physical set of asana or postures might be possible, but owning the path to liberation is a much different proposition.

If one defines Yoga as a means to discovering this inner light, then copyright is irrelevant. Yoga transcends commercial boundaries because the practice is not simply an asana sequence or a business. Everyday, Yoga teachers around the globe use various postures to assist their students on their own Yoga path. In many schools of Yoga, teachers create and teach, a sequence learned from their teachers, and their teachers’ teachers. They place their thumbprint on any given class. Under their tutelage, the student will learn, experience, and ultimately benefit from the practice of Yoga. At each step, the practice, perhaps starting out physical, becomes far from quantifying.

So our Yoga practice deepens.

As it deepens, more questions arise and we search for answers. Sometimes the questions spring unexpectedly from our teachers, like Sharath’s statement, which cause us to dig deeper into our own understandings. The answers found might be varied and depend on where one is on their own Yoga path. Yet how we learn and interpret Yoga’s heritage, and hence the visceral potential of Yoga, will depend largely on the lineage of each given teacher and/or school.

The ineluctable draw of Yoga continues to become more and more mainstream. How will teachers and therefore students learn about their Yoga heritage? How will our culture continue to make it our own? What spin, modifications, trends, and changes will we make? Will the legal system become more involved and will legislative trends appearing in different states continue to increase? Will courts and laws define Yoga as a sport or religion or something else? Will we have a governing Yoga body that is more tha a voluntary registry? Will Yoga become qualified for the Olympics as the USA Yoga Federation is striving to accomomplish? Changes are inevitable, but perhaps as the hundreds of people around the world flocking to Yoga increases, so will a truer understanding of the nature and tradition of Yoga passed down through the Vedas and ancient texts. This is in the hands our teachers, and therefore in all of us. For Yoga is not something to be owned, but something to be loved and shared, interpreted and taught as in the original intentions written in the Vedas.

Roughly 150 teachers are authorized in the Ashtanga method taught by Pattabhi Jois. There is no set structure in how Jois gave authorization, but generally speaking, a person must present himself to practice in Mysore over a period of time for a number of years. After practice develops and the aspirant demonstrates an appropriate attitude, devotion towards the practice, and a respect for the tradition of parampara, the succession of teacher and disciple, Jois would then give the authorization. Yet there are more than 1,000 teachers around the world teaching his method. When asked about this, Jois responded, “Let other teacher be there, but I hope their students finally one day get what they deserve.” Just as Jois learned from his guru, he wished for students to learn the lineage from their teachers.

Sharath has now taken the helm of the Ashtanga Yoga tradition. When Sharath spoke in New York it was just weeks before his beloved grandfather died. Reflecting on the statement “No one owns Yoga,” a statement his grandfather often made, it appears timely and also timeless. As we strive to become Yogis and Yoginis, Yoga has taken, and will continue to take, different interpretations as it travels globally into the future. The shepherd of one school of Yoga, Sharath offers clarity. If we cling to Yoga and attach ourselves, or make it someone’s chattel, then we are nowhere near to Yoga’s ultimate benefit. We become less capable of understanding and therefore, experiencing, Yoga’s heritage and therefore its richness, derived not through ownership but through liberation.

A few days ago, I thought about my acquaintance in Mysore who sparked my questioning of Sharath’s statement. Looking on her Facebook page I felt a better understanding of compassion. As Yoga philosophy teacher, Narasimhan, said one day in Mysore, we as Yoga students the world over are yearning to learn something more than what our Western culture affords us. I realized through the process, that I now had more compassion for my fellow Yoga practitioners, but moreover, I found some for myself. For who knows where my friend’s ego stood in her statements, and who was I to jump to conclusions? The next day on the mat, I placed my hands together and chanted the morning prayer. I thanked my teachers, the ones I knew, never knew or whom I have yet to meet, and I specifically thanked my fellow students who also show us the way. I reached into the transforming sky, jumped back and moved forward.

All is coming.

Leslie Hendry is an advanced Ashtanga Yoga practitioner who lives in Los Angeles and is also rooted in India and her native Texas. A former New York attorney, she designed the #3-ranked kids app “Everything Has a Home” and is working on her second book.

https://layoga.com/yoga-in-the-world/who-owns-yoga/

LA Yoga Article with Sharath Jois by Leslie Hendry 2016

By Leslie Hendry|May 16th, 2016

How any place can become a spiritual place and the power of one-on-one practices.

If you have practiced any form of Ashtanga, Vinyasa, or Power Yoga, you have practiced the teachings of the late influential teacher Sri K Pattabhi Jois, who brought the Ashtanga Yoga tradition as we know it today to the West. As a devoted student in this lineage, I just ventured on my eighth trip to study Ashtanga yoga in Mysore, India, with his grandson, R. Sharath Jois. Back in 2005, I first studied with Sharath in his mother, Saraswati’s house across the street from the “main shala.” The living room had been repurposed into a shala and held a small number of students. Pattabhi Jois,had set the course of yoga’s direction and its future thirty years before. In preparation for Sharath’s U.S. tour I sat down with him and talked about yoga in Los Angeles and throughout the world.

Leslie: Many spiritual leaders built centers in Los Angeles to spread yoga. Do you think LA is a spiritual place?

Sharath: Only practices make it spiritual. If there are many spiritual people, it becomes a spiritual place. Why are the Himalayas spiritual? Because there are many spiritual people there who experience spirituality and who have spiritual experiences. That’s why many gurus went to Los Angeles because there were people interested in spirituality. When there are interested people who want to know [and develop] spirituality …it makes them spiritual. It becomes a spiritual place. So, maybe there is a connection there.

Leslie: Southern California was the first place your grandfather, Sri K Pattabhi, known as Guruji, visited in the United States.

Sharath: In 1975, Guruji went to Encinitas. That was the first place he went in the U.S. to teach Ashtanga yoga. Paramahansa Yogananda [also] set up his center there. People started thinking about spirituality and yoga. They wanted to learn about yoga and to discover what it is, so gurus started traveling.

Leslie: Now yoga has been re-interpreted many times. Do you see yoga as classical and modern?

Sharath: Definitely. Nowadays, it has become more physical, like how to do handstand. There is no spirituality in that. It’s just physical, how to bend your body and how to align your body, but classical yoga is about how to bring the discipline to your body and your mind, and how that discipline leads you towards spirituality. That is called yama and niyama. These are very important limbs in yoga practice. Not many people are putting attention to these. They are putting attention only to the physical aspect of yoga….there is no breathing, no vinyasa, no gazing. All these things, what we call tristana, are very important to our asana practice.

In [some forms of] modern yoga, it’s mostly acrobatics. No one knows where they are inhaling, where they are exhaling, how the posture helps our body and mind. They don’t know how our breathing helps our body, nervous system, and mind. But this is very important. Yoga is getting popular all over the world, but there are only few people who have understood yoga well, who have gone to the roots of yoga. Everything is all like a circus, just bending their bodies but that doesn’t mean that’s spirituality. I go to lots of places but there are only few people who really know what yoga is.

“Practices make [a place] spiritual. If there are many spiritual people, it becomes a spiritual place.”

Leslie: What is Mysore style?

Sharath: Let me explain a led class: where we call the asana names, count the vinyasas and every student is practicing the asana at the same time. This is to improve vinyasa and have proper understanding of the system: where to inhale and exhale, and to follow the vinyasa properly.

Mysore class is where we are not counting. We are [monitoring and] trying to help the student improve in different postures. It’s not Mysore style it’s like a one-on-one style. Students are doing it at their own pace. This is called Mysore style because it started in Mysore by Pattabhi Jois.

Leslie: Practicing at the shala in Mysore reminds me of the United Nations of Yoga. Students might not speak the same language but when we do our practice together it creates beautiful energy. What do you think about the growing global Ashtanga world?

Sharath: Yoga doesn’t have any language. When there are 60 students practicing in the shala, there is no common language but there is a common thing, which is yoga practice. They are all doing the same practice, the same asanas, and even they know which asana this is, how many vinyasas. They are all doing simultaneously the same asana, in the same sequence, and that is the language that brings so much peace. Your energy, their energy, everything is mixing up and generating this huge ball of energy in the shala. So, that is very important, and that is the only language.

When they are silently doing practice, it generates a certain energy, which makes the whole environment peaceful. Silence is the only method to bring peace. Once your mind is silent then everything becomes silent and serene. The whole concept, the purpose of doing yoga is to bring silence, to bring peace to your mind.

In Mysore there are different nationalities speaking different languages, but in the practice no language is used but the energy is so high. When the energy is so high, and no one is talking, you only see equality in each and every student. It’s not that you are American, Japanese, Korean, or Australian. When this equality happens, everything is one. Yoga is also one. SAMATVAM YOGAM UCYATE (Bhagavad Gita 2:48). Where there are no emotions, no happiness, no sadness, no caste, no creed, no nationality, no discriminations, that’s also called yoga. So, becoming one is called yoga.

“Silence is the only method to bring peace. Once your mind is silent then everything becomes silent and serene. The whole concept, the purpose of doing yoga is to bring silence, to bring peace to your mind.”

Leslie: What is a Sadakha?

Sharath: A Sadakha is a practitioner who dedicates himself to the practice and the lineage. Yoga isn’t that which can be practiced by watching videos or reading books. Yoga has to come from a parampara, from a lineage, and you have to devote to that lineage and try to learn yoga. That is how the yoga should come.

Leslie: The “one-on-one” approach, done with little talking, does it help us better learn our true nature?

Sharath: In our lineage, you can’t teach in masses. We can teach, but we can’t connect to many people. We can’t understand our students unless we are teaching one-on-one. When there are too many students, we can’t reach everyone. Your voice can reach, but you can’t give personal attention to each student. Everyone has different body structures, mindsets, and flexibilities. Only when you are one-on-one can you understand the students and give what they need.

Leslie: Does this help their spiritual path?

Sharath: Spiritual path is when you get connected with your guru. When you give personal attention to a student, there’s lots of energy that flows through your student. He can feel the energy. When people come to practice in Mysore, there is certain energy here. That energy is generated by a guru. When that energy is generated by a guru, everyone will follow him, everyone will connect to him, everyone can feel his energy and try to practice in that energy. In a mass, you can’t have that same energy. It’s like going to a rock concert, you are just hearing but you can’t get connected to the singer.

Leslie: How do you see Ashtanga yoga making an impact in the world?

Sharath: There is no particular place it will make an impact. There is no one place for yoga. Many places yoga has reached, many countries, many nationalities. Yoga doesn’t belong to one culture. Everyone should practice yoga for their own well-being. Once that happens, the whole planet becomes a spiritual place. The whole planet will become totally different. Everyone will realize their own responsibility in their life towards this planet, towards humanity, so that’s what we have to think about. Yoga will give you that kind of knowledge. It’s not just physical, it’s overall how to keep your own well-being, and keeping others’ well-being. So, that is called yoga.

Leslie Hendry

https://layoga.com/community/teacher-profiles/sitting-down-with-r-sharath-jois/

Dec 2, 2024

Led Primary Series + Conference Online with Usha

Online Classes with Usha Rani Chittoor

Led Primary Series of Ashtanga Yoga and Conference live from India

In the spirit of connecting our worldwide community, please join us for traditional practice live from India followed by a talk on yoga, culture, and theory with Usha Rani Chittoor. Usha moved to Mysore and began practicing with Guruji Sharath Jois in 2007. She lives, teaches, and practices there still. She offers a unique perspective being steeped in the culture and practices of yoga and mother India.

All are welcome, gathering together is encouraged.

Class link will be sent out before class.

Class tuition is pay what you (or your group) are able. We believe all people should have access to practice. No questions asked.

Payment / registration is expected before taking class.

Welcome!

Class one - Saturday, December 14

Class two - Saturday, December 28

——> register for each class here for individuals and/or groups

Classes take place at 7:30pm Indian Standard Time - please check your local time zone

Please check back for future dates.

We look forward to seeing you!

Dec 1, 2024

Sharath Jois Archive

YouTube talks etc

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFMBVx1px254CN8ekIlpa3djZIL37QNle&si=TLTM5W4PNbMmjmz5

YouTube classes and audio

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFMBVx1px254-X8gh77YZJPjpR4XZzneC&si=9s6KqkSsBB66Kj8k

Conference notes

http://aylibrary.blogspot.com/2013/01/conference-notes-archive.html?m=1

Nov 30, 2024

2025 Ashtanga Yoga Retreats

A growing list of places to go practice Mysore and travel in 2025…

This list is made from personal research of teachers listed on The SYC, KPJAYI, Ashtanga.com websites. Only one retreat per teacher. Listed by date. Has to include Mysore. Hope this is helpful!

Let me know if you know of one to include…