One Can Make a Difference by Ingrid Newkirk

artist into yoga teacher wasn’t a conscious one. It was an organic process. Many of the people who attended our performances (I was now involved with David Life and we were both performing art and practicing yoga together) knew we practiced yoga and would ask us about it. Eventually more and more people wanted to practice with us and not just sit in a seat while we did a performance. Of course, we continued to incorporate elements of our art into the classes, and we still do. Our trajectory is perhaps unusual in that we never went through a period of having to “recruit” students. We certainly didn’t go about it all with a business plan. We knew nothing about business! We were poor artists, teaching in a basement on Avenue B, which we rented twice a week. Over the course of several years, I cocreated, along with David, the style of yoga called Jivamukti Yoga, which emphasizes the attaining of enlightenment through compassion for all beings; that if you want yoga, or enlightenment (the realization of the Oneness of being), then all of your relationships with others, which includes your relationship with the Earth, should be mutually beneficial, based in joy, and that this relationship should be consistent, not just when it is convenient for you. That is a powerful teaching! It could dismantle the foundation of our present culture, which is rooted in the notion that the Earth belongs to us. Unless you are able to live in a way that enhances the lives of others, you will not be happy; certainly you will not achieve enlightenment.
    When I teach yoga, it’s all of us involved in a communal effort to realign ourselves with the essence of who we all are . . . the Divine Whole. In the Aramaic language there is a beautiful word for this: Alaha . It means all that is, referring to the individual, others, animals, plants, nature, and that which could be thought of as God. The practices of yoga refine your perception so that you see yourself as one with the whole. As a gentle, but potent, reminder to myself to keep Alaha in the forefront of my mind, everyday I wake up and say this Sanskrit mantra that David and I learned from Swami Nirmalananda during our first trip to India: Lokaha Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu . During the day, I remember it whenever I can. Swami Nirmalanada told us it means: May all be happy and free. Over the years of meditating on it, I have expanded on the translation, and so when I chant it I also add this in English: May all beings everywhere be happy and free and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all. It’s a powerful chant to teach because it reminds people of the power inherent in their own speech. If we say we want everyone to be happy, then we have to question everything that we do, how we live, how we eat, what we buy, how we speak. The best way to uplift our own lives is to do all we can to uplift the lives of others.
    If you see something that’s wrong and want to do something about it, first do your best to go to the cause of what you see, don’t be content to deal with symptoms. This is a radical way to deal with things. The word radical comes from the same root word as radish , which means “root.” Dig out the cause of the problem. Effective change can only occur if you change the course of action from the casual level. It’s hard to face the fact that whatever problem we may see out there in the world is coming from inside of us. In fact, there is no “out there” out there, rather it’s all coming from within us. Therefore, we become the change we wish to see in the world.
    I have been practicing yoga and practicing being an open and mindful human being for many, many years now, and I’ve discovered that the true test of moral fiber is to stand for peace. To give up the love of power for the power of love. Peace will come when we have given up in our own daily