YA - CE Workshop | Separation: and Social (USYACE1103C)

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SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Hello everyone and welcome. Welcome to this continuing education YogaAlliance panel. I'm so honoured and happy to welcome you to be here with you. My name is Susanna Barkataki and I'm here with Kallie Schut and we would love to invite you to let us know where you are joining from today.

And there is a location poll that popped up and you can tick which place you are here from. I'm going to take a moment to introduce us and then we will begin with a drop in and a meditation. I am an author and a yoga Unity activist, my pronouns are she/her/hers and I am here with you all on the unseated land. Colonized as Orlando Florida. This is session one separation: Yogis and Social Justice and I'm so, so honoured to be here with our guest, Kallie Schut and I'm going to read Callie's bio.

Kallie is a yoga and traditions educator who is a long line Social Justice and antiracist activist. Advocating for those without a voice in places with power and privilege, Kallie is YogaAlliance certified a 500 hour teacher of Indian heritage practising intentional yoga meditation and for for 35 years. Kallie it is one of the founding members of the UK founding teachers and is also the founder of rebel yoga tribe YouTube channel, radical book club and delivers continuing professional education trainings, which delve deep into the legacy of colonialism and . Welcome, Kallie we are so happy to be here with you.

KALLIE SCHUT: Thank you, namaste. Welcome. This is nice, thank you, Susanna.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: You are so welcome. Important for folks to note this is, we have the qualifications needed for this to be a continuing education credit workshop for you all, it is a four-part series, this the first of 4 parts. And we are following the parts on the framework of how to embrace yoga's roots, looking for a step of separation which we will explore today, reflection, which is the 2nd part next week, the following week is connection through action and then the final week is liberation.

I myself, have in our YTD 500, and a YogaAlliance continuing education provider, yoga therapist, and practitioner and I also have a Masters in education. I share all of those things because one, it is helpful to know who is in the space but also more than anything, I'm a student of yoga and a practitioner and my teaching comes from that place of always being open to learning and so I'm really grateful to be here with you all.

You can type in the chat, we would love to know where you are here from in the chat. You can type that there, and then, if you have specific questions that you want to make sure we answer, the best way to get your questions answered is to put them in the Q&A. If you look at the bottom YA - CE Workshop | Separation: Yogis and Social (USYACE1103C)

of your resume there is a Q&A feature you can put questions on the bottom for us there, and the tab we would love to know where you are here from and one or 2 words of how your heart is today, how are you doing, how is your heart? And so, welcome from Calgary, welcome from Utah, thank you.

I feel warm and connected, those are my 2 words. Yes. Very busy. Honouring that as well. All of the ways. We are going to begin with a drop in, and I will invite and that we will get the conversation, welcome, it is so great to see you well, some of you I know, and it's wonderful to see you and some of you are new to me. So much appreciation, and for folks who are watching the replay as well.

I like to invite a bell, I learned this from my meditation teacher. He always talks about inviting the bell and not striking or hitting the bell, and listening to the bell as an invitation to come back to our home within. If that feels inaccessible to maybe imagine what it might feel like to come back home. So I invite the bell.

(Bell rings)

Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in. And breathing out. I am aware that I am breathing out. In, and out. If you are walking, driving, please keep your eyes open and stay alert. If you are in a space or you can let your attention be a little bit more soft and gentle, then maybe you relax your gaze on a certain spot and let your focus be soft. Let your eyes and gently close. And we will begin to tune in to our breathing. And with every inhale, let yourself explore into your intention of connecting to yoga today, right here in this moment. And with every exhale, release a little bit and let go and trust your connection.

Inhale, enlivening the intention. And exhale, releasing and letting go. Bring to mind your teachers, those who have taught you yoga from whom you have learned this practice. And maybe, you are quite new and you have just one or 2 teachers or maybe you have been on this path for many, many years. And you've got 10, 20, 30 even hundreds of teachers. Call all of those that have taught you yoga to mind. And if it feels appropriate to you, offer them some gratitude. Some deep care and reverence. For passing this practice along to you in a way that they have done.

Thank you to my teachers and then acknowledge that your teachers to have teachers. And you may know those teachers or you may not, and that those teachers have teachers. On and on back through time and space. Probably in not too many generations. We find ourselves in the subcontinent of and South Asia, Sri Lanka, and in earlier times, in this valley, the river valley, where yoga practitioners took on many forms. Practising outskirts of villages, under trees, by rivers and streams, at the foot of mountains, and caves. And others practised in villages. In cities, and communities. Seeking liberation and freedom from suffering. And perhaps, their aspirations are not so different than yours. Although, the form may have been unique to their time and place.

Feeling your connection to these early yoga practitioners from South Asia, and taking a moment in your way to acknowledge and think and offer gratitude. To these teachers and students without whom the practice would not be with us today. Now you can let them go. As you are ready, come back through time through yourself, connecting back into your intention and your

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presence, your reasons for being here. And acknowledge her students if you teach, but also for those who are learning and wanting to deepen with yoga who don't formally teach, maybe by how you are being or who you are being, how you live your yoga ethics, you are to passing on this practice. And so, it comes to us through time, through space, not without challenge, without the impacts of colonization. Without separation.

Butts, how you transmit and share yoga determines the future of this practice. And so, there is an unbroken line like a candlelight being passed down from generation to generation. And you 2 are one of the bearers of this light. And so, thanking your students formally or informally, and then coming back to yourself with your breath, right here right now. And find an anchor in this resource, perhaps installing that light, the candle at the heart and the mind. And knowing you can return to that light, even when your practice is challenging, where the external world is challenging, feeling a deep sense of integration and trust. If you would like to receive this, from the tradition of yoga. And we will begin to close this meditation, I invite you to bring your left and right hand together at the heart. United in past, present, future. And we will close our meditation with the sound of ohm. .. Transformation. In the whole sound together that which has been gone beyond time space, shape and form. Take a deep breath and ommmm peace, peace, peace.

We can shift a little bit left and right in your space looking around the room that you are in noticing light and form and color and then we will come back to this shared circle. Thank you for being here and thank you for being part of this exploration and this conversation.

I love do sometimes take a moment to hear from folks if there was anything in the meditation or the guidance that was enlivened for you and Kallie just opening up to you if there's anything you would like to share as well.

KALLIE SCHUT: Thank you. That was a really very thought-provoking meditation for me. I am feeling a sense of slight disorientation. And I cannot quite place why I am feeling that at the moment. I sense that it is a time of change, not only for the self but also for community. And it is how do we navigate change? How do we keep ourselves centered to that change? And I think many of us who have been caught in the flux of very deeply distressing or traumatizing experiences over the last year, I think we are moving through the process of grief and I sense that is a real sort of, in a way that absence that is so present within the heart space. I could've really dropped into that sense of absence. So thank you for that very deep and powerful opportunity to look inward.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: There is so much grief. This is been such a hard time on so many levels where we are more connected for the global pandemic than we have ever been but also in so many ways more separated because our communities, communities of color were you are in the UK and also where I am in the United States are experiencing more impacts, negative health impacts, also social and political and economic impacts.

So all of the inequities are growing and growing and kind of being amplified and brought out into the forefront. And, you know, a lot of times people say to me isn't yoga about finding unity. When you talk about separation and you Kallie early in the world talk a lot about separation and in a moment I will read about the history of yoga and its roots in mind how it's separation.

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But I want to actually start with that question, how do you approach addressing that grief and that suffering that is so clear when people say that yoga is not about talking about were looking at separation. Yoga is unity.

KALLIE SCHUT: I think it is this process of journey and when you journey into the self. If you do not discover all the sort of, I think of this as a terrain with valleys and mountains of who we are and how we live in this modern world and also what we have inherited. As you are exploring these crevices within the self all of these places with fragmentation, separations of continence adrift, to be in a place where you are not acknowledging those we are not acknowledging how those of impacted on you even if you are in place of security and in a place of privilege and you have that benefit of feeling where you belong where you are to yourself. Even in that moment there must be a sense that there is a no otherness that the way I live my life is not the way others live it. The choices available to me are not available to others in the journey I have taken to be where I am has involved inevitably walking past, walking over, walking through some stories of people, land, of suffering.

So this sense of disconnecting or amnesia, this amnesia of our shared history, our shared suffering is deeply troubling to me. And I wonder often how can we move to a place of unit of merging with this consciousness that the path of yoga is leading us to if we fail to recognize the pitfalls on the pathway. If we fail to navigate not only the obstacles and hurdles that are in our route but those that are in the roots of others who are on the same journey towards these.

I am deeply curious about that and that curiosity is one I apply not only to myself but to those who are around me.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: I think a lot about Ahimsa and it is practicing non-harm but also creating the conditions for that to exist for others. It is a very concrete way that we can apply the very first step of yoga ethics.

KALLIE SCHUT: A sense of compassionate inquiry. I often can find to move from the heart space with compassion, with empathy, with a sense of being curious to what others are experiencing helps you to develop as an individual. Helps you to connect with your own humanity so in order to connect with your own humanity you have to connect with the concept of humanity as experienced by all of us and especially those who have had dehumanizing or brutalizing experiences. So that we can understand how we are part of that, how we have been subjected to that, how we have been complicit in that or how our ancestors, communities or societies are in that.

To me, even very recent and this week we have seen evidence how that disconnection from the history, disconnection from the pain of history, disconnection from how that history has shaped us so the voices are unheard, unseen, unknown and how we can as nationstates, as leaders people in positions of power and privilege have the security and the confidence in the arrogance to look away. To deny that history. To deny the pain and suffering in the very real trauma that we still hold and carry in our bodies today. It is astonishing to me.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: It really is. I love that you brought in empathy because that became the book end of the book that I wrote. I wrote it from a place of suffering, pain, from a place of experiencing separation. I

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have grown up with yoga in my family lineage and my parents, particularly my father, teaching me different yogic practices so I did not necessarily want to write a book on yoga and social justice.

I would have written a book on the or energy work or other aspects of yoga but what was called forth for my life experience as a yoga practitioner in the West was really all the ways I had not belong in all the ways that not just I, but the fullness of the yoga tradition had been cut apart, exiled, left out, abused, made a mockery of in the west.

And so, the book came from this how of what really felt like my ancestral channeling of and ancestral expression and ones that came out including because it has the four parts in the first part is really clearly looking at all the way separation exists and I realized at the beginning it needed to welcome people in wherever they were.

So it's not just a book for white people, it's not just a book for people of color or a book for South Asians. It is a book for all of us to read and kind of have that awareness and empathy for where we might have missed something about someone else's experience and where we can practice yoga as a path of understanding and having care and connection for those other places in others.

KALLIE SCHUT: I think, Susanna, when you talk about that connection with others for me this practice of social engagement. So in order to engage with one another and this is the practice of yoga, it gives us the tools to engage not only with the self but to engage with our community, neighbors, our sisters and brothers to engage with those who are across the aisle from us. To those that we find perhaps abhored and but yet knowing there is the seed we have all shared no matter what our journey or history that within our own histories whether you are the victors of history or those were vanquished from history, in some capacity your ancestors would have experienced loss. They would have experienced rupture. Even as colonizing, people of European descent as colonizers of the world you would've still experience that sense of loss of connection to your homeland, to your family of origin when you move around the world to occupy other lands.

So there is still this sense of numbing, a sense of shutting down your humanity in order to do the work you do as a colonizer or as an oppressor. There is a brutalizing impact of that. And unless you are able to acknowledge that brutalization that is also taken place within the oppressors in that sense and shutting down their own humanity in order to perpetuate acts of inhumane, maltreatment and brutal treatment of others you have to shut down your community to do that. What does that do to the human soul? What does that do to the heart?

And, for me, and very many ways I have, I don't want to say pity, but there is something that I think is deeply sad about those of us who are not able to recognize our own limitations. Whereas those of us who are deeply connected with our pain we live a more enriched life in many ways because we are so connected with our ancestors. We are so connected with pain, we are so connected with our daily lives of having had to be compassionate, empathic because that is how we get through the day looking for the joy, looking for the human shared experience. We look for that. We have to find those little nuggets of things that keep us going through the day.

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So in many ways the lives of those who have suffered are richer and we are richer human beings with more compassion, empathy because of that. I think that is something for us to recognize. That is our strength. It gives us our resilience. That is why we are able to take, you know, if anyone saw what's been happening in the UK in a middle aged white man storming out because his ego has been hurt, demonstrates how little pain he must have experienced in his life or that to have cost him hurt or that you have caused him harm?

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Yes, and we can do a whole session on what is happening with Megan Markel and – I just want to say on that it has been really painful actually and I have not been speaking much about it because watching it play out what I think so many folks of color new was happening behind the scenes and all of the gas lighting and suppression and all of the challenges that Megan has had to experience at the hands of Empire, that is what we have experienced for decades, centuries for some of us our whole lives.

I think about my father who was born right before Britain left, right before India was free so I'm really the first generation, like imagine that. I don't know for your family but it's like that first generation of free from colonial oppression. And oppression and trauma, we carry it in us for seven generations. We are so close still to what all of that means and we are seeing that even though there is freedom, freedom does not necessarily translate into true freedom of movement, freedom of thought or freedom of expression because there are all these norms or decorum or ways people are expected to be within the monarchy but also I would say within the yoga world in the West in particular.

That we are here to really identify and unpack. I want to read a little bit actually from the book and just so folks know, because I wanted the book to be useful, there is a free chapter that I think is probably one of the most important chapters of the book around trauma, colonial trauma some of what we are talking about right now and trauma informed tools that have always existed within the tradition that is on the books site which is embraced yoga's roots. And Lenore thank you so much for asking. Cybil is amazing in here moderating and supporting the panel. It is actually my book. I have it here it is Embraced Yoga Roots and courageous ways to deepen your practice. If you go to embraced yoga's roots book.com you can get the free chapter. I did not want people to have to buy the book. Certainly you can if you want and if that makes sense for you. But there's also a very robust three chapter you can use and photocopy and share and, you know, like

KALLIE SCHUT: And by. Please by. She has been doing this work for many many years. And for us to value and honor the dedication and all the work you printed from what you're speaking we can already hear how much of yourself you have poured into this, how much of your own story, how much of your own pain you have poured into this. Please do by Susanna's book. This is part of the reparation and restitution work that we can do to support teachers like Susanna who have dedicated in common for many comments that are negative, gas lighting, underminding seeking to reduce you and reduce your work. And certainly your and honored and valued member of our community and we should all be supporting your word. It is a wonderful book. By it not only for yourself but for other yoga teachers you think would benefit from it.

Sorry for the pitch but I'm really passionate about supporting women of colour.

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SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Yes, absolutely, for folks listening, when you think of your so you had or your yoga bookshelves, who are the teachers? Who are the books by? And for many of us, those books have not been from people within the tradition, maybe one or 2, but many of the books and if it is from folks within the tradition, is it--

KALLIE SCHUT: Men. The uncalled voice.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Yet, I want to read on yoga's modern history from separation to liberation. To give this context of talking about separation but then also understanding that looking at separation, it's not some modern Western read on or overlay, looking at separation and addressing it has been a part of what yoga and yoga culture in Indian culture and South Asian culture has done for thousands of years.

And this is page 38, if you do have the book, yoga has always been a science of liberation. It is a coherent method for personal freedom, social justice, and equity that has been tested over time and in practice. Though it has been often reduced a little more than just carrying around a yoga mat and rolling it up to do a class where you move your body into different shapes, it does so much more.

Yoga is a complex system of specific practice of body and mind and spirit, guiding to freedom and liberation from suffering. Yoga is a mind-body and spiritual practice that invites deeper practice aligned with breath, it is a powerful practice and its potential for liberation is immense. Much of the Indian independence movement was inspired and fuelled by yoga applying to principles of nonviolent struggle. Gandhi one of the leaders of the independence movement took the Bhagavad-Gita to jail with him and used the Gators yoga philosophy to fuel the methods used to create the foundations for independence. Throughout this trying time in India's history, yoga and yogis were instrumental in creating a culture of independence and justice. When under colonization in the late 18 centuries, this is the 1700s, the yogis in northern India used their role and their power to address colonial domination. The British didn't take the dissidents lightly, the yogis who are spiritual as well as strategic they-- to state they were capable of ruling themselves by civil disobedience, they would essentially practice by day and then at night, come together and throw a wrench and mechanisms of Empire. When I lived in Behar India I heard many stories of how they disrupted trains of the British East Indian company, the goods they were exploiting could not get to their destinations.

This was intentionally symbolic on the part of the yogis. They were effectively in the company where it hurt in their pocketbook, they sought to make it not worth it to stay and colonize India. Though it would be 2 more centuries before British rule ended, the roots of India and dependence are seated in those yogis actions. So powerful were these armed aesthetics throughout the final decades of the 18th century, the British found themselves pitted against a yoga insurgency that would come to be known as the rebellion, rights researcher in 2012.

And, this to me is so powerful, it is so powerful to look in and say, yoga practice has not been practice of just sitting in meditation on the sidelines, although that can be a part of the practice, and for many of us, there may be times in our lives where we need to completely remove

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ourselves from the external conditions and just sit and practice or be with ourselves or Journal or green. And there is time for action, and neither one is superior to the other. Neither one negates the other, and both have been a part of what it means to be of yoga practitioner for the last, for all of time, so Kelly, I am really curious, any thoughts that this brings up for you?

KALLIE SCHUT: We are the descendents of warriors, and when we think about yoga as you say, it is a meditative practice that is for the South spiritual enlightenment however, it is clearly a call for action, even in, if you are just focusing on your own practice and your own spiritual journey, and that sort of is for you. You still call for action for you to do what it takes to make sure that you can remove the root causes of suffering that you can still lead these of the mind so you can break free from the cycle of-- it is a call of action, and never has to be something you would go away and meditate in a cave, and yes, some people did that. Because they were able to do that. But isn't that where the British would like to leave with the voice and with the fire? And their spirits to rise up against the British?

This sense of the East India Company and they managed to stereotype, just thinking about, how do we civilize, Christianize, and occupy the land of the virtual savage barbarians who practice self emulation-- completely exaggerating and blowing out-- dehumanizing Indians, emasculating Indian strength, the character of Indians as freedom fighters, as inclusive embracing pluralistic traditions are coming together, many times in peace and harmony, yes there has been history in India, pre-British, under the Mughal Empire, but there were long periods of peace and of coming together and working together.

When the British arrived, how does a few hundred of civil servants take over countries 350 million Indians? How do you control this huge subcontinent? We have to do it through means of cultural-- by saying that you are here this is your God-given right or date mandate to come here and bring civilization to a land that is one of the cradles of civilization, you made reference one of the 6 creators of civilization, Europe was still in the dark ages. The sheer arrogance of the British arrived with the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, and, in order to control all of these different-- basic practices, these research these tribal traditions, you have to divide and conquer. You start segregating people. You could pitch them up against one another so some people are religious, and some people are merchants and some people are tradespeople and begin to categorize you reinforce and simplify the caste system reinforcing becomes something as fixed that then people who are placed in broadcast pitches against those who are placed in another cast, they then have the Indians fighting against each other and fighting for resources in order to survive and then you quietly come in and take over and acquire land and natural source. And then you reduce Indian faith and tradition wisdom traditions through these practices that are spiritual and harmless. They can be, anything that threatened the rule that the British has, has challenged the military political and economic power for the British has been reduced. And what you say there, we talk about the movements that Mahatma Gandhi, he brought to this coalition together.

It was a movement of resistance for many decades in India, and yet it was this - pivotal moment with this true force. If you remember the images of Mahatma Gandhi, you would look at him and say harmless little skinny man in a loincloth, and yet, the power that he had to channel the peaceful, nonviolent movement, spiritual movement, it is essentially a spiritual movement to being through compassion, a change, a transformation in the society, a change in the political

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structure. And I'm always blown away but when I think about that powerful movements, completely nonviolent movement that 400 centuries of European rule, overthrew of European rule, in many ways, the king drew upon his work, we had a force that Mahatma Gandhi called it, Martin Luther King called it we had Nelson Mandela who is a great follower of Mahatma Gandhi's work these are powerful tenants of political change that are rooted in spirituality with sacred response abilities to the south and accountability for others.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: So powerful, thank you for sharing that because for me, I had to go through that process personally. Because I had internalized growing up, growing up I was born in Britain and I was constantly hearing about my inferiority indirectly and directly. I had teachers and counsellors in school who would say things like you don't deserve to go to the advanced classes, your kind should be taking shop or home act which is cooking. Nothing wrong with those things, I actually really enjoyed those classes. But I also wanted to go to college, I want to go to university and so I needed more different classes, academic classes as well. And all of that, even though I was fighting it on the outside, I had to have my own kind of truth force experience because I was fighting and I was fighting back and I was saying no counsellor Anderson, I get to take AP calculus too but internally, I felt inferior.

Internally I felt not as good enough and so folks listening and watching later, you may also have had those moments where these messages go in because when we are looking at power and privilege, these systems, they don't operate in isolation. And so, those of us who experience being a women or being queer or being folks of colour or don't have class privilege, or immigrants, there are so many different on the wheel of power, there are different places where we have experience moving further away from the centre power, where we not only experienced marginalization from the outside, but we feel inside. I feel that for me, one, looking at separation was actually the key and understanding separation as it operates, a system, a system and a structure just like you described,-- or race in the United States or in the UK. Cuts us off. We get to practice yoga as a path towards unity. For me, it was really that coming into myself and my own re-acknowledgement and finding ground finding pride and cultural heritage as opposed to thinking the things that may be different or odd or weird, those words were bad.

I know I just said thank you, with letting us know at the 15 minute mark, it goes is so quick, I feel it we could talk for hours as always. We would love to invite you to put your questions about this topic, about separation in general with yoga, any questions that you have for us in the question and answer, if you click the Q&A at the bottom, you can put your questions there.

Really, we are here to support continued learning, continued uplift for you, for the yoga tradition, that is the work that we do, both Kelly and I. We would love to invite your questions in.

KALLIE SCHUT: I'm touching upon the sense of dislocation and disconnection to your land. In reflecting on this question about how yoga continues to separate us. When we think about the diaspora so people like yourself and our parents who migrated from India on the invitation of European and Canadians to common support those nations after the second world war. In the sense of having a loss that is so present in my parents when I see how my parents have worked over the years when I think about the values they have shared and it is this constant search for belonging, belonging to the land. It is because of the sense of separation from our own lands.

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People often say you chose to come here, your parents chose to come here and I often say we are here because you were over there. We are not here necessarily out of choice but we are here because you stripped our land of all its wealth, you stripped are people of its dignity and sovereignty so we have internalized that we are less than so therefore we aspire to be British, we aspire to be American so we can lose our identity. We are suppressing our identity in order to adopt the identity you have given us to be accepted, to have a sense of place. That is a real deep rupture and loss in the psyche, and the soul. That is a wound that runs through us, Susanna.

When I was talking about this brief and when you talk about when you look back at the history of how yoga was suppressed and how it has become the tool to resist and to rebel and to rise up simultaneously as becoming a former showpiece that was palatable to the British rulers. It is this dichotomy that has been present within yoga and the British rule that crafted it because you could not openly practice your traditions or openly practice, you couldn't be worshiping idols because it was seen as contravening at Christian moral values, Christian framework. Anything that challenge the Christian framework was seen as barbaric, as tribal, as primitive.

So people gave up their religions, faith, wisdom practices in order to feel safe under the cultural. But giving up that we have given up a part of ourselves, given up our connection to the ancestors and given up her connection to land. It has not been willing. It is something that has been taught to us. We internalize that mentality. That is a deep sense of separation and loss in rapture that I said with a lot in the heart space. To work through that grief to come to terms with that grief. Think about how can I make repairs my own ancestors. How can my dharmic purpose, my life's work honor the pain and suffering and loss of those who have come before me and reclaiming my connection to yoga as part of that.

Reclaiming our connection to yoga and asserting ourselves in a way, we have a right to speak up for this practice. We are also knowledge producers and influencers. We had this knowledge from within the home that we can share to help us build bridges.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Yes, and I think this is so key. We have a few questions and Deborah says how did those of us who do come from a western white privilege space engage in this process without harming others and ourselves?

I think the very first piece of that, Deborah, is to acknowledge, you know, you might be feeling grief or sadness or anger or even cheated for not having experienced the full teachings of yoga. You, too, may experience some loss, sadness or even feelings of guilt or fear about doing or saying the wrong thing so not to rush through that part. To be willing to sit with that part which is why we start with separation.

It is to really be like that because in acknowledging your discomfort and being willing to hold that discomfort you actually allow those of us who have been living in that as Kallie and I have shared for our whole lives to perhaps step into a bit more ease. So just being willing to be with, if this conversation opens up more questions or creates discomfort, which I understand that for many of you especially from the dominant culture it might, that being with that discomfort is part of what it can mean to engage in this process.

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There is so much to say about how you can engage in this without harming others and yourselves. There's a lot. I'm fascinated with the question in network but I know we have only a limited amount of time., i want to see if Kallie you have anything to add on that.

KALLIE SCHUT: I think if you have inherited this sacred practice by virtue of being European defendant or holding a white identity know that this gift did not come to you voluntarily. That this gift you have inherited came through 400 years of brutal oppression in India. Millions of people died, were killed during the period of British rule in India. Millions. In that process, that grief still lives with those who come from those traditions from South Asia. This is why when we talk about India often I'm talking about pre-partition in precolonial India to think about the whole so we encapsulate the whole of South Asia.

That our role there is that we may feel shame, we may feel guilt. We may feel, you know, taken in by this solution. So again this is one of those veils that we are unveiling. This is part of the work. We are delayering those preconceptions we have been taught in yoga. The role you can take is the role of someone who is making repairs. How do you reconcile, make restitution and make reparation? How can you do that? You do that by honoring the descendents from those ancestors from whom we have inherited this tradition. We advocate for the rights of those descendents. We move towards equity for those who are marginalized, erased, excluded from these practices that are within their own history.

And I think that is a role you can take and that can be your call for action. You know, this call for action may come in many shapes for us.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Yeah, so powerful. On page 40 in the section on separation say ask ourselves questions. Is our practice liberating? Is it freeing? Does it disrupt oppression? Is it leading to greater freedom for ourselves or others? So continuing to ask. Someone asked what I mean by separation? Separation is what cuts you off from yourself or you off from others. So concretely if you look around in your yoga community it's who's there and who's not there. It's often veterans, older folks, folks with disabilities and of all body sizes that are not there and not included so there is a way there is separation that I can act to help ease. And then one last question I see asked about specific examples of sabotage upon British colonists. There were some militant yogis would actually dismantle the train tracks, but things to stop the trains take the material off the trains and that's research by David Gordon White and I was quoting an essay in the book. I have a lot of references to this in the book but you can research more.

We have traveled far, we have opened our hearts very tenderly and just acknowledging all of you for coming on this journey with us and that this journey will continue, we have three more sessions. Our next session is on reflection yogis power and privilege with guest teacher Anjali Roul is a researcher on those marginalized voices in yoga historically. We will continue this conversation and Kallie has amazing programs and online classes and a YouTube channel that I highly suggest you follow, subscribe and then explore her classes and we both have online training, yoga teacher training you can learn more about. Thank you for putting the social media in the links in the chat. We wanted to close with the practice. Kallie is going to grace us with the practice to close.

KALLIE SCHUT: I'm going to invite you to bring your hands interlacing all your fingers and your

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left index closest to you. And then bring the tip of your index and thumb together. Bring this to your heart space. Closing your eyes, softening your gaze away from the screen begin to observe your breath. Trace the breath as if it were a thread connecting you to the earth, the sky, the space around you. This is the most intimate connections between you and the universe. Your breath.

And as you inhale drawl that breath, tracing it as it travels the terrain, the landscape of your body over the valleys, mountains and as you exhale allow the breath to leave the body and trace its journey across the valleys and landscape of the earth upon which we all walk, under the sky which we all share.

Inhaling the breath allowing it to travel the landscape of your body. Exhaling the breath allowing it to explore the landscape of the earth around you, beneath you. And now I invite you at your heart center to visualize in your mind's eye a tangled ball of bread perhaps green of nature, perhaps red perhaps golden any color of your choosing. Here this knot of grief this fall tangled with threads weaving in and out, up and over and as you visualize this tangled ball at the heart space begin to trace the breath as it leaves through this ball. On the inhale allow the breath to create small gaps, spaces where the light shines and as you exhale allow any knots to soften inhaling the breath into the heart to create space between each tangled thread. Exhaling soften the not that are tightly wound here. At the heart thread that connects us with our ancestors with the known or unknown, now the thread traces our connection itself.

In this thread that connects us to our descendents whether direct or indirect knowing that in this moment, your sacred guardians practice of bearing witness to the grief within this practice. Knowing that we are connected as if we were threads in a tapestry each bringing beauty to this tapestry, each bringing our story to this tapestry. Take a full breath and allow your heart to expand with light.

Shining the dark areas that perhaps you have yet to explore to witness, to hear, to see, and as you exhale and release the breath closing our time here together by chanting peace and perhaps invite significant meaning to each for the self for your community, and for the earth itself. Take a full breath in to prepare. Ommmmmm. Releasing bringing your hands to the sky from gratitude from me to Susanna and all of you in the space.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Thank you so much, Kallie, thank you so much for everyone for being here in this community and conversation and we look forward to continuing with you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

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and

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Social (USYACE110 3C)

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