YA - CE Workshop | Reconnection Through Action: (USYACE2503A)

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SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Hello, everyone and welcome. Welcome welcome. We are so glad to have you here. This is the third in a series of explorations in yoga, this is session 3, reconnection, from appropriation to appreciation.

A few logistics as you log on. There is a location poll as he logon, seating clicker and let us know. There is close captioning, so you should see an option to take advantage of that in the chat. And then also in a link at the bottom.

The other logistics thing, I think most of us know how to use Zoom, but you can drop your questions in the Q and A. Welcome, I am Susanna Barkataki. I use late -- she/her pronouns. I am on colonized land in Orlando Florida.

The other important thing I need to let you know is that I have the qualifications needed for this to be a continuing education unit. Continuing education hour, so you can use this time in that way if it serves you.

I want to introduce Puja saying --Puja Singh Titchkosky , they/them pronouns is a queer yoga and music teacher. I'm so glad that you are here with us to share your experiences, your wisdom, your voice, your heart, your soul and also your practice today. So welcome.

And welcome to everyone who is here. If you would like to share why you are here from, Sybil, can folks share where they are from in the chat? It is always nice to see where folks are listening and from. I saw people from many different places in the pull.

As we begin, Puja is going to drop us in. I will pass it to you.

MX PUJA: I am so excited and honoured to be here with you and everyone who is joining us today. We will start with a little drop in. If you would like to find a comfortable position, however you are most comfortable. If you want any extra support, feel free to grab that. Just allow yourself to settle. You can make any movements that come naturally.

Stretch out if you need to, wiggle out. And then once you have worked out some energy, you can start to find some stillness. You can allow your eyes to close, if that feels OK. Or you are welcome to just soft in your gaze. Feel your connection to whatever you are sitting on. Allow your spine to grow a little taller, the crown of the head reaching up towards the sky if you are seated.

Allow your shoulders to relax away from your ears. Notice your breath. Notice the air entering YA - CE Workshop | Reconnection Through Action: (USYACE2503A)

and exiting through your nostrils. Notice the way her body expands each time you inhale. Notice the way your body contracts as you exhale. Allowing your breath to flow as naturally as possible. Notice the air against your skin. Notice the texture of your clothes against your skin. Notice any sounds around you, whether they are in your own space or outside of your space.

And then start to draw your awareness inwards again. I will invite you to join me in one collective home --ohm. Inhale, fill up as much as you can. And sire tout. -- Site it out. And then inhale for ohm. Ohm. Gently bow your head towards your heart. If your eyes were close, you can allow them to gently open. Just taking in the sights in your own space, the colour, the textures. Thank you so much.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Thank you so much for dropping us in in that way. I was saying before we started, I just had the COVID-19 vaccine. I am really quite tired and have not fully felt in my body since yesterday when I got it. This is the reality of those of us that are getting these experiences now. Right?

Sometimes we go through things and we are just thrown off, or a little bit different. I am appreciative of the opportunity to come back to my experience, to my breath and to be present, because I feel so much more president -- present now than I did a few minutes ago. I am very grateful.

I want us to explore reconnection. Part of this exploration of reconnection is reconnection through action. I want to read just a little bit from the beginning of the section from Embrace Yoga's Roots, which is part one. Reconnection in action.

It starts with this quote, "All of the suffering in the world comes from seeking pleasure for oneself. All the happiness in the world comes from seeking pleasure for others. These words spoken by a Buddhist monk and scholar at the University and in the around 700 BC resonate still today. We have come together through the path of reflecting deeply and have begun to see the path towards unity and reconnection. We have identified many of the causes of separation and see how they come alive and operate in the world around us. And reflect on where they show up in our lives. Now we can integrate what we have learned. Based on yoga teachings, we will turn towards considering solutions for this problem of separation and creating true unity. We will explore some specific concrete skills for doing the work of living and practising yoga as unity that come from within the yogic tradition. Not all the tolls -- tools will speak to everyone. But at least some will speak to you and you can implement them today, this week and into the future as you build your skills and capacity and bring forth the world of yoga as unity."

As we explore this reconnection through action, I wanted to begin with talking about identity and how your identity has informed your relationship to yoga and how it has involved your relationship to your identity.

MX PUJA: This is where so much of my practice of yoga has started, because before I knew about the practice of yoga in a more literal way, someone explaining this is yoga and this is how you practice it, I was practising yoga growing up, just being in an Indian family, things like (unknown term) and going to (Name) temple. Even in the way we eat and the diabetic elements in that and the way we take care of ourselves. How all of that is ingrained into Indian culture and being in

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an Indian family.

And then being queer and trans has also been a huge factor in me diving into the practice of yoga, because from a very young age I felt different in many ways. And it always brought me to a practice of (indiscernible by captioner) because I had to figure out why am I different? What is it about me… There were certain times where it was not as obvious as oh, you are Indian so that is what makes you different. You are queer and that is what makes you different. Sometimes it was less obvious and that and I could not figure out what is it about my difference that is not allowing me to connect or to understand my position allergy -- in the world in a way. Just the practice of inquiry, consulate coming back to that and figuring out how do I exist in this world as myself? But also, still be able to open up to people. Because sometimes these differences create this barrier. We are humans, we are people. We can definitely connect on staff if we allow that yoga, that unity.

But if we have these barriers in our way, and we cannot see why those barriers are there, how they inhibit us. The more we can be clear about who we are, which often comes with labelling, the more we can have an idea or a way to get back to the connection part of it. The more we can see the differences, then we can say this is what different about us, this is how we can connect with each other.

Just the constant inquiry helps me to understand myself better, which helps me to understand how others perceive me and how that would change in different relationships and different environments, different contexts, and it was always just… How do I go back to this practice of yoga in whatever form it is? Whether it is an asana our practice, meditation practice, or maybe something that is come to your seat and sit like that, but how does the practice integrate into an everyday level where I am having a conversation with someone. How do I bring my yoga practice into this conversation? Again, taking off the mat. So often yoga is talked about as, let's go into our yoga practice for one hour today and then we go about our lives.

But if we are really embracing the roots of yoga, the work -- the roots are of more about it being a practice that is in every part of our life.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Thank you for sharing that. One of the things I'm feeling as you are sharing, at least in my experience, because similarly to you, I was raised with yoga as the backdrop of my life through my family and the way that people would give me coaching on if I was sick, they would offer me breath practices or herbs, or if I was stressed before a test, again different meditation practices or mindfulness practices.

A lot of things that were there were the same things I was getting targeted for or feeling disconnected because of. For me, it is this tender relationship of having to get to a point where instead of rejecting those things that may be different than the mainstream, than the norm, I was able to see oh, actually in this path and this practice, I may have a chance of finding reconnection. I do not know if your journey was different than mine, but mine felt very bumpy. It did not feel smooth.

MX PUJA: Definitely not.

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SUSANNA BARKATAKI: I love what you shared two about taking yoga into our lives. Everything Leo the teacher I have had, whether it is a guru or a swami in India, all my aunts and uncles, they are like this is something you do all day long. 24 seven. It is not something you do and then you put away. Especially because many of my teachers have yoga ethics and what that means in terms we -- of how we live in the world as yoga practitioners.

I know one of the big pieces that we are here to tackle or unpack is, if we are reconnecting, one of the biggest blocks is appropriation of yoga, or the idea that yoga is just fitness, is just something you do on the mat, or even just for physical flexibility, all of these things essentially simplify and maybe even appropriate what yoga is. I wanted us to just kind of talk about, especially for folks listening, what cultural appropriation is. Because not everyone knows what it is. And we will get into how we can deal with it. But ways that… What it is, and if there are any places where it has impacted your people close to you.

MX PUJA: This is such a huge topic, and something that I'm constantly diving into and learning more about myself. So much of cultural appropriation that has really become clear to me more recently is that people generally do not culturally appropriate consciously.

People are not going around and taking this and this from yoga and making it my own and profiting off of it. It is generally a much more subtle experience where someone finds yoga… Often from a white teacher, and then they start to learn and it becomes something important in their lives. It changes them or helps them in some way. So they get deeper into it, they do teacher training and then they start to teach, and it kind of just snowballs.

And then all of a sudden you are being offered to these positions to be teaching at festivals or conferences, being uplifted in a way that most South Asians are not. I really learned this most clearly from (Name) about the power imbalance and the harm caused from these situations.

With more awareness around this conversation of cultural appropriation, I think it becomes less and less… There is less and less of an excuse to not actually engage in this conversation, especially as anyone… But especially as a white yoga teacher coming to this practice.

How can we embrace the roots of yoga and… Sorry, I am getting caught up because it is such a big thing, and I guess the thing that I always come back to with cultural appropriation is it is a personal practice of inquiry. No one else can define it in a way that is going to give someone an answer where they can go oh, now I understand cultural appropriation and now I know exactly what to do to fix it. It is not an answer you get in one moment, and then it is like OK, now it is done and I just have to go and do that.

It is always a practice of coming back again and again, you are different in every moment, so how are you engaging with the practice in this moment? I think that is the first question with cultural appropriation. Because you can go to every workshop about cultural appropriation, you can read every book about it, you can have every conversation about it, but until you actually look within yourself and figure out where the issue is, where the problem is, because if you are even engaging with his conversation in the first place, you are already on the path of

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decolonizing yoga in some way.

It also doesn't stop there, so you have to continue to dig deeper and figure out… Context is a really big thing I have been thinking about lately, because if you think about… I keep having this image of a white yoga teacher in middle America weathering -- where they are in it community where there are no South Asians.

In that context, I hope that that white yoga teacher would do whatever they could to learn as much as they could about yoga and transmit that, share that with people, and encourage them to continue to inquire more and to also… Hopefully that white yoga teacher is finding South Asians to learn from, whether it is on the internet, whether it is reading books written by South Asians, whether it is going to places in America or somewhere else, or actually going to India and finding teachers from there. Getting closer and closer to the source.

Students in that area, for example, if you only have this one white yoga teacher who is teaching in your area, then yes. Go practice from them. Learn from them. But do not rely on them as the ultimate source of information. Do not rely on them as the last word. Do not turn them into some guru. They are just a channel for this information. That is great! That is beautiful, practice and create that community together, and dive into yoga, but also do the work of diving deeper and figure out where is this information coming from? Where is this person getting their information? Can I go to the source that they are using? Can I find another source that is closer to the roots of yoga? This has been a lot of tangents.

Because again, it is really deep. I think the big thing I want to come back to is just inquiry, you are the anyone that can give yourself these answers. Like I said, you can talk to as many people as you want, but until you can actually teach a class and feel like you are doing it from the best of your ability, honouring the roots of yoga as much as you can… It is always going to be a process of continuing to decolonize. It is never going to be done.

Even this is a part of yoga that has to be brought into our everyday lives. It is not just something you do where you read a book about cultural appropriation for a few minutes per day and then the welders -- what is done. In every class that you teach, in every interaction that you have, in every class that you take as well, how are you diving deeper into your own personal practice? And your own personal understanding of yoga? Also, how are you diving deeper into the kind of bigger, more global, I guess at this point, conversation around cultural appropriation and actually engaging with that?

You do not live in a vacuum. How are you engaging with each other in this conversation?

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Thank you so much. I just see someone else tearing close captions has joined, do not be alarmed by them. Please take advantage of the close captioning if that is useful to you. I really love to encourage people not to take what Puja says or what I say, and say this is cultural appropriation because Susanna said so. But actually, use the criteria and the critical thinking to figure it out for yourselves. Because we all are part of this path of watch transmitting and shaping and bringing yoga to future generations looks like.

None of us can rely on anyone else, really, to do it for us. We have to do it together. Usually

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when I teach, I define cultural appropriation, and this is on page 144 the bottom, but you do not need the book. This is… You can also Google my name and cultural appropriation if you want to see the definition somewhere.

"Cultural appropriation has to crate -- two criteria. It is power, imbalance and harm." When we are talking about cultural appropriation it is more doorways to looking at colonization in an empire. Even though those are enough for it to be about, it is really importing to the bigger forces that are impacting many of our lives. The harm, the second part is harm. That harm can be of many kinds, it can be disrespectful, it could also be harm that is material harm. Sometimes, I find people… It is useful for folks if we give examples. I used to live in Los Angeles, I do not right now. When I would be there, and sometimes I would go to Venice Beach which is a really interesting place with a lot of shops and stalls on one side, and on the other side is a boardwalk and an ocean.

I would go with my family, and we would walk to the shops and see all the interesting things that people have for sale. Sometimes, there is T-shirt shops that have different shirts with slogans on them. There was a shirt, I was with my aunt and uncle from Bengal, and there was a shirt with a Ganesh, and the Ganesh had a one -- gun in one hand and a blunt in the other. And an alcoholic drink and another. I don't remember what was in the other on. But I remember my family looking at me and saying, "Do they not realize that knish is sacred? That is a God. Why would they do that to God?" There was so hurt and upset.

There was a level where there was harm of disrespect, and there is an example also, I know a few jewelry companies will go to India and study the craft of local jewellers all over the subcontinent and then come back to the US and other places in the West and produce their own jewelry that has icons, the symbols that are lax, different deities, that is part of their belief system but they are taking these icons and turning them into jewelry, or things to just be one for fashion. There, the harm is disrespect, but also material harm because this organizational company is profiting off the spiritual wealth, the cultural wealth and even the actual labour, the artisan labour of folks from India but not giving anything back. And the jewelry cost hundreds of dollars.

It has been something where I think the counterargument is that this is just globalization. Isn't this just what happens in the world? I think for yoga teachers in general, we are more you -- nuanced than that and more caring of people on that. The invitation is to look at where we can… I call it cultural appreciation. But really, it could be moving in the direction of reducing harm.

I take those two criteria of power and harm and flip them, usually. This is what I try to do in my own life as well. This is the top of page 145. Cultural appreciation involves two criteria of power balancing: sharing power or using privilege or advantage to uplift or support other resource groups or people, and this is an appropriate use of power. Including the power that we get from feeling good by our practice.

I often think just because the practice makes me feel good, it doesn't mean it belongs to me. I still have a responsibility to it all for it. And then non-harm, reducing or mitigating harm or actively a blessing the source culture and its people. That can be done financially, socially, politically, emotionally or culturally. I'm curious if you have seen good examples or basically, how do you it's kind of like, what would you want to see people doing? Or what you have you

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seen?

Either kind of a vision for or what you have seen in terms of more appreciating rather than appropriating. Let's talk about some good examples, I just gave a negative, a couple negative examples, what are some positive ones?

MX PUJA: I think this is both something that I have seen and something that I would love to continue to see more of, but just the upliftment of South Asian teachers in many different contexts, whether it is white yoga teachers on Instagram, for example, featuring a South Asian teacher and just uplifting them in that way. Promoting them to their audience however big the audiences whether you have 100 followers or million followers, just sharing that person's work.

And then also in terms of opportunities, seeing people either, whether it is starting a studio or doing a festival or a summit or anything like that, seeing people bring insulation teachers and other BIPOC teachers as well like uplifting them and give them opportunities and paying them for their work.

I've seen just like communities coming together to support people or to support people's work, for example, even your book is actually a great example of seen people come together from so many different, I don't know, if levels of the right word, but from different positions within the yoga world whether it is students or teachers or studio owners or organizers or promoters or just everyone at different levels, seeing them all promoting this book and seeing it popping up on my feet and seeing people mentioning it in their email lists or all of those things, it's just the communal aspect of uplifting people.

If bringing the kind of idea of privilege into this. If you have more privilege, and you are able to uplift someone with less privilege, that is such a beautiful thing for everyone involved because it also, I don't know if I've ever seen a situation where someone has uplifted a white person, for example, uplifting a South Asian yoga teacher and then a white person losing out in some way. I don't generally think people, it's not about anyone losing. It's just about us supporting each other so that people can have opportunities that they might not have otherwise because of these systems that are in place because of these oppressed-- oppressive systems that Susanna had mentioned where it's not just about these individual things, it's about this bigger system that we are trying to shift and to change.

There is so much beautiful community galvanizing around cultural appropriation. And even just in terms of allyship, like people, even something that may seem more trivial like on Instagram, for example. When the trolls are coming out and you know, coming in the comment section and saying hateful things like for other people to step up, as a South Asian person, we are dealing with this kind of stuff all the time, and so, sometimes we don't have the capacity to say something back or to educate that person or to give them that kind of energy. In that case, if an ally can stand up in that situation and say, hey, whatever it is, whatever the conversation is what the situation is, if they can educate them in some way or if they can just call them and in some way, it can take away some of that, that is a form to be able to take away that harm that someone is trying to enact on a South Asian person, in this case.

Yeah, a lot of it really comes down to community, like how can we just care for each other in

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deeper ways and more human ways, that is something I have seen over this past year is just the support that we can provide each other as individual humans, yeah, sometimes I think it's not about the huge things, it's not about the big fancy things, it's just about can you just be kind to another person? And see the powers at play, and kind of maybe try and balance them out in some way.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Yeah, I love that, I love the relationship and the connection there and being open and you know, there are a couple of questions in the Q&A which in a few minutes we will shift to answering some of the questions in the Q&A, but around more generally, is this a practice that makes me feel good and that is what it is about, or did in this practice come to the sages in the Indian subcontinent and now it is here for everyone.

But I think the answer is, absolutely, yes, yoga is for everyone. But it didn't originally come to everyone, right? And so we don't want to erase the people that it came from and because of the world that we live in, the systemic power balance, there is a lot of erasure of South Asian teachers South Asian practitioners, and one of the arenas that I've really seen is very clearly and, it's not one that I am in, that you are in, I think in various ways, is in the world. For example, let's say a decade ago, when there were festivals, different festivals, that were bringing out sacred Indian music, chanting, spiritual events, I would remember looking at them and seeing them writing to the organizers of these events, I was writing because I wanted to be there. I'm not a musician, I was writing to say where are the South Asians I don't understand.

-- In prayer time, why did the people that are doing this not look like them? I was genuinely confused, and sometimes I would get an answer but sometimes I would and the answer was usually, because I would usually write them with 4 or 5 suggestions of South Asian artists they should collaborate with and they don't have a big and a following, on social media, when you think about why that might be, or, I was told once, their sound is too authentic to appeal to a Western audience. And I thought, this makes no sense. From the eyes of capitalism, I guess, it makes sense, but from the eyes of respecting and embracing culture, this makes no sense.

And so that is why it is not as simple as everyone just gets to practice and practice because it makes them feel good. Yes, we do, and we have a responsibility to care for those who are left out or those who are excluded. I was not going to bring the same but I'm curious if you have any thoughts about this?

MX PUJA: Yes, I have so many thoughts about this. A couple of things that come to mind right away, this idea of these practices for everyone and people kind of using that as an argument. I think the big Nuance here that is often left out is if you are practising as your own personal practice, by all means, go do it and find every part of the practice that you want and explore and incorporate it into your life as much as you can. But when you start to share the practice with others and especially when you start to make money off of it and get social clout off of it, and get recognition, and start to receive opportunities, all of that kind of stuff, then the conversation becomes a very different because this is the erasure that Susanne was talking about.

Why is a yoga festival where there is a bunch-- happening, why are there few to no South Asian artists? The thing is, like I mentioned before how generally people are not appropriating

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consciously, they are not getting into this to appropriate, the appropriation kind of happens a lot at a higher level, and it is kind of, it's okayed at a higher level and so people, it kind of trickles down and the people feel like, there is a whole festival of light singer so why can I not do this and why can I not and put on my Indian close and go dance at the festival?

And once again if we just look at the nuances within that of why are South Asians not being, not only not uplifted and being put on the main stage and stuff, but they are literally being kept out of these festivals. They are literally being told, I have experienced this myself as well, but I've literally been told, you are not welcome here for whatever reason.

So, that is the kind of thing where it is like, how can we get together as a community and say this just isn't what we want as a community. We want to be able to learn from these rich traditions and to get deeper into the sources of these rich traditions, and it's not about seeing why people shouldn't be practising this or they shouldn't be doing it, but again the question should come back to why are they being uplifted above South Asians?

Especially when again, a little other nuance, often times these people that are being uplifted aren't the people that are like really deep into the practice, because there are some people that are non-South Asians that are very deep in these practices and they put a lot of work and time and effort and they are in the practice in a genuine way. But those are generally not the people that are being uplifted, those are the people that kind of understand that I am not the one that should be on the main stage at the festival. You know?

Again just understanding all of these nuances of the balance of power, where something that I've also been thinking of a lot lately is the difference between equality and equity. Equality only really works if we are talking about kind of the same group of people or the people that are on kind of the same level to begin with. When we are talking about people of all different backgrounds and experiences, we all kind of art on a different platform to begin and so, if someone is already starting out way up here and someone is way down here and we are lifting the person that is already up here even higher, there is no equity or equality here.

Just really, especially in the world, there are so many amazing South Asian leaders and singers and musicians and they just have to be supported in order to kind of rise up more.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Absolutely, of which you are one, and folks who are listening and who listen to the replay, they can find your music pretty much everywhere that music is available and a lot of it is under Prince Puja, is that correct?

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: I played often as part of my evening rituals were my morning rituals. Really, highly recommend the folks listen in and also listen and support your patron. One thing that came to be as you were talking, I always have on my desk, my bead that was given to me for my teacher before I left India, the last time. And when I met him, he had just come out of the 10 year practice living in a hot and doing practices in meditation for those 10 years, morning and night and through the day.

And, when I left and I spent about 2 years studying with him and I left, and all he had when he

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was in this is a simple wood mala, and a a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and he gave me both and he said I don't need these. And I know that for you, they will be useful to remind you of the practice and he also gave me mantra and said this is a mantra I want you to practice for at least 3 years before you share it with anyone else.

Why do I bring that up is there is a depth to the teachings that I think sometimes get missed. And I am not a Guru, I am a teacher and I like to teach and enjoy and have a lot to share about yoga culture in yoga philosophy, but I am not a Guru-- so I would not give someone a mantra in the way that he gave it to me. But I do understand and deeply appreciate those teachers who remind us of the importance of our own personal practice and her own going in depth there before we turn around and offered up and build a workshop around or try to sell it in the world because there is a distinction and a lot we are losing that this conversation around culture appropriation has touches upon as well and what I'd really care about is preserving the practice for future generations not just imagine if 500 years, people think of yoga is just a workout.

Which absolutely could happen if all of us aren't more thoughtful or more where it bring inclusive culture of the language, the different aspects of what yoga is and the path and beyond into what we share, even if it is not our focus or speciality, we can mention that there are these other parts to practice.

That leads me to creativity. I often think and say that the alternative to cultural appropriation is creativity. For me, often yoga as a path, as a practice is one of tuning into the immense creativity of the universe, and that flow that is all around, in nature and comes through me. So I would love to hear you share a little bit about how creativity shows up in your life.

MX PUJA: Creativity for me is such a… I think about creativity all day every day. I think it is something that, for me, I have always been… People have always seen me as a creative person. I have always been artistic, expressive. Physically, visually. But also, creativity isn't everything. -- Is in everything. The way we move, the way we speak, literally everything we do, we are creative beings. For me, I am always trying to encourage people to kind of, not just tap into their creativity but to kind of trust that creativity more. And to embrace the fact that they are a creative being, even if you do not consider yourself an artist or anything else like that. Even if you don't consider yourself an artist or anything else like that, to embrace your creativity and allow yourself to express and explore your creativity in whatever way feels natural to you.

I think a big part of a yoga practice is learning to listen to ourselves, learning to hear our own intuitive thoughts, and feelings. And to be able to manifest those in some way. That is the definition of creativity. So I think, kind of trying yoga and creativity together, how can you use your yoga practice to dive deeper into yourself and discover your own creativity and even your own… Your own… I don't want to say your own version of yoga in the sense that you are going to come out and create Puja yoga! I don't mean like that. I mean it in the sense that your practices in your own.

Like Susanna said, I am not a guru in any shape or form. When we teach, you -- we offer guidance, our own experiences and knowledge that we have gained through our own experiences. But you have to take that, and question it, and filtered through your own being and then allow your own creativity to kind of manifest it in whatever way that is.

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I think just remembering that creativity is not necessarily about creating art. Creativity is about life, it is just about you being in tune with yourself and knowing yourself on a deep level. I don't mean that as an end goal. You can't be creative until you know yourself! The creativity is getting to know yourself and getting to know yourself is the creativity.

Kind of like the path is the way, is you. Remembering that you are creative and allowing yourself to express that in whatever way you feel called to.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: So beautiful, I love that. I wrote down creativity is about life! How we are living. I feel like, those who read this book will understanding get the sense, creativity is a lot like… When I think about creativity personally and how I shift and create change, in my world and the world around me. One of the things that I really love, and I do in the training set Iran, which is so much fun, is support people in creating social change projects.

There are these tactics for change. Which… One could very well engage a social change project that is purely about nourishing themselves, showing up for themselves, practising self- care. But also direct service. Creating particular programs or serving people directly. Art, or propaganda, which is one that you do a lot, and I feel like I do with my reels and stuff and dancing at Instagram and pointing to concepts. Per -- for me that is some kind of art. Nonviolent organizing, and even… I mention it even though it is not one that I personally take part in, militant Travolta. Standing up to injustice in these various ways.

For me to many of those things are a big part of creating change and feeling very life-affirming and life-giving. When I explore yoga as a way to come into connection, both to myself and with others, that is where so many possibilities of creativity emerge. I want to take a moment because we have some questions in the chat, I do not think we will get to all of them, "This reflection brings me back to 2008, when I was studying Egyptian yoga and philosophy. You must have so much insight, it was a shock to see whitewashed practising yoga studies when they made up analogies unfamiliar to my needs. It was a difficult time but I have managed to convert it into a joyful and enlightening self-study."

Thank you for sharing that. There's all these layers of colonization. We know for sure, that in does Valley civilization traded with Mesopotamia and East Africa and Egypt and some other places as well in Africa. And so no doubt, there have been cross-pollination between these early civilizations. I will say there is so much that I don't know, and it is a place of humble inquiry and learning for me to learn more about hermetic yoga and the intersections there. But it is an important place, for me I think as a South Asian, looking at intersectionality to say yes, and you two. Your people too, and that practice comes from our people, select and praise it -- let's embrace it, let's explore it. Yes, it is not linear. Yes.

And then we had a question about Sanskrit. As a person who is not Indian, it is appropriate to to use Sanskrit names for a sinus -- asana. I have thoughts on that, I am curious if you have thoughts, Puja?

MX PUJA: I think it is absolutely part of appreciating and embracing and honouring the roots of yoga. I

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think whether Nuance comes in here is that if you are not of South Asian descent or you haven't grown up learning or being around these languages, and especially if you have not spoken them, the sounds are just not normal… Sorry, I shouldn't say normal. They are just not… We are not used to making those sounds with our mouths. So we have to put in effort to be able to pronounce the sound that are different in Sanskrit that we do not have in English. So that is part of embracing the roots. But I absolutely think it is beautiful to use the Sanskrit names, and I think it provides a level of depth, because there is a reason they have Sanskrit names. The names are very… There is so much depth in each name. Sanskrit is such a deep language, and we often do not have exact English equivalents of Sanskrit words. So we cannot always say, this Sanskrit word means exactly this. It is not always so clear to just translate it like that. So I think continuing to develop our own understanding of Sanskrit, again, it is a lifelong practice. There is never a point where you know Sanskrit and you are done. There was always more to learn and a new perspective or nuance. I highly encourage everyone to study and, especially if you teach, to use Sanskrit.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: I 100% agree, and as a student of Sanskrit, it is something I work on. I also will tell students my pronunciation is not perfect, but it is important to me to learn and to try. Part of why I started vegan yoga teaching in Los Angeles was none of the yoga training where I was taught Sanskrit at all for any of the students to understand. Not even just to learn the name/loan teacher. So I believe it is very important.

We have interesting questions that point to… This person went to India to learn and practice yoga. They say that neighbours won't even cross the street to learn it. Now that it has a mainstream foothold here, are we being shamed by being accused of cultural appropriation? I think this is such an important question. The first piece is understanding that India and the teachings of yoga do not come to us in a vacuum. They come to us through 400 years of colonial exploitation and rule. And so under British rule in India, yoga was demeaned, banned, even outlawed. Because yogis, Yogi teaches self sovereign tree, it was a practice that the British had to put down and badmouth and suppress. And so yogis and yoga practitioners and yoga got a reputation as… Even like, some of my family when they see them, they say you are doing yoga, what are you doing? It is seen as the slow class -- this low class hoodlum pursuit because that was the way the British painted the picture in order to maintain colonial rule and exploit India in many ways. I think it is an interesting question, and one that invites intimacy and is -- expiration with the full context of how yoga comes to us. I also think that absolutely not, the intent is not to shame folks with talking about these things, but more to say… Can you step into a little discomfort in order to understand the pain that I am in my family, my people have been living with for a couple of decades or in my family's case, generations of Indians. Many generations. It is more of an invitation to understand that what is true for you may actually be very different for other people based on their position. To have anything to add on that?

MX PUJA: Just reiterating as well that in all of my work, I am never trying to shame anyone either. I don't think we can really learn or create change from a place of shame. Not to say that we will not feel shame at some point, we will all feel it at some point. It is something to move through. But it is just continuing to inquire deeper. If we are feeling shame, just inquiring into that as well. Where does that come from? Maybe it is not even your shame. Maybe it is shame that just comes from conditioning, or maybe if you dig a little deeper you would realize it is more of a surface level

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shame. When I dive deeper into myself, it has inspired some kind of inquiry to be creative, and to figure out, how can I probe -- approach this in a way that doesn't feel shameful. But I love what you said.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Yeah, and I know as we come to a close, I tried to type answers to all of those who couldn't get to, we covered a lot of the themes of the inquiry that you brought up and as we come to a close, really tuning in for yourself one thing that you are going to take away from this conversation, maybe it is curiosity, maybe it is embracing creativity, or yoga in your everyday life or in your conversations with your colleagues or friends and family not just on the map. What are you taking away?

And so I invite you to bring your hands together and to anchor that in, that awareness of what you are going to take with you. I will invite the bell one time.

(Bell rings)

Peace, peace, power, power, power, thank you so much for your presence, thank you so much for your practice. And thank you for being here.

MX PUJA: Thank you so much, thank you to Susanna and everyone who came today. Love to you all.

SUSANNA BARKATAKI: Thank you.

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Action: (USYACE250

Action: (USYACE250 3A) 3A)

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