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(Intro)

Layla: I’m Layla Saad, and my life is driven by one burning question: How can I become a good ancestor? How can I create a legacy of healing and liberation for those who are here in this lifetime and those who will come after I’m gone? In my pursuit to answer this question, I’m interviewing change-makers and culture-shapers who are also exploring that question themselves in the way that they live and lead their life. It’s my intention that these conversations will help you find your own answers to that question too. Welcome to Good Ancestor Podcast.

Welcome, Good Ancestors, and welcome to today’s episode. A game changer in the modern world who is teaching us how to embrace yoga’s roots, Susanna Barkataki is the founder of the Ignite Yoga & Wellness Institute and the author of the 2020 book Embrace Yoga’s Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Yoga Practice. Susanna is an Indian yoga practitioner and self-described yoga unity activist who is devoted to ensuring that in a world of cultural appropriation and white supremacy, the roots of yoga are understood and practiced by yoga practitioners and teachers. Susanna is an experienced yoga teacher who admits to not being very flexible. She supports practitioners to lead with equity, diversity, and yogic values while growing thriving practices and businesses with confidence.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Good Ancestor Podcast. I’m your host, Layla Saad, and today I’m here with Susanna Barkataki. Susanna and I last connected a couple of years ago and it feels like a whole lifetime ago when she hosted a first-of-its-kind, I wanna say, summit called Honor Don’t Appropriate Yoga. Susanna is incredibly dedicated to yoga and — how would you describe it? Would you describe yourself as a yoga activist? I think I’ve heard you say a yoga unity activist?

Susanna: That’s it, yes.

Layla: Yes?

Susanna: A yoga unity activist up to some good trouble in the yoga world.

Layla: Absolutely, and, you know, one of the many reasons that I wanted to have you on this podcast is I’ve just seen you do such incredible work in this space, really helping people to understand, in the yoga space, you know, these issues of cultural appropriation, colonization, and how to embrace yoga’s roots, which is the title of your new book, your first book, and I’m so excited for you and I’m so excited to have you here for this conversation.

Susanna: Thank you. I’m really thrilled to be here as well.

Layla: Amazing. So, Susanna, I start every conversation with the same question: who are some of the ancestors, living or transitioned, familial or societal, who have influenced you on your journey?

Susanna: I love this question. I think of my ancestors often. It’s part of Indian culture to have ancestor altars and so the first ancestors I’ll name are Barkataki and Tandra Barkataki who are my father’s parents, my grandparents, and Gordon Purnell and Evelyn Purnell, my mother’s grandparents, and both have influenced me deeply in different ways to, I think more than anything, to stay true to who I am and to really show up with joy, with love, and with positivity in their very, very different ways, and then the other ancestors that I wanted to name are my root teachers. So Shankar Ji, Ji, also Thich Nhat Hanh, so these are either meditation or yoga teachers who are still living, who all have taught me so much about the practices that bring me more peace and that also helped me show up for liberation for others. And then there’s many that are like comrades, you know. I’m thinking of [inaudible 00:05:22] Arundhati Roy, writers, non-violent activists, Dr. Robert [inaudible 00:05:28] Patrisse Cullors, who I feel are like the ancestors of the now who are doing their best to shape a world for the future that we want to live in and be in.

Layla: Oh, that’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. I love that you spoke to — you know, you are of mixed heritage. There are so many different influences that influence who you are, your identity and, though you live in LA, I believe, you were actually born in the United Kingdom.

Susanna: I was.

Layla: Yeah. So, tell us about how growing up and now the woman that you are, these different heritages that you draw from, you know, really influenced you and the woman that you are.

Susanna: That’s a lovely question and I often remember a time where I was like, “I’m a citizen of the world,” and I said it but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t actually feel like I belonged anywhere. I felt like I belonged nowhere and it’s because I was born, as you say, of mixed heritage and my mother’s parents and family didn’t want them to have children, certainly didn’t want her to marry an Indian person, and my father’s parents felt the same way, they wanted to have an arranged marriage to an Indian woman, and so, despite that, when I came into the world, it was a world that — it didn’t accept who I was or couldn’t even hold what I was and so, because of that, we and I experienced a lot of violence in the UK and that was what really forced our transition, our move. I think of it, in a way, kind of like we were political or like race refugees. We really needed to leave the UK at that time. We lived in Middlesbrough which is a smaller kind of a — there was a lot of violence against mixed race families and Indian-Pakistani, African, you know, black families there so we left, we were lucky to leave, but what I didn’t realize and what we only would later come to find out is we went out of the frying pan into the fire, as they say. So, I grew up, you know, being called dothead in Los Angeles, one of the most diverse areas that I can think of in the world, being called terrorist, being told to go home, and physically having to fight. So, folks who can’t see me like you’re just hearing my voice, my voice sounds sweet, I’m really little, I’m like 5’ 1” and I am sweet but I’m also super tough and I’ve learned how to be tough because I had to. I had to fight for my survival and all of that shaped me, and even though I was fighting on the outside, those words went in. So though I was sticking up for myself externally, internally, I felt less than, I felt unworthy, I felt, you know, like I wasn’t valuable and so when I think about what brought me to do the work that I do, you know, it was like I was so divided inside myself and, you know, maybe folks can relate to this. I think many of us have different stories of not belonging —

Layla: Yeah.

Susanna: — and yours might be different than mine but we all feel unworthy in some way or another and mine was all of this that was external forces but also internal and so I turned to yoga as really a path of reclamation. It was like the very thing I am being made fun of for, parts of my culture, , you know, the spiritual practices, I’m gonna go right into that and learn that fully and I didn’t know that it would also be the thing that would help me reconnect my mind, my heart, my soul and truly feel — now, I can say I’m a citizen of the world, you know? I do feel like I belong everywhere that I am, everywhere I go and lie my head is home. Now, I’m in Orlando, Florida, Seminole land, somewhere I never thought I would be and I’m very grateful for even the feelings and the moments and the experiences of separation because it’s led me to a place where, both inside and outside, I feel like I do belong and I am welcome and because of that inner unity, I’m able to share that with others as well.

Layla: Thank you so much for sharing that and I was so struck by, you know, you talked about that you physically had to fight and I thought, wow, that is the complete opposite of what yoga is about, right? And so I imagine that that journey of reclamation and inner healing is of course one that you continue to be on as we all are but one that would have probably taken quite a lot of breaking down of your own constructs of who you are and what the world is because I can imagine that that made the world feel like a very unsafe place and that you felt that you had to be tough and you had to sort of cover and mask and be armored. It seems to me that yoga is something that represents there’s like a vulnerability there and an authenticity there that is the opposite of that. So, what has walking that path from that state of being where you started to where you are now, what has that been like for you?

Susanna: You know, I remember being amongst a community of friends and this community was like a group of activists and organizers and artists who were in recovery, you know, and we would meet every month and have spiritual space and it was led by different practitioners. Sometimes, it was Ifa. Sometimes, it was pagan space. I would often lead meditation or yoga. And that group of peoples, we were mixed, we were all different backgrounds, queer, trans, you know, just so much diversity there, like true diversity, that group was like, “Hey, Susanna, why don’t you go deeper in what you’re sharing? Like, we can tell you really love us and it’s part of your heritage, like go further with this,” and it honestly was only because of the support and the love and you know those friends and those people that can like see you for who you’re becoming, not quite for who you are right now and those are the people I’m like, “Oh, yeah, thank you,” and I try to be that person also for others like see them into their — in a supportive way, not a controlling way, but into their future potential and so they saw me for this like great yoga teacher and, at that time, you know, I certainly was not. I was not even really a student of yoga, I just had it like through family practices and would share things that my parents and my aunts and uncles and my dad had shared with me and so I decided I have to study these teachings from Indian people. Like I can’t do this where I do the westernized, kind of watered-down thing and so that just was because so many of my friends, my family, like I remember my aunt and uncle who, you know, for health reasons, they wanted to do yoga and they were like, “Beta, child, we don’t belong in yoga spaces.” It’s like, oh, you know, when people from whom this tradition has come are saying to me, “I don’t belong,” we do need a shift and so I knew I needed to learn like a full expanse of what yoga was but it wasn’t available to me where I was in Los Angeles so I actually had to take some time and wait. I saved up some money to go to India, which I’ll talk about in a moment, but during that time, I engaged in an Ayurveda studies program with teachers who were coming from India. In India, when you do Ayurveda, which is a symbol of like the sibling science to yoga, it’s a science of wellbeing, of health, of balance with the world around us, harmony with, you know, the elements. I saw that there were ayurvedic practitioners, they have like medical degrees, you know? They go through 8 years of training or 4 years of training, 4 years of internship. I did not do that, you know, kind of degree in the US, it was more of a practitioner’s, ayurvedic practitioner’s degree but through learning really a yogic lifestyle, a way of being that was holistic and just more about bringing harmony, connecting to things like the earth, Prithvi, the sun, , you know, the wind, , and noticing, oh, in me, I have the fire, right? I have the grounded-ness, I have the movement, and, for me, everyone’s different, but I have a lot of fire and I have a lot of movement and so I needed to bring in more earth elements, more water, more flow, and so learning that was a really incredible foundation and was the beginning of the shifts from feeling not at home to feeling more at home as I started to balance and just like connect to the natural world. And then I was able to go to India. I bought a one-way ticket because my relationship with India I knew had to be more than just a tourist, right? I couldn’t just go and leave when things got hard. I knew I needed to be there, I needed to spend time with family, I needed to connect with whatever teachers I was going to find and so I was there for a year and learned a lot, studied a lot, and then came back to the US and, honestly, no one cared. Because I didn’t have a 200-hour certification, I didn’t have any of the trappings of, you know, as I mentioned, I’m short, I’m little, I’m brown, I’m not very flexible, and so I did not look like a yoga teacher and so really no one cared that much about all of this stuff, this study and experience that I had had and so that was another one of those moments. I was like, oh.

Layla: Yeah, so what was that moment like for you? Because you have made this decision in your mind, you’ve bought this one-way ticket, you’ve gone, you know, to India, you have dedicated yourself to this study until you felt that you were ready to return and you returned and it’s like, “No, that’s not what yoga is, this is what yoga is.”

Susanna: Yeah.

Layla: “You don’t fit real yoga,” right?

Susanna: That’s right, yeah. You know, it was so painful. I mean, looking back, it’s like there were years of that ’cause it was 2008, I was working as a teacher so I remember I started to teach a little bit to my students and I was working in, you know, public high school, they really appreciated yoga in the way I was teaching it and so I also was like, “Oh, I wanna learn more and I’m not done,” you know? When I had been there, some of the time I had been on silent retreat, you know, month- long silent retreat or particular sadhana that I knew there was more to do so I actually went back and I also did my master’s in Education at that time and I was doing a research project actually on storytelling and the stories that children don’t see, the stories of our ancestry, the stories of our people, and so I was writing that and traveled and asked my teachers, also villagers in the Indus Valley, you know, in the region that later is now Northwest India Pakistan, I asked people, “Well, tell me about this tradition, you know? Where does it come from? What’s your experience with yoga?” and everyone said it’s been practiced since like 5000 BCE, maybe 10000, word of mouth, passed down from teacher to student and yet we often had to hide this practice under British colonization. We couldn’t share it freely and fully and so that too, I was like, okay, there’s something bigger at play here and I started to connect what the erasure that was happening in the United States with the erasure that I was hearing about from the Indian teachers and the villagers in India because when there was these big forces, you know, like white supremacy, which you write and think about so much, or colonization, colonial rule, colonial trauma that happens, I think people don’t understand that it’s personal, right? It goes, like these are big forces but they impact people and traditions and stories and self-esteem and so, as I saw that connection, I was like, oh, there is a —actually what we’re experiencing in the United States is a second colonization of yoga. It’s an erasure of this tradition and a complete sidelining of the people of color from whom it’s come. You know, from my experience too, I have one teacher who said, you know, “We were in conversation with people from Africa back in the day and there were, you know, thousands of years ago and there was a conversation and a movement of ideas back and forth across the continents,” and so yoga comes from these black and brown people and we need to understand that, respect that, and right now, in yoga in the west, it’s not what we see and it’s not who is foregrounded.

Layla: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I love what you said about it’s a second form of colonization and I think up until very recently and I think the work that you were doing and the work that so many of your peers, specifically in the yoga world, are doing to bring this awareness into consciousness, I think up until a few years ago, there wasn’t a conscious understanding that that was what was happening and so when you raised things like, “This is cultural appropriation,” “This is not honoring the roots of yoga,” there is such a defensive response to that and a real sense of we know what is real yoga and you don’t, right? So, a complete lack of knowledge about the roots of yoga. So, this brings me into talk about your work which is about embracing the roots of yoga, right? And I’m sure one of the main questions that many white practitioners of yoga and yoga teachers are wondering is “How can I have this practice which I so love and I love it for —” as you’ve shared, “all the ways that it changed your life, all the ways that they are able to show up and support other people with this modality, in this ancestral knowledge while at the same time embracing yoga’s roots, understanding them and honoring them?” And so what is the work that you’re doing to bring those things together because, you know, I think some people are like it’s either one or the other, right? Like, either I do it my way and yoga is just about Asana and just about the moves or I go deep, but how can I hold the middle? What are you teaching people around that?

Susanna: Yes, I love that question and I really do see myself often, I think about myself and the work that I do as a bridge, as a bridge between these different worlds, also being mixed, right, and having the experience of “I am a person of color but I understand because I have white family members,” you know, and I know a little bit about that experience just through adjacency to it. I also experienced privilege for that, you know, naming that as well and for being light-skinned so it’s like all of the ways, all of those things go into helping me be a bridge for these different perspectives and I think it is time. We really need bridges, right? We’re just at post the election in the United States and it’s like, “We won,” you know? The side of whatever won, but is there winning when there is, you know, millions of people who feel like they’ve lost? And so where yoga comes in for me is — and the practice, this full practice of yoga which really is about how we embrace the roots of yoga is embracing all the different perspectives but in a way where there don’t have to be winners and losers. It’s kind of like helping shift consciousness while preserving the dignity of even those who have been the oppressors which is what happened in the non-violent struggle for the liberation of India from the British is the dignity of the oppressor was actually preserved and the dignity of the oppressed, in that case the Indians, was restored. And so, at that same time, right, like there is a way to change culture, to change the world, to change ourselves that doesn’t have to make someone wrong or where we don’t have to be sitting in righteousness. You know, that’s a big picture example of what I think I hope and seek to do with yoga, both provide that tool of yoga as social change because it really is, yoga is one path to personal and social change but also, when we’re looking at cultural issues in yoga or appropriation, it’s like, well, there’s not an enemy, right? The enemy really is — ’cause I think people get very uncomfortable, like “I don’t wanna do it wrong,” or “I don’t wanna appropriate,” or they’re worried about being called a racist or an appropriator and the thing is it’s like we’re all gonna mess up, we’re gonna mess up, we’re gonna try to do better, we’re gonna create harm while working to create healing. That is true across the board, whether we’re folks of color, white, you know, any queer, trans, like, you know, cisgender, all of it, they’re — harm and healing go together and they inter-are and so, for one, is I think taking a bit of the charge out of it so we can say like “I messed up and I’m still here,” right? “I messed up and I’m still gonna show up to this conversation, to my practice, to my peers who right now are upset with me because I said something that was problematic,” and so really that path of embracing yoga’s roots is going into the practice of yoga more and more deeply, so saying I’m gonna move into not just the physical but yoga ethics and, in particular, there are the five which are like the first step, like the foundation of what it is to practice a full yoga practice and the very first one is Ahiṃsā, non-violence, non-harm. , truthfulness. Asteya, non-stealing. Brahmacharya, which is like energy management for [inaudible 00:24:53] or would be celibacy but for householders like myself, I have a partner and a child, right, and many yoga practitioners are just people. Brahmacharya would be managing our energy so we’re not causing harm and also so we’re not like spreading our energy all over the place, like we’re being a wise warrior or a wise practitioner with our energy. And then Aparigraha, which is kind of recognition of the impermanence of everything and therefore a detachment from the results. And so in the , there’s this quote that I really live by and has driven my actions from a yogic perspective. It says, “Do every action you must do but do not be attached to your actions’ fruits. This skill and action is yoga.” And I come back to that. It’s like, well, I’ll do the best that I can, I’ll do what is mine to do in this moment and then I’ll let go, you know? I have to trust the process and trust that the impact will be felt and maybe other people will take it further.

Layla: And it’s a journey, as you said, right? It makes me think about when I first started writing about white supremacy, it was with an article called “I Need to Talk to Spiritual White Women About White Supremacy” and one of the things that I was highlighting in that article was that there are so many of these practices, these healing practices that white women are using, spiritual practices which, like yoga, right, have these deep ancestral roots, have principles by which to live by that I felt if practiced authentically would lead to people thinking about racism and trying to do less harm and really taking up social justice as something that is part of their practice, but, instead, what I saw was that they were taking the same principles and using them to bypass, using them as weapons to do harm but not seeing the harm that was done, and you’re nodding your head, right, because that’s what you see.

Susanna: I’m thinking about the moment I bring something up, they’re like, “I don’t see color, all love in light, namaste,” and I’m like, you do that, undermined and then used back at — it’s like —

Layla: Exactly, and it gets me thinking about where is that coming from? Is that because they are being taught a white-centered version of yoga that doesn’t really embody these principles outside of a colonialist oppressive structure?

Susanna: Yeah, I think you just named it.

Layla: Okay.

Susanna: It really is, right? Like because — if we look at the history, the first teachers of yoga that brought yoga to the west were teaching under the British watch. They were teaching yoga under colonial rule and they were responding to the impacts of that oppression and then the teachers who brought yoga here, you know, like I’m thinking of perhaps like Yogananda and others came and then taught it in Hollywood, you know, first on the East Coast but then in Hollywood where it dovetailed with a very body-focused, a very image-focused, and capitalist-focused culture and those teachers then taught Western students who became the foundational teachers that have taught most yoga teachers in the West and that lineage is directly traced to deep colonial impact and watering down of what yoga truly is because the message that people took was, “Oh, this is a practice that will strengthen my body, that will make me more flexible, that will make me more powerful,” and the spiritual side, although it was somewhat in popular culture and the Beatles popularized that, was somewhat left to the wayside or seen as strange or weird or even exotified a little bit and so truly what yoga actually is which is almost the opposite of what it became as it moved to the West which is where in the West it was focused on the body and physical attainment, in India, primarily, you know, and still you have the Nath yogis. Nath yogis walk around wearing, you know, like loincloths and smeared in ash because they’re working to detach from the sensory pleasures, from the body, right? So it’s like almost the opposite. There’s even a Dalit woman in I believe the 12th century who took off her clothes and wandered South India in connection to the divine through yoga, right? So, there’s this history, this deep, rich history of there is something more to life than just the physical or just the sensory pleasures that we have and that is part of what yoga is an invitation to, this inquiry of “Who am I? What is beyond? What is the soul?” and when we see it here just focusing on the physical, we miss all that. So, yeah, so I think it’s just what people learned and so there’s a — I grieve that, I think, a bit, and to say, wow, well, I didn’t know because my teacher said no and they didn’t teach me but now I know there’s more and so I’m gonna pause and grieve and then learn more and do better.

Layla: And it’s so key what you’re saying, especially in the work that I do. I know that a lot comes up for people as they’re going through the journaling process of Me and White Supremacy and as your eyes open, the fog clears, you become aware of what white supremacy has actually done. It’s almost a desire to want to walk it back, like how do we undo this? How do we go back to some pre-colonial time? And we can’t. We are here now, so it’s about what we are doing now in this moment and I love what you said about the approach of non-violence and restoring the dignity of oppressed people and I really think restoring the dignity of the oppressors as well because I think there’s a loss of dignity that comes from having to be in an oppressive stance. One of the things that I was reading this year was Martin Luther King Jr.’s essays. It’s been a tough year, you know, and I was looking for — you know, I need more juice. I need to go deeper in my own personal philosophy, and I always looked to the ancestors to see how did they cope in really hard moments, and he, you know, so referenced Mahatma Gandhi’s work and his approach and this idea of passive non-resistance and non-violence, and so that has obviously been a powerful way of opposing oppression and creating change but it’s also one that’s often very criticized as well, you know? I was telling my daughter, I said I’m just listening to my audiobook and she said, “What are you listening to?” and I said I’m listening to Malcolm X’s autobiography, right? And so I told her about who he was and she knows who Martin Luther King Jr. was and I said they didn’t see eye to eye necessarily until the very end, and so, as you’re doing this work in that frame of mind of this is how I want — this is the framework from which I work from, these are the values that I hold and how I want to do this, what are some of the backlash that you have seen to that approach where people feel like a more I guess aggressive approach needs to be taken?

Susanna: Yes. I also, you know, I remember I had this class in my teaching credential, when I was getting my credential and I had this teacher who was like — it was a technology class, and he said, “You have to study something, anything that you're passionate about, and then make a PowerPoint about it,” it was a PowerPoint or a video, right? And so I was like, I thought this class was going to be terrible, it’s going to be really boring, and it ended up being like a class that changed my life. Because that year, I studied nonviolent social change so I read Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mahatma Gandhi, looked at the change that was happening at the time, there were a lot of uprisings in Chiapas, in Mexico, looked at Che Guevara’s autobiography and just really studied and looked at, there has always been different perspectives on how change happens.

Layla: Yes.

Susanna: And all of those different approaches are needed. And, yet, I, as a particular person, you know, I only in my like local experience, in my local consciousness, while there is sort of a collective consciousness and sometimes my local consciousness will match up with what is happening in the collective and sometimes it will be ahead, sometimes it might be behind, and yet, we're all needed, and that has been true in the yogic tradition as well. There were people who, like B. R. Ambedkar, who was a Dalit activist who did not think Gandhi went far enough, you know, and there are many critics of Gandhi for his many issues, including his anti- blackness. And, you know, it's like were he here now, I would hope that he would take a radically different stand, and I think he would, but he was a product of his environment. And so it doesn't excuse him in any way, but it's like, well, how can I or we or different people say, “This is the path,” right? So there are some of us who are going to work within institutions, some of us who are going to work outside of institutions, some who are going to create our own institutions, and maybe some of us who do all of that at different times, and so what I've experienced is certainly the backlash of — like when I created the summit, there were some people who said, you know, because it had never really been done in the yoga world, right?

Layla: It wasn't what a yoga summit looked like back then.

Susanna: It was not. It was not. But I was still working within the system of, you know, like summits and online talks and whatever. And so there were people who were like, “It's still within a system and I don't agree with that,” or “It's not going far enough.” And my point to them, what I always said is like, “Fair, I agree. And I support you in whatever you want to create and build.” And so, over time, what I've seen actually since then, and I'm curious if you've seen this as well, is there are those who don't agree with me fully about my methods or my way of doing things but they're interested in collaborating because we have the same end, we have the same goal in mind. Then there are those who are like, “I'm never going to work with her because she works too much inside institutions,” or, you know, whatever, like “sellout.” It's always some kind of personal critique.

Layla: Right, right.

Susanna: But what I came to is like, actually, those people, I love and need them too, because for my viewpoint to be taken seriously, there has to be that viewpoint that's like, “Burn it all down, yoga as we have it,” ’cause I don't believe that only Indians should teach or practice yoga, right? I think yoga is here for everyone. I think it came through not to any one person and I want everyone to respect it and honor it and teach it fully. But there are some people who say yoga should only be taught and practiced by or by Indians and I don't agree with that but I understand why. It's sort of a colonial backlash, right, of like, “You've taken so much, we're going to take it back.” But if they weren't there, it would make it harder for someone to understand why my perspective exists, which is like a bit more moderate. So I've come to love the, I guess whatever we want to call them. Sometimes they're haters, sometimes they're radicals, sometimes they're opposition, and to understand that for others, I am a radical and I am a hater. Right?

Layla: Right. And I think that's the part, that's the part that's really important to remember, right? Because we're only seeing it from inside our own perspective and so we might use those labels, especially because of how it makes us feel when somebody's saying those kind of things about us, but, ultimately, you know, I've kind of come to the same conclusion about there are different methods, it is necessary that there should be different methods. In some regards, my work is radical; in some regards, it doesn't go anywhere near far enough and it's very tame. And that's okay. That's okay, right? But it's about learning not to keep reframing who we are and what our approach is based on different feedback from different people, because then we're not showing up in full service to the work that we are specifically here to do and each one has just been given the specific work that they are here to do.

Susanna: Yes. And from a yogic perspective too, it's like we would want all the Satya, all the truth, all the perspectives, not just one person, so that, for me, it's just whenever I sort of experience these moments, it's like I come back to the yoga ethics for myself, like often it's the self- tending, the non-harm, the , the kindness to myself, because it hurts, you know, the critique but like take the feedback, the part that's maybe useful, and then keep going and invite people in and invite the conversation to continue. And this is where it's interesting too because other people will say, like, “Oh, that's not yogic,” or, “This isn't yogic,” but it's like who gets to decide that, you know? And so all I can do is come back to my own practice. And kind of like you said, for me, it's like being in relationship with yoga itself, like being a vessel for yoga. What would yoga have me do? How can I deepen in relationship to yoga? And for folks listening, right, it's like if whatever your practices, whatever your path, yoga is not religious, it ideally should connect us deeper to our own faiths, whatever our faith is, or science or whatever it is that we connect with, but how can I deepen in relationship with my true self with who I am here to be is what its intention is for each of us.

Layla: I love that. Beautiful. So, I am somebody who practices yoga for the physical side, right? The Asana. I don't necessarily go to yoga classes because I had — and it's only in reflecting back on it now, it's understanding, oh, it's because I never felt like I belonged in those classes, it didn't feel like it was a space that I was supposed to be in, both because of the color of my skin and because of the shape of my body, right? And so I just never felt very comfortable there. I think I've done less — I can count probably on one or two hands the number of actual classes I've attended, but I do a lot from home. And so I'm wondering about, you know, you've spoken so beautifully about the principles of yoga, but I've never been to a class where that has been mentioned. It's sort of, “Get straight into, you know, downward dog, like get straight into child's pose. Let's begin the vinyasa,” right? Like there's no talk about some of the principles that you've talked about. Is that something that you believe should be in yoga classes? I feel that just hearing from you talking about it, I'm like, huh, that would take it so much deeper for me. But I don't see it.

Susanna: Yes, that's really a big passion of mine, and it is what I teach and why I teach and why I decided to run teacher trainings, you know, to teach people to teach yoga is, one, to preserve the culture, right? Like when I think about being a good ancestor, a good carer for this rich tradition that's part of my heritage and my ancestry is like how do I preserve the fullness of it? Well, one, the language, using names and terms, whether or not teachers chose to use those, at least they should know them. And then, two, practicing the full expanse of what yoga is, so the yoga ethics that I mentioned and then also pranayama, which is the breath work, pratyahara, which is like sensory focus, like — I'll give an example. One is drishti. So, if you gaze at your finger, like just take a moment and look at your finger and then, if you want, you don't have to, but move your finger out to the side and follow it with your eyes and then bring it back to center. It’s like these are focus practices. You can gaze at a candle, candle gazing, tratak. They're really powerful practices for supporting the mind that are — most people have never heard of as part of yoga. Mantra, sacred sounds or chanting. , . There's so much actually in a full kind of organized, codified yoga practice that isn't there in those one-hour physical classes. And so I really would say absolutely yes. I believe that all of the fullness of what yoga is, I wish it was in, I wish it was taught more, and that's part of what I'm here to do is encourage people to learn the full expanse of the practice, to practice it, and then to teach from that place. And so, for me, when I teach a yoga Asana class, a physical Asana class, I usually theme it or connect in like ahimsa or satya and we'll do a practice connected to, you know, non-violence, non-harm, kindness to self, to others, to truthfulness, and move in a way that connects the movements. Like if we're doing satya, that opens the heart, opens the throat, moves the energy there. And then also I'll share, you know, maybe a quote, like I did from the Bhagavad Gita, and I'll tie that through and invite not — So I think this is also important to say. I don't teach it like, “Here's what this means and what you should do,” but more like let's explore together. Let's inquire together. This is something I read in the yoga , let's say. There's many texts, right? Like the Bhagavad Gita, the sutras, that I'm working with, that I'm wondering about, and how does it land for you? How does it land in your practice? Can you soften and bring more non-harm or ease into this shape, you know, into bala asana, child's pose? Oh, what would it look like we're doing it here on the mat, what might it look like with your family, with your friends, to bring a bit more ease, you know? So just inviting inquiry is a huge part for me of bringing in those other aspects of practice, not in a didactic way but like let's explore together.

Layla: I love that, that’s beautiful. I want to attend those classes, for sure. I love that you're doing that. Okay, one of the other things that I wanted to touch on is — I say touch on but it's actually, you know, we could have a whole call just about this subject, which is about anti- blackness and yoga and the perpetuation of that in yogic spaces, whether it's from white people or from Asian people as well. What has your journey been around that? Because I think that would be most helpful. We could talk about the concepts, right? But I think it's, “How are you working through it as somebody who is not black?”

Susanna: Yes. So important. And, personally, I connect directly to the understanding of anti-blackness through colorism in my community, in the South Asian community. And so, looking at the ways or interrupting the ways that blackness or dark-skinned-ness is put down. That's one. And interrupting it internally, in my own mind, also like literally with my family members if they say or do something that is anti-black, and I'm talking about my South Asian Indian family, to say something, to speak up, to name it, to be like, “Hey, that — no, let's not do that. And this is why,” and I also do that with other South Asians so beyond just my family. For example, when people say — because, again, response to colonial trauma, one of the responses is to be like, “This is ours. We've been erased. We’re taking up a stand. We’re South Asians. We're here,” and we super need to do that, right? Like, absolutely, we need to do that, we should be doing that, and we don't need to say, “And yoga is only Indian. And yoga is only South Asian,” because, for all we know, and there's more and more evidence I think coming out, there's Kemetic Yoga. There's been these movement practices in Africa as well. And so, to me, part of my journey is how can I stand in my power in the places where I have been disenfranchised and not need to disenfranchise others to reclaim that power? And that is a journey, right? That's a journey and that is actually one of the spaces I get critiqued the most by other South Asians. It’s like, “But, Susanna, you're standing up for black people. Why don't you —”Like when they do that, they feel like I'm not supporting other South Asians. And it's like, no, it's not that, it's both and. It's I'm gonna stand here and reclaim and claim our power and our position without erasing the opportunity for other folks of color, in particular black folks, to take their rightful place as the leaders, the heirs, and the teachers of this practice. And then also, you know, being someone who lives in the United States as an immigrant, I have to acknowledge, one settler colonial, you know, my settler privilege, and from an advantage and the impact that has on indigenous folks and also the benefit that I receive, even as a non-white person but as a non-black person of color from the hundreds of years of slavery and oppression that have created the country into what it is on the backs of black people. And so that too is like there's no way any of us who are non- black should be sitting in the US saying that a black person has no right to an indigenous practice. That's probably there's two, right? But regardless, like they are BIPOC voices to the front, right? Black voices to the front, South Asian voices to the front in these spaces because of these systems of oppression. And so those are the ways that I personally work with it, which is sometimes uncomfortable, because people don't understand or they think that — you know, it's tricky also being lighter skinned and being mixed. They're like, “You're selling out.” There's always going to be that critique but, at the end of the day, I remember I had to just come back to when that critique came, like if the hill I am going to go down on is that I stood up for black folks having front and center position in yoga, I will go down on that hill, right? Like take me down, okay, fine. That is something that is non-negotiable. And I say this because for white folks too or for other non-black folks, it's like you have to make, at some point, at least I had to make, a decision to live by my values, whether or not they’re popular, whether or not they were appreciated, whether or not they were celebrated. And that's not always easy to do, but it does feel like the right thing to do. And so it's a continual process, you know, and it's, again, it's messy, it's not always perfect. I am often in that navigation of — and I think right now, it's like the conversations I'm having and are interested in having are like how can we be in solidarity? So with South Asian folks, how do we re-ignite like our lineage, our depth of practice, and bring along and uplift black folks? And, you know, there are black Indians, like there have always been black Indians. And, yet, that relationship has been fraught as well, because of caste, because of colorism, and so it's like how can we own and acknowledge our privilege and at the same time build solidarity?

Layla: Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you.

Susanna: It’s big.

Layla: It is big and it's a necessary conversation. And this is where I want to talk about what often happens in yoga, but also with anybody who has, through the work that they are doing and what they're contributing to the world has “built a platform” and is seen as a public figure and is seen as an “expert” and now should be able to know everything perfectly, do everything perfectly, and not make any mistakes. And you talk about the celebrity of yoga, right? The yoga celebrities. How dangerous is that? And to what extent does it take a person away from the real practice of yoga if they lean into it?

Susanna: You know, it's such a funny world, right? Because, at the end of the day, we love stories and we love not just the message but the messenger. We want to love the messenger. And so I've been really intentional about building up, like sharing me, not just the message, because I know that if people connect to me as a person, right, and this is getting into that yoga celebrity side, that they may be more open to hearing the message and so — and yet it's a constant navigation to be like, “Well, am I attached? You know, going back to doing a reaction I must do and not being attached to the action’s fruits. Am I attached to the image? Am I attached to the fame?” You know, and weird things happen, right, for people listening like people writes you and they’re like, “I'll give you free socks if you, you know —”

Layla: I've been offered many strange —

Susanna: Like got the CBD oil, you know, offers and I remember, actually, right before, this is so funny, Layla, but right before the summit, my last blog I wrote was literally called like “I Don't Want to Be a Yoga Celebrity,” right? And then like all of a sudden, I became that very thing that I just said I didn't want to become, but — so I say this, it’s like — and, I think it's a sort of a but and an and, it's like there has to be some amount of I-ness, of ego-ness, right, of selfhood that we turn into to continue the work. But, always, for me, it's like a sense of humor about myself, right, and a lack of attachment to like vision and stature and then really being accountable. So I always have bottom lines for everything I do. I have, obviously, you know, in the world, we live in a capitalist world, so like financial bottom line which most people have. I have movement bottom lines, like how is this helping the movement? How is this helping grow or move the platform, you know, or the conversation? Impact bottom lines. And then like solidarity and community bottom lines. And so one of the really concrete practices I've put into place — again, I always go back into yogic philosophy, right? I think it's 1.33, 1.33, which basically says like when there are people who are wise, act with friendliness towards them. When there are people who are unkind, like give them space, you know? It gives you like the locks and the keys, the answers for how to respond to others. And so I go back into, well, when I feel a contraction, you know, or like, “Oh, that person's doing what I want to do,” and I feel kind of — or like, “Whoa, they just came up with something that I literally could have written.” It’s like instead of contracting, I just share their thing, like I expand and I celebrate, and it began there and now it moves into like consistent solidarity. So the other antidote to that yoga celebrity thing, for me and in this world, is mutual uplift, like collaboration. So it is weird. It's different. I don't know — I mean, I'm looking back. My teachers in India, they certainly have — you know, many , many teachers, they have a strong ego, right? They have a strong sense of self. But I think they have practices, hopefully, the real gurus, and I'm saying like the ones who abuse, to me that those are not gurus even though they'd held that title, they've disqualified themselves. But the true teachers, they know who they are and they believe in themselves and they have a sense of humor and they're not unattached, like Thich Nhat Hanh always says, you know, “Been a monk for — since I was 13 or a teenager, and I wear these robes, but I'm not a Buddhist,” you know? Like — it's like he knows he's so much more than just that and so that that humility and that sense of humor and then the community that keeps us accountable are the tools I reach back to for managing the weirdness and the strangeness of celebrity.

Layla: I love that. Thank you. Thank you. I agree. I think having a sense of humor about yourself, and it is that balance between having a strong sense of self, knowing who you are, knowing what your values are, what you stand for, what your bottom lines are, and, at the same time, not being attached to any of it, especially not the feedback you're receiving from outside of yourself.

Susanna: Yes.

Layla: Yeah. All right, well, this has been an amazing conversation. I want to end it by talking about your book. You are now a literary ancestor. You have a body of work that is out in the world and will forever be out in the world. What was your process like for writing it? And what do you hope it will accomplish?

Susanna: That framing is so beautiful, Layla. I’m just moved by that. I remember being a little girl, you know, and I — as I shared my story, like I didn't have friends, I didn't really have anyone that I could connect to, but I connected to books. And so my friends were in the pages of many different books. And I always wanted to be a writer, a writer and an astronaut, but really a writer, and so being at this point where now these words and these stories are out there for others to relate to, to see themselves in, maybe to argue with or connect with and go through a process, I think very much like your work, it's not a book to be picked up and put down in one sitting, right? It's like a workbook to be worked through. I did — I wrote the book actually first and it had many more kind of autobiographical and stories of my family. And then I realized, actually, this isn't too useful and I'm a teacher so I turned it into a workbook with like questions. And then, in the editing process, it turned back into a book. Some of the stories came back in, paired with, you know, just more analysis to make it really usable but also something that people could connect to and takes them on a journey from looking at the problems, that’s separation, to reflecting on their parts to learning and understanding how they can take action and then finding like hope, creativity, inspiration, and working for liberation, which really is what yoga is about. So it was that journey of writing that I think it came back into being a full book. And it's been such a process. I mean, I can't even — like I had no idea how much work it was to write a book.

Layla: And this is why — anyone who has written a book, right? Even if I'm like, “I don't really agree with the topic,” or whatever, but I'm like I know the work that it takes to write a book and if it's something that you're hoping will transform the world and you've poured so much of your own pain and pleasure into it, it changes you.

Susanna: Yes.

Layla: Yeah.

Susanna: It really does. It really does. I'm just remembering my son ’cause he's been, you know, he's eight now, he’s been with the whole process and he was like, “Oh, it's done. How much is it gonna sell for?” And I was like, “$4.99.” He's like, “What? Only $4? It should be $500, Mom.”

Layla: That is so cute.

Susanna: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Right? And there's a way in which like it's priceless the work that you do when you pour your heart and soul into it and it's actually very accessible and it should be very accessible, especially work like this, that’s like inviting people into a journey to be better people, to connect to their own roots, the roots of a practice of liberation and justice. So, I'm excited to see what happens with it and where it goes and to practice that shloka, the one of doing every action I must do and now like letting go, you know?

Layla: Yeah.

Susanna: I’m excited what will happen.

Layla: Yeah. So, you know, if you could cast your mind five years into the future and this book has reached millions of people, what seeds do you hope will have been planted that will be starting to rise up from the ground?

Susanna: Oh, yeah. Well, I'll just go right there.

Layla: Yeah.

Susanna: Never again will it be monoculture yoga, right? Be black, brown, trans, larger bodied, right? All different folks. Accessible yoga for everyone. So everyone in the world can be like, “I see myself in this practice, I see a way in for me to this practice. And I feel welcome and I feel at home.” I want everyone to feel at home in yoga and I hope that it contributes to that. And then also that the full expanse of yoga is being practiced, like you said, like those yogic values, the stories, the cultural elements, maybe some of the language of Sanskrit is being shared, taught, weaved in and that people have like expanse of the practice is preserved for the future.

Layla: That's amazing. Well, Susanna, it has been incredible speaking with you. I just want to take a moment before our final question just to honor you, to thank you for the incredible contributions that I have personally seen you make over the last couple of years as well as all the work that you have been doing for years before this moment that we're talking and all the work that I know that you will continue to do for decades to come. I think that the work that you are doing in the world, being that bridge, like you said, is so necessary. I think that yoga in the way that it is taught when it is outside of the colonial construct and outside of an oppressive system of white supremacy is one that can be a great tool for social justice, and I think that the work that you are doing to bring it to more of the masses in this way, through this lens, is just going to be revolutionary. So I just want to say thank you for your work.

Susanna: Yoga, not just yoga but really sharing the analysis of white supremacy and how we can all be better ancestors in the world.

Layla: Amazing. Okay, so our final question, Susanna, which is for everybody, what does it mean to you to be a good ancestor?

Susanna: To be a good ancestor to me is to tune in to that inner voice, the inner knowing that is supported by my blood ancestors, my spirit ancestors, spiritual cheerleaders, by my comrades alongside me, and also keeping in mind future generations and calibrate and recalibrate to that inner knowing of what is my next right step. What is the next action that will lead to more unity and more connection and away from separation? And that process of moving forward, not needing to know the whole path, but just like seeing that next point in front of me through that inner alignment and inner connection, that's how I seek and hope to connect with others as a good ancestor.

Layla: That’s beautiful. Thank you so much, Susanna.

Susanna: Yeah, thank you.

(Outro)

This is Layla Saad and you’ve been listening to Good Ancestor Podcast. I hope this episode has helped you find deeper answers on what being a good ancestor means to you. We’d love to have you join the Good Ancestor podcast family over on Patreon where subscribers get early access to new episodes, Patreon-only content and discussions, and special bonuses. Join us now at Patreon.com/GoodAncestorPodcast. Thank you for listening and thank you for being a Good Ancestor.