Our firsts— of anything— are strong imprints

When I ask people where and when they took their first yoga class, I almost always get a smile followed by a detailed answer.

Our firsts— of anything— are strong imprints.

My first yoga class story is filled with “firsts” of many things. Firsts that forever changed my life’s course in ways I could never have imagined.  

I went to my first yoga practice on my 3rd day in Nepal, nearly 25 years ago. It was 1996. I was fresh out of university with a degree in biochemistry. Waiting to begin a post with the Peace Corps in Algeria, I had wanted to get experience in public health and had surprisingly—or karmically— landed a 4-month volunteer position with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, in Nepal. My task was to set up a laboratory in Kathmandu so that we could conduct on site testing for a micronutrient study in women and children’s health. 

Little did I know what a tall order that was. Little did I know that was just the first step on the steep learning curve I had ahead of me. 

At 22 I was young with a healthy dose of curiosity and enthusiasm, and a dollop of naivety that was greater than most’s. Before arriving in what was—at the time— the last remaining Himalayan Kingdom in the world, I had read up on Nepal, had started learning the language, and had stuffed my luggage with a supply of AA batteries and toiletries that would put pandemic panic-shopping to shame.

Even so, I had no idea what I had signed up for, no idea what the Universe had in store, and no idea of how profoundly Nepal, and Yoga, would shape me.

Nepal was amazement at first sight. Yoga was love at first breath.

After that first Yoga class I attended practice daily for 2 years with my teacher, a West Bengali ex-circus acrobat turned yogi with a penchant for goofy jokes and a smile that lit up the room. He and his wife Shaanti became my family and safe haven as Nepal turned my life —and my health— inside out.

I had come to Nepal for work, but ended up extending my work posting so that I could stay in Nepal and pursue studies in Yoga, Tibetan Buddhism and Ayurveda. I gave up the Peace Corps, the offer for graduate studies and a career in international aid for a path of apprenticeship and spiritual study. Some called me crazy, others irresponsible. I didn’t know what to call it.

It took me 6 years, many a satsang, much confusion, several bouts of dystentery, meditation retreats, fasting retreats, study retreats, and traveling up and down India, to finally land at the Bihar School of Yoga in Munger. As much as ending up at BSY seemed like happenstance, I realise now it couldn’t have been anything but. As we say in Nepali lekheko thiyo —“it was written (in the stars)”. 

My association with the Bihar School began with the residential 4-month certificate course in 2002, continued with the year long residential Diploma in Applied Yogic Sciences and has continued with regular visits, seva and courses since then.  As much as I longed to live in ashram after my first studies, I had a different sadhana— to be a wife, daughter-in-law (buhari) and a step-mother to 5 children in Nepal in a hill-tribe Nepali family for over a decade. Nepal, and life, have humbled me greatly. And they continue to do so.

In my 24 years in Nepal, the country has seen a bloody 10-year civil war, the massacre of its royal family, the transition from a centuries old monarchy to a federal republic, social and political unrest, and more recently massive earthquakes that devastated its people, as well as the economic and political heart of the country. Despite it all, Nepal’s spirit is indomitable, her people’s resilience awe-inspiring and their graciousness contagious.  

There is a well known understanding amongst foreigners who live in Nepal: that we come to “change and “help develop” Nepal with our “educated perspectives”, “foreign aid” or “volunteer” work but that, in truth. Nepal changes and develops us.

And so does Yoga.

Time and again I am amazed at how powerful Yoga is as a science of transformation—whether I witness the changes in myself, those I share Yoga with, or in my fellow practitioners. It is through its simplest things that the most profound can happen.

Nepal and Yoga. I have a hard time separating the two.

Or perhaps it is Life and Yoga that feel one and the same.

On my journey to Nepal I began as a biochemist, but I ended up being owner/director of the Isha Institute, a centre of holistic living and yogic learning in Kathmandu. I now work as a spiritual psychologist with a specialisation in trauma resolution.  My studies to get me to where I am now were as much academic as they were first-hand-life learned…. But is it not that way for all of us? And is that not what Yoga, Tantra and our spiritual teachers foster—the ability for us to become more and more adept at integrating all of life’s experiences—such dukha  (joy and pain) — so that we awaken and share our full creative potential? 

We each do it in our own way, and our own time. There is no cookie cutter way. As the Bhagavad Gita reminds us, we cannot copy another’s dharma to follow our own.

My path is now, as part of the YANA board.  

I am so pleased to be part of it and support the 2nd chapter of the Bihar Yoga Tradition in North America. I look forward to getting to know the larger community that you are —whether yoga instructors, practitioners, devotees or well wishers. Along with a living tradition of Yoga Vidya, fellowship is one the greatest riches of the Bihar Yoga tradition. I hope to meet you in the regular offerings of YANA, through the wider community events,  and through the courses I plan to offer soon. 

Om Tat Sat

Sannyasi Yogatara

For more information about Yogatara please visit isha-institute.com