India – The Woke Yogi

Death of the Guru

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The Last Lineage Holder

The shala walls are lined with photos. In some, a teenaged boy prays with his family; in others, the same boy, slightly older, demonstrates advanced yoga postures. Many more photos show the man in middle-age, pacing between rows of mats or posing with crowds of smiling students. At the front of the room hangs the largest photo by far, adorned with strings of marigolds and bathed in incense smoke. In old age, the guru smiles down upon his disciples.

Sharath Jois was, until very recently, considered the primary lineage holder, or paramaguru, for the entire Ashtanga yoga tradition. He inherited the lineage from his grandfather, K. Pattabhi Jois, who created and popularized the Ashtanga sequences. Today, Ashtanga is one of the last remaining yoga styles to emphasize guru-śiṣya paramparā (GSP), the ancient South Asian tradition in which knowledge is meticulously passed from guru to disciple in unbroken lineage. It was precisely this tradition that drew me to practice Ashtanga in Mysore: I craved access to the original teachings, supposedly so whole and pure, undiluted by modern interpretation and therefore irrefutably authentic.

But shortly after I received my confirmation to attend classes at Sharath Yoga Centre, mere weeks before I was scheduled to arrive, Sharath Jois passed away. His death was sudden and unexpected, leaving the Ashtanga community reeling. For the first time ever, the lineage was without a paramaguru.

When the news of Guru Ji’s death arrived, many students had already booked their annual trips to Mysore. No one knew what would happen – would the shala close its doors for the season? If so, would it ever reopen? After several weeks rife with speculation, shala staff announced that classes would proceed as scheduled. There would be only one small difference: in lieu of the guru’s teaching, all students were to engage in self-led practice.

This request was not altogether radical given the unique pedagogy of the ashtanga tradition. Even under regular circumstances, all practitioners do self-led or “Mysore-style” practice five days a week. They still go to the shala daily, but rather than following a teacher’s verbal instruction, the students move through a pre-set, memorized sequence at their own pace. The teacher(s) walks around the room to give guidance to students individually. I have found that this teaching style promotes a more meditative experience – without having to listen to the teacher’s cues or worry about what posture comes next, I can focus more deeply on my internal alignment and breath.

In the wake of Guru Ji’s passing, however, the notion of an entirely self-led season seemed only to heighten the uncertainty clouding the ashtanga community. Students were still expected to pay the usual course tuitions – so what incentive did they have to show up at all, let alone practice in good faith? I was skeptical, to say the least. Judging by my own shaky self-discipline, I doubted that anyone would travel all the way to Mysore just to teach themselves.

I could not have been more wrong. When I arrived for my first day of class, dozens of mats were neatly lined up before the altar. The room, though quiet, was animated by movement. Students in the front row contorted themselves into impossible folds, even as those towards the back were just getting warmed up with Sun Salutations. On occasion, students would pause their own practice to give their neighbor hands-on adjustments. Many advanced students lingered in the shala after completing their own practices to assist students who had just begun. It seemed that in the absence of a central authority, the ashtanga community had come together to carry the lineage forward collectively.

Next in Line

What I witnessed in Mysore resonates with sentiments I have heard from many of my respondents in other parts of India. When asked if they follow a particular guru or adhere to a specific lineage, most of my respondents say NO – they favor a self-guided approach to spirituality instead.

One of my respondents, a yoga teacher from Uttarakhand, explained simply: “I’m not following any [gurus]… My journey is my journey. I am following myself.”

Another respondent, a yoga teacher from Gujarat, told me that he wholly disagrees with spiritual seekers who blindly follow their gurus: “They’re sheep!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “They don’t think for themselves.”

My friend from Rajasthan also confessed that he’s wary of trusting any one spiritual leader. “These gurus or these ‘God-men—” (he paused to shudder at the word), “—they aren’t always right. It’s best to learn from many different people and come to your own conclusions.”

Even my aunt, a devout Hindu from West Bengal who studied under a guru for decades, warned me about spiritual authorities who claim to be enlightened. “Always do your own research,” she instructed me. “Anyone can say that they know the truth about the universe, but it’s just their interpretation of the truth.”

Their responses shocked me. Prior to starting my fieldwork, I expected to find a thriving culture of gurus and ‘God-men’ in India; I imagined that strict lineage-based practices would be the standard, offering a simple way to distinguish Indian yoga from its bastardized Western counterparts. Evidently, such a clear distinction does not exist. Modern yoga practitioners around the world reject the possibility of an all-knowing guru – and many distrust gurus at large. Even Ashtanga, the lineage that I have always perceived as unconditionally guru-centric, seems to function just fine without its foremost figure.

Is the Guru Dead for Good?

And if so, what has prompted the passing of this age-old tradition? Perhaps we are simply seeing the global trend towards individualism play out on the yogic stage. People around the world crave more privacy and self-determination than ever before, and their dwindling sense of co-dependence renders the guru obsolete. Alternatively, we might blame the explosive growth of the virtual yoga industry. In the past, spiritual seekers had to leave their hometowns or even their home countries to identify suitable teachers. Now, hundreds of yoga influencers offer digestible tidbits for the modern yogi on every social media platform. Even the most charismatic gurus cannot compete with the convenience of discovering God in your living room.

More insidiously, the past several decades have seen a string of scandals around yoga gurus, revealing just how fraught the entire guru-disciple complex is. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Guru Satyananda Saraswati of Yoga Nidra was investigated for child sexual abuse, and in 1991, Integral Yoga guru Satchitananda Saraswati made headlines for molesting his students. Bikram Chowdhury, creator of Bikram Yoga, accumulated five sexual assault-related lawsuits by 2014, to say nothing of his brazen capitalistic corruption. The #MeToo movement in 2017 spurred a new onslaught of allegations, with Ashtanga’s Pattabhi Jois and Kundalini Yoga’s Yogi Bhajan joining the list of sexual offenders. Just last year, Sadhguru of Isha Yoga Centre became embroiled in international controversy amid accusations of brainwashing and spiritual coercion. The regularity of these scandals suggests not just a few bad apples but an institutionalized pattern of abuse. Modern yogis have no choice but to question the power dynamics inherent within guru-led communities – and wonder whether guru-śiṣya paramparā is even worth preserving.

Abandoning this ancient education model isn’t without costs, of course. Gurus offer a structured yet personalized approach to spirituality. They inspire and empower their students, serving to motivate consistent practice and hold students accountable for their own improvement. Most importantly, gurus protect their students from harm. In postural yoga, gurus ensure proper alignment and physical safety, while in spiritual contexts, they guide students through practices that are mentally challenging and sometimes even psychologically dangerous. For example, many yogis believe that some Kundalini yoga exercises can induce psychosis; therefore, aspiring practitioners of Kundalini are urged to only practice under the supervision of a learned guru.

In my view, however, the cultural shift away from GSP aligns with the core yogic ethic of radical introspection. Traditionally, gurus have been glorified as sacred sources of knowledge; they were revered as spiritual guides or teachers, loved as parents, or even worshipped as gods. Yet, yoga scriptures teach us that we are one and the same with God; we already carry divine wisdom within ourselves, and rather than deifying other people, we need only look inward to discover it. Yoga trains us to tune in to our inner teachers. Given this framing, it makes perfect sense that modern yogis trust their own intuitions over those of external authorities. This mindset is even encouraged by the classical yogic texts!

Moreover, the guru’s declining popularity makes space for a more inclusive, democratic yoga tradition. After all, gurus are, first and foremost, gatekeepers of knowledge. Their preeminence in South Asian spiritual circles has historically made it difficult for many demographics, such as women and low-caste individuals, to access yoga. But yoga itself is not exclusionary – it is a tool for collective liberation! When we relinquish our fidelity to the all-knowing, infallible guru, we may begin to distribute power more equitably between teachers and students. We can welcome yoga practitioners of all backgrounds and encourage them to cultivate self-reliance and self-confidence, thereby modeling yoga not just in the teachings we offer but in the very way we transmit them.

Ashtanga clearly lives on, despite the death of its guru. If my observations are any consolation, you can trust that gurus do NOT singlehandedly sustain their lineages. That duty is held by students, preserving their yogic traditions through the profound act of practice. Certainly, the coming months will pose new questions and challenges as the Ashtanga community begins to chart a way forward in Guruji’s absence. But personally, I can’t wait to see where the lineage goes next.

Sorting Science from Superstition

The Curse of the Monkey Skull

Shadows descended over Tali Forest in the early afternoon, the sun dappled by tall rhododendron thickets and cut mountain creases to the west. My trek leaders spoke in hushed tones of Himalayan superstitions: of birds who cry like children and fairies that dance in the wake of death. As we hiked up the mountain, I teased them for their childish ghost stories. But when we arrived at our campsite, a shiver crawled down my spine. The clearing was littered with dried bones.

Eerie though it was, I was delighted to stumble upon a monkey skull at the edge of the woods – nearly intact, with a half set of teeth.

Such a unique souvenir! I thought to myself as I gingerly wrapped the oddity in layers of plastic and cloth.

My delight quickly faded, however, when I became violently ill later that evening. The hiking had been tough on my body, and at 13,000 feet above sea level, I struggled to recover. Although I’ve spent my lifetime living at high altitudes, that night, for the first time, I was struck by acute mountain sickness (AMS).

The following morning, after a long, miserable night in my tent, a fellow trekker pulled me aside:

“Hey, I know this sounds out there, but legend says you should never remove anything from these woods… lest you fall sick…”

My eyes flickered to my daypack beside me, which contained my prized monkey skull. Without him saying as much, I knew exactly what he meant: I’d return that skull if I were you.

He was right – it was out there. So why was I immediately inclined to believe his superstitious explanation? All my symptoms pointed to altitude sickness, and yet, that clinical diagnosis sat uneasily in my gut. I didn’t want to believe that my body was succumbing to the harsh demands of high elevation. In my moment of vulnerability, the notion that I had fallen victim to a monkey spirit’s curse flooded me with understanding, even relief. I’m not weak or out of shape, I reassured myself, I just angered the forest’s patrons.

My feverish imaginings of a vengeful primate seemed to soothe my throbbing head and roiling stomach. It was dubious, implausible, but this supernatural story allowed me to make sense of my condition. It lent mystical meaning to a memory otherwise marred by discomfort and disorientation. Most importantly, it shifted the blame off my own shoulders – admittedly, I had neglected the cardio regimen that was, evidently, necessary for acclimatization.

There’s no doubt that modern medicine offered me something more pragmatic, more actionable than did Himalayan legend. None of our trek leaders knew how to reverse a curse, but we had medics on hand to treat AMS. My trekking cohort took it upon themselves to cure me with electrolyte packets, Acetazolamide capsules, and plenty of fresh water. Indeed, by the next day, I felt well enough to walk myself back down the mountain.

As I arrived back at base camp, flushed with pride and accomplishment, I began to wonder: Must we forgo empiricism to accept esotericism? Can science and spirituality coexist? It was hard to deny that medical intervention had saved my ass, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had been called into the woods for a paranormal purpose. I had brawled with the forces of the forest and emerged none the worse, albeit with a newfound faith in the local people’s fables.

Shadows of Scientific Certainty

In a previous post, I wrote about how spiritual people are particularly prone towards pseudoscience. In their belief of biblical genesis, for example, Evangelical Christians often belie evolutionary science. Moreover, we all know an *astrology girly* who dismisses medical innovations as mere harbingers of the Aquarian Age. I once attended a workshop in Boulder on traditional breath and bodywork practices, ranging from reiki to yoga to chakra massage. One of the sessions, ominously titled “The Truth About COVID-19,” turned out to be a fervid condemnation of vaccines (in hindsight, maybe I should have seen that one coming…).

Before we write these conspiracies off, we must consider that for lay people, belief in science often requires just as much blind faith as spirituality. If NASA says that there is life on Mars, most ordinary people have no way to fact-check their claims. We possess neither the resources nor the know-how to conduct such experiments. We must simply take astrophysicists at their word, trusting that these mysterious elites, with their lofty credentials and their top-secret security clearances, are feeding us the truth about the universe.

The scientific method is grounded in evidence and transparency, to be fair. Peer-reviewed journals exist to substantiate all the discoveries that take place behind closed doors. But most of these publications are inaccessible to the general public. Scientific knowledge is hidden behind paywalls and buried in jargon, to the extent that even exceptionally resourceful individuals struggle to discern what humankind already knows to be true. You can imagine how certain populations might grow suspicious of science, especially when our education systems discourage us from questioning its authority. Think critically about everything, we tell our children, except science. That stuff has already been proven in ways that you don’t and might never understand.

Of course, scientists get things wrong every day. They work with existing information to develop theories, which other scholars then corroborate and modify and yes, often disprove. Our collective understanding of reality is ever evolving, but that doesn’t mean scientists are lying or incompetent or power-hungry. It simply means that they’re human. Scientists dedicate their lives to the pursuit of knowledge, and we must trust that their specialized expertise is superior to our feeble skills with Google.

Not everyone has that kind of trust. Just as I hesitated to concede my AMS diagnosis, many people refute science for reasons both personal and systemic. And who can blame them? To believe in science is to accept that fallible humans, who attempt to answer ethically fraught questions amidst a slew of competing financial and political interests, should dictate our perceptions of existence. By contrast, it seems a whole lot easier to believe in God.

Spirituality offers a way for common people to comprehend the inaccessible and oftentimes imperceptible findings of modern science. It is in our nature to seek answers about our surroundings; without access to peer-reviewed publications or the education to understand them, alternative explanations will inevitably arise. Long-lost legends and far-fetched fairytales are a means for us to grapple with the order of the cosmos and our place within it. They allow us to find solace, even comfort, in chaos.

Conclusions: On Coexistence

Two things can be true at once. Perhaps I came down with acute mountain sickness because I removed a monkey skull from the jungle. My willingness to indulge superstitions need not undermine my fundamental belief in science and its evidence-backed explanations of natural phenomena. When we accept that science and spirituality can coexist, we can begin to disentangle our faith from the pseudoscientific discourses that turn our spiritual practices into dangerous tools of misinformation and propaganda. We can work towards a more informed future, even while acknowledging the forces that may forever remain beyond the scope of scientific inquiry.

As for the monkey skull, I kept it! It was far too rare a find to return. My spooky souvenir now sits on my shelf as a reminder that belief is a spectrum — science salvaged my health, but superstition made my trek unforgettable. I have since identified the skull as belonging to a Hanuman Langur (Latin name: Semnopithecus).

If there was ever a curse upon my head, well, I suppose it was short lived. I made a full recovery after my bout with AMS and have since remained in good health. I certainly intend to take altitude training more seriously next time, but allow my story to reassure you: superstitions carry only the power that you give them.

Tourists in Tiger Territory

The morning air in Basanti was warm, with smog draped over the pink-orange sunrise like a thick layer of grey chiffon. After a 2-hour drive southeast from my Dadu Ji’s (granddad’s) house in Kolkata, we had reached the far edges of the state of West Bengal and indeed the outer borders of the country of India, but we had not yet escaped the ring of air pollution that surrounds the city center.

The streets of Basanti town were abuzz with shopkeepers preparing their wares, mother cows bellowing to their young, and tropical birds cheerfully singing the tunes for which they were named: papiha (Common Hawk-Cuckoo), kokila (Asian Koel), kowah (Crow). Their songs were underscored by the incessant thrumming of mosquitoes, menacing man and animal alike as they flitted in search of their next victims. Mosquitoes, I believe, were put on this planet to humble humans — after all, their mere presence reduces us from power-hungry predators to paltry prey.

We unloaded our car briskly, swatting the air vigorously all the while, then made our way to the waterside, where a sign welcomed us:

Sundarbans National Park & Tiger Reserve

A boat and its crew awaited us at the dock: the Delta Queen, captained by a majestically mustached man named Mrittunjoy. The Delta Queen was our ticket into the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest situated within the world’s largest river delta. Spanning two countries (India and Bangladesh) and nearly 4,000 square miles, this region boasts a wide range of flora and fauna, with over 200 bird species alone. But the jungle, we were told, was full of terrible dangers—ranging from tree roots to tigers to territorial bees – and thus the water was the safest place for us to observe its biodiversity.

Mangrove trees are unique in that they have aerial roots or “breathing roots” that grow up and out of the water-logged soil. This incredible adaptation has enabled mangroves to thrive in extremely harsh, saline environments; however, these breathing roots are also very sharp and hazardous for land-dwellers.

Just as the sun began to peek out from behind its ashen curtain, the Delta Queen embarked on its 3-day journey into the Sundarbans Delta, where the sacred Ganges River empties into the Bay of Bengal. Mrittunjoy had a keen eye for spotting birds, and he promptly began to point out Kingfishers concealed in masses of mangrove roots. He soliloquized about the species of the Sundarbans; about the sea and its stringent saltiness; about the sweets that might be served at snack-time. Within only a few hours, we had seen deer, monitor lizards, birds of prey, and hundreds of mudskippers along the canal shores.

This amazing shot of a Black-Capped Kingfisher was captured by my incredibly talented uncle, Partha Pratim Saha. You can check out more of his photography on his Instagram and website.

Then, in the late afternoon, as our boat wove down a wider waterway, my sister leapt up from her seat and pointed excitedly towards land. I craned my neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of an elusive Bengal tiger. Instead, I saw…

A woman. She balanced a pot on her head as she retreated from the riverbank, the pleats of her sari swaying in time with her gait. I squinted at this sight, struggling to see what had attracted my sister’s attention.

“People live out here?” my sister asked in awe.

Despite the dangers advertised to us, people do in fact live out there: 4.5 million on the Indian side and even more in Bangladesh. Much of the Sundarbans is protected as a nature reserve, but this region is still one of the most densely populated in the world. The fertile floodplains surrounding the delta are ideal for agricultural production, and there are small fishing villages on the islands within the delta. These settlements are simple and extremely rural, sometimes only accessible by boat.

Discomfort settled over me as I realized that we had been observing these villagers with unabashed scrutiny, just as we had been observing the flora and the fauna. They’re not here for my viewing pleasure, I scorned myself. Yet, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The sight of this woman was jarring, I realized, because her life was so necessarily attuned and inextricably tethered to the patterns of the earth: the comings and goings of the rains, the cycles of the moon, the ebbs and flows of the tide. Every morning, while I stumble to my bathroom and turn on the tap, this woman carries a pot down to the riverside and fetches her water straight from the Sundarbans Delta. Though united by our shared humanity, I couldn’t help but feel species away from her, as distant as I felt from the exotic Kingfishers.

Over the remainder of our jungle cruise, Mrittunjoy pointed out local fishing boats and informed us about the villagers’ practices of collecting honey from wild rock bees. He explained that the locals fish the delta from June to December, then pause all fishing activities and collect honey between March and May to ensure sustainable harvesting practices. As he continued to intersperse facts about the local people’s customs with his commentary on cobras and crocodiles, my unease grew. I became acutely aware of the separation between us and them; between our tour boat and the Sundarbans – their home.

Indeed, from the safety of our tour boat, it was all too easy to view these villagers as another species altogether; to assume that they are somehow less susceptible to the forecasted dangers of the Sundarbans simply by virtue of surviving there everyday. This is not the case. The villagers enter the jungle at their own peril, for tiger attacks are common. Yet, they have no choice; aquaculture and beekeeping are the only ways for them to make a living. In this way, the villagers are equal contributors to the Sundarbans ecosystem; they survive on the offerings of the jungle, at any time prone to becoming offerings themselves – whether to tigers or to mosquitoes. Sometimes predators, sometimes prey, these villagers remind us that humans are but one species acting within complex, multi-species ecosystems. They challenge the illusion that humans are always, unequivocally, at the top of the food chain.

Some more breathtaking captures of the Sundarbans food chain by my uncle, Partha Pratim Saha.

But then, if the villagers are prey, what is it that seeks to predate them? Is it really the tigers, prowling innocently in search of their next meal? Or is it the tour companies that ferry paying foreigners out by the dozens, predatory in their promise of ‘exotic experiences’ at the expense of ecological peace? These tour companies are required to hold permits, and they are (in theory) regulated by strict legislation. But the laws prohibiting pollution are not enforced – I personally witnessed a great deal of waste during our three days onboard the Delta Queen. Though I remained firmly on the boat, I was drawn into this larger socio-political ecosystem of the Sundarbans, animated not by waters and winds but by neoliberal greed and corruption. We may have been safe from the jungle, but the jungle was not safe from us.

In climate change discourse, humans are usually positioned against nature — and for good reason! Humans have too often exploited nature’s balance to our gain. However, I reject the notion that humans are always and can only ever be antagonistic forces on nature. As we see in the Sundarbans, humans can be protectors and stewards of their lands; they, too, can contribute to ecological balance. We need only to remember that we are – despite our daily differences – the same species as the villagers of the Sundarbans. We are products of our environments, not just polluters of them.

Though protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the fragile brackish ecosystem of the Sundarbans is extremely vulnerable to climate change, and many of its inhabitant species are endangered—including humans!! Rising salinity levels, coastline erosion, cyclones, and floods threaten to disrupt the precarious natural balance of the Sundarbans and displace the millions of people who live there, triggering an environmental refugee crisis. We cannot allow this to happen!

Climate change is NOT inevitable OR irreversible.

We are ALL a part of this global ecosystem, and we all stand to benefit by saving it.

If you are interested in learning more about the Sundarbans, or if you’d like to donate in support of its inhabitants, please visit the links below:

Read about/ see maps of the Sundarbans UNESCO World Heritage Site

Read Misreading the Bengal Delta by Camelia Dewan

Donate to the Sundarban Foundation to support tiger victims and other humans in the Sundarbans through medical aid, employment, and education.

Donate to The Canopy Project Sundarbans to support environmental conservation and restoration.

Donate to AID India to support natural disaster relief and climate resilience infrastructure.

Photo by Partha Pratim Saha

A Meditation on Yoga

“Inhale, arrive on your mat.”

It was my very first yoga class, and I was there because I aspired to touch my toes.

“Exhale, shiiiiine your love outward like a rainbooowwww,” the Lululemon-clad instructor crooned, “and remember: yoga is whatever you make it!”

Throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries, westerners viewed yoga as an esoteric tradition: practiced on the fringes of orthodox Indic societies by magicians and priests; shrouded in superstition. But when Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda spoke about yoga at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, and when the physical fitness revival of the early 20th century swept the globe, yoga exploded into the mainstream. Hindu nationalists hailed yoga with a newfound vigor, touting its indigenous character. New Age hippies were equally enamored; since the 1950s, yoga studios have popped up around the globe, attracting celebrities from Marilyn Monroe to Adam Levine, while brands like Alo Yoga and prAna have seized the athleisure market. Suddenly, yoga is no longer a secretive lineage from the ‘exotic East,’ but a popular fad – a stretching routine. Yoga is…just exercise?

“Inhale, stay.”

I closed my eyes and an ethereal sitar tune began to play, transporting me to the Indian subcontinent of millennia past.

The earliest known definition of yoga appears in India’s oldest text, the Rig Veda, dated 1500 to 1000 BCE. In these ritual prescriptions, yoga means ‘to yoke’ or ‘to connect;’ it is the action of harnessing a horse to a war chariot, therein submitting the horse to the charioteer’s will. Several centuries later, in the Upaniṣadic texts, yoga became a series of exercises for one to restrict the body and discipline the mind, usually as a means to seek metaphysical power or attain mystical union with god. The 3rd century BCE Kaṭha Upaniṣad asserted that yoga is “firm restraint of the senses.” As one harnesses a horse to a chariot, yoga harnesses the mind to the body. I was starting to understand this form of torture self-restraint as the instructor reminded me to return to my breath, even though we had been sitting criss-cross-applesauce forever and I couldn’t feel my feet. Whether the goal is to commune with the cosmos or simply to condition your quads, yoga is control.

“Exhale, downward dog!”

I pressed myself up, relieved to distract my mind, only to discover a new kind of fatigue igniting in my legs and shoulders. My body began to shake, and I fought the urge to collapse back to the ground. Evidently, yoga is as mental as it is physical. In the Bhagavad Gita, the god Krishna tells royal warrior Arjuna that yoga is “skill in action.” He commands Arjuna to be a yogi to fulfill his divine duty–of slaughtering his own family on the battlefield. Like Arjuna, I failed to see the purpose of my excruciating position, and like Krishna, my teacher was strangely militant about demonstrating yogic willpower – albeit through core workouts, not holy war. Yoga, then, is the discipline to do what you may not want to; the patience to serve a greater good that you may not yet understand. Yoga is control.

“Inhale, three-leg dog!”

The room burst into a silent symphony of swaying limbs. The yogis around me contorted themselves into incomprehensible shapes, touching their toes in a thousand ways that I never thought possible. The teacher rattled off foreign words: śvānāsana, añjaneyāsana, uttānāsana…

Āsana means “seat” or “posture,” and it is one technique by which yogis discipline their bodies in pursuit of spiritual power. Around 200 CE, āsana appeared as the third precept in the Yoga Sutra, an aphoristic text on yoga philosophy. At that time, however, the list of āsanas was limited to those suitable for seated meditation: sukhāsana, padmāsana, and vajrāsana. It wasn’t until much later, in the 13th century Haṭhapradīpikā, that āsana was elevated to a foremost priority. The Haṭhapradīpikā codified 84 total postures, and furthermore recommended bandhas (muscular locks), mudrās (gestures), dṛṣṭis (gazing points) and prāṇāyāmas (breath restraint techniques) to train and constrain the body. Yoga is control.

“Exhale, warrior two!”

The pace of class quickened, and the postures began to flow together, fast and fluid.

“Inhale, reverse triangle!”

The music intensified, matching the rhythmic pulse of breaths in unison.

“Exhale, extended side angle!”

A bead of sweat dripped off my forehead.

“Inhale, half-moon!”

My feet hurt. My breath burned in my throat. I wanted very badly to be done.

“Exhale, chaturanga dandasana!”

Really? Push-ups? I thought this was supposed to be relaxing.

“Inhale. Pause.”

I laid down on my back. The sensation of movement lingered in my tissues as my breath slowed.

In the Yoga Sutra, āsana is merely a step taken to prepare oneself for samādhi: a pure state of meditative consciousness. Yoga is citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ: “the stilling of the turnings of the mind.”

“Exhale. Rest.”

I dropped into śavāsana: the pose of the corpse. The air in the studio quieted. My body softened, my mind stilled. For a time, I was neither sensing nor sleeping, but simply experiencing. Yoga is the absence of sensory intake; both this moment of uncanny stillness and every moment that builds up to it. First, yoga is just exercise, and then it is control. But ultimately, yoga is surrender.

Holi Pilgrimage

Of all the Hindu festivals celebrated throughout South Asia, Holi is by far the most well-known globally. Every March, children and elderly alike gather in the streets to toss colored powders and celebrate the turning of the seasons. The result is visually striking—smiling communities and sacred sites drenched in every hue of the rainbow. When I traveled to India in the Spring of 2019, I knew that the Festival of Colors would be an event to remember, but I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

I lived in Hyderabad, Telangana during my time in India. As the fifth largest city in the subcontinent, Hyderabad was well connected to other major cities via airways and railroads, and my study abroad group did a fair bit of interstate travel using these methods. However, much of India remains rural and largely disparate from urban centers. According to a census conducted in 2020, more than 65% of India’s population still lives in rural areas. These areas are not so easily accessible by the convenient, direct forms of transportation that I am used to.

One such area is Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh in North India. Mentioned in many Hindu texts as the childhood home of the God Krishna, this city has rich mythological significance. Krishna is the 8^th avatar of Vishnu, the preserver deity in the Hindu holy trinity (trimurti). He is the god of love, protection, compassion, and he features prominently in the Bhagavad Gita. This text is excerpted from the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, and serves as a foundation for devotional Yoga practices. It is standard reading for Yogis, just as the Holy Bible is for Christians and the Qur’an is for Muslims. The festival Holi celebrates Krishna’s divine love for his devotees, his kingdom, and especially his consort, Radha. The pair (commonly abbreviated to, simply, Krishna Radha) represent the union of masculine and feminine energies, the cosmic combination of spirit and material, of reality and illusion, the complete constitution of the universe. After puja, or worship, of the two deities, devotees celebrate their union by smearing themselves with color. Nowhere is this practice more vibrant than Vrindavan, the historical setting of Krishna’s notorious romances.

Naturally, I thought, what better place to experience Holi for the first time than in the district where it all began? Georgia, my roommate from Ohio University, was studying in Thailand at the time, so she planned to meet me in Vrindavan. We each recruited some friends to join us, and we booked our plane tickets. The gang coming from Hyderabad consisted of my friends Jonny, Allison, Kelly, Hunter, and myself. The Bangkok crew included Georgia, JJ, Ejayah, and Celine. Little did we know that the travel to and from the festival would amount to a religious experience in and of itself!

The first leg of our journey was an Uber. We routinely ordered Ubers to our hostel on the Hyderabad Central University campus. Admittedly, we also routinely encountered issues with Indian Uber, but it was our main mode of transport out of campus. We had a 7 am flight to catch, so I ordered an Uber ahead of time to arrive at 4 am. In the dark of the early morning, we gathered soundlessly in the lobby with our strategically packed backpacks. We waited. And we waited. No Ubers arrived, and we began to panic. No one was awake; no one would accept our last-minute request.

Just as we had accepted the inevitability of missing our flight, a silver SUV pulled up in front of the hostel gates. We piled in without asking too many questions. This tardiness should have been the first indicator of divine influence in our travels. Later, an inspection of my Uber reservation would reveal that our vehicle had been cancelled due to lack of availability. Somewhat miraculously, our chauffeur had been hired to transport an entirely different group to the airport. He had mistakenly arrived a day early and was lucky to find us waiting for him.

We made it to the Hyderabad airport just in the nick of time to have our bags x-rayed and our boarding passes approved. We rode an airport bus onto the tarmac to board a plane destined for Delhi, the nearest major city to Vrindavan. Our flight was rather uneventful, but Georgia’s group was not so fortunate—they had booked a Thailand-based budget airline called NokScoot, which resulted in a series of strange events that they recounted to us later. First, they nearly missed their flight due to an unannounced departure change. Somehow, a NokScoot employee located them in the airport to alert them that their plane was about to leave. Then, after boarding the plane, they were surprised to find that all the other passengers seemed to know one another, and none of them seemed to want to stay in their assigned seats.

After witnessing a takeoff game of musical chairs, Georgia and JJ tried to escape the unyielding attention of a man who kept hopping seats until he ended up in the same row as them. Halfway through the flight, a persistent “ding-dong” sound began to emanate from the plane. Upon asking a flight attendant, they learned that a passenger had fallen asleep on his call button, and the attendants either could not or would not wake him to silence the noise. NokScoot Airlines has since been liquidated, leaving us to wonder about this odd flight experience for all of eternity.

The Hyderabad gang landed in Delhi at 10 am, but our voyage was far from over. We hopped an underground rail that connected the farthest terminals of the massive Delhi airport to one another. Whether we even needed to ride this train, we’re still not sure. That said, we ended up in the wrong part of the airport—rail maps were relentlessly confusing, and the staff seemed to have no idea how to direct us. Panic began to set in again as we realized we had less than an hour to catch our bus. We made the collective decision to abandon the Delhi Metro and instead flagged down a rickshaw driver just outside the airport.

Negotiating rates with rickshaw drivers was generally challenging given our…ahem… aggressively white appearance. I struggled to communicate prices with my beginner Hindi, and this task was made no less difficult by the incredible vagueness of Indian addresses. Our bus tickets instructed us to meet at “Sec 37 Indian Oil Petrol Pump.” I had hoped that this location might become evident as we approached the cross-streets, but to no avail. Annoyed with our indecisiveness, the rickshaw driver dumped us in a plaza lined with rusty buses. He shrugged helplessly at us as he drove away.

With less than 20 minutes until our bus departure time, we frantically compared our tickets to each bus’s sign. Several drivers stopped us along the way, insistent that we were looking for their bus, and there was truly no way of knowing which one we had purchased tickets for. They all seemed to be going the same route, or at least, that’s what the drivers told us. At one point, Jonny completely gave up the chase and asked a stranger to light his bidi, a type of Indian cigarette. We stood around in a huddle and puffed for a bit. It seemed like the only thing we knew how to do in that moment.

Indian bus drivers continued to hound us until we made the arbitrary decision to follow a man and his young child onto a bus. This one seemed as random as any of the others, but the driver accepted our tickets and allowed us to sit, so we did so. At first, we each had our own seat along the back row. At each stop, however, more and more people piled on. About an hour in, we were shoulder-to-shoulder, sitting eight people in a row designed for five.

The bus was unbearably muggy and warm, owing in no small part to the ever-growing crowd in the aisles. I tried to focus on breathing in fresh air through the 1 inch opening in the window. As we drove farther away from the city, however, the roads became increasingly rough, and dust soon began to infiltrate my airways, catalyzing a full-on asthma attack. I wheezed, crushed against the side of the bus, being tossed up and down by the poor suspension. After what felt like forever, I drifted into a restless sleep, my skull bouncing against the dirty window glass.

I can’t have been asleep long because our ride was only meant to be three hours. I awoke suddenly to a concerned Indian man speaking to me in Hindi. My friends stared at me helplessly. Looking distinctly more native than the rest of my American group, I often found myself acting as an ambassador in a language I had only just begun to study. I knew right away that something was wrong—otherwise, I would not be fielding this stranger’s concerns.

“Aapko kahaa ja ruhe hain?” (“where are you going?”) the man asked.

“Vrindavan ko,” I mumbled, still disoriented from my reduced capacity to breathe. His eyes grew wide.

“Vrindavan? Nahee.”

After some back and forth, I deciphered the problem: we had missed our stop. The stranger alerted the bus driver, who pulled off to the side of the road rather hastily and allowed us to unload. I had no idea how all four of my travel buddies had missed the memo, even if the announcement had been in Hindi. Nor did I know how this strange man knew our mistake before we did. Nevertheless, we owed it to the stranger. Without his help, we would have ended up very lost in rural Uttar Pradesh.

“Dhanyavaad!” I thanked him as the bus pulled away. Then, I realized another problem. Even with the stranger’s help, we were very lost in rural Uttar Pradesh. The bus had dropped us on the side of a quiet highway overpass, and none of us had cell service. There didn’t seem to be any towns or cities for miles.

This time, we didn’t have a chance to panic, as our second guardian angel appeared out of thin air. He was a young man with piercing eyes and perfect English, which was even more miraculous than his inexplicable arrival. He helped us down a rocky hillside with our luggage, then hailed another rickshaw and sent us on our way. This rickshaw, our SEVENTH vehicle of the day, was a full-on party tuk-tuk, equipped with lavish décor, multi-colored string lights, and a bumping subwoofer. For the first time during our travels in India, the driver passed us the aux. We played our tunes obnoxiously loud as we careened down the bumpy rural roads, waving at amused pedestrians and trying our hardest to enjoy the thirteenth hour of our journey. Keep in mind that I was still holding a crippling asthma attack at bay.

Around six pm, we rolled into the city of Vrindavan, where festivities for the eve of Holi were in full swing. Many residents had already brought out their colored powders and were enthusiastic to get the Americans in on the action. In our open-sided rickshaw, we were subject to rowdy hands reaching for our clothes and body parts. At one point, we came to a full stop in traffic and a man stepped out of his driver’s seat to take a picture of us. I tried to tell him no, in both English and Hindi, and he ignored me, coming closer and closer with each snapshot. Frankly, I was fed up. I slapped the phone out of his hand as we drove off. Not my proudest moment, but I was just beginning to learn how to establish physical boundaries with persistent Indian men.

Shortly thereafter, the rickshaw driver pulled off to the side of the road and nodded to us to get out. We did, obediently, before realizing that we still had no idea where we were. Much like the bus stop, the address to our AirBnB was vague, accompanied by an equally vague photo of a townhome complex that seemed to match every building in the neighborhood. The rickshaw driver sped off as soon as he had cash in his hand, leaving us to wander the nondescript streets with our bulky luggage in tow.

I’m not sure how long we wandered. All I know is that we eventually made it to our destination. Using the AirBnB listing, we located the neighboring complex, where was ran into our host, Parul. Parul kindly led us to our rental home, brought us tiffins of curry, and left us alone to rest and recover from the treacherous trek. Surprisingly, Georgia’s group had also made it to the AirBnB, and we were relieved to find them napping when we arrived. We hugged, introduced the two groups to one another, and swapped stories about our equally absurd adventures.

Despite our difficulties, we came to realize that the long road to Vrindavan was half of the Holi experience. Pilgrimage plays a large role in many Hindu traditions; devotees travel long distances and endure the accompanying hardships to prove that their god’s grace is worth traversing the world for. Especially in a country like India, it requires great dedication to take time off work, travel to religious sites, and practice rites in a foreign community. The expedition itself is meant to bring the individual closer to god by challenging the convenience of the individual’s mode of worship.

Indeed, we were awe-inspired by the perseverance required to reach Krishna’s childhood home, and even more grateful for the experience because we knew how fortunate we were to have made it. We felt that Krishna himself had sent avatars to guide us on our journey, for there was no way we could have succeeded without the help of the mysterious NokScoot employee, the strange man on the bus, or the kind English speaker on the highway overpass. To this day, I suspect divine influence when I think about the number of obstacles we overcame on the way.

On the day of Holi, we played with a fervor akin to lifelong devotees of Krishna. We rode around in a caravan of rickshaws and gleefully threw colors in the air, all the while trying to avoid the dreaded buckets of street water which raucous boys aimed at our faces. We visited the major temples in the city, including Katyayani Shakti Peeth, a mythologically significant site that is rumored to house ringlets of hair from the Hindu Goddess herself. We drank bhaang (a sacramental yogurt drink made from cannabis leaves), ate chaat, and were merry.

One part enjoyment, another part pure terror, Holi was the most fun we would never want to have again. I can’t say I would ever go back to Vrindavan for the infamous festival, but I would still recommend it to other travelers who are comfortable traveling long distances on a wide variety of vehicles. It was an unforgettable experience, one that undoubtedly strengthened my Yogic resolve. Personally, I am not a Krishna worshipper, but I experienced the cosmic love and connection during my Holi pilgrimage

Tag: India