Today’s guest post is from Marni Kravitz, director of Yoga Nepal, a dharma student, and freelance film and TV producer from Washington, DC. She interviewed Radhika Thakkar and Shawn Parell, co-teachers for Vinyasa: Finding Your Flow, November 7-18, 2011, a retreat taking place in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Registration ends soon! For more information visit Yoga Nepal‘s website.
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It’s hard to believe that Yoga Nepal 2011 is already approaching. It seems like only weeks ago that Cory Bryant, Radhika Thakkar, and I led our 2010 retreat through the Kathmandu Valley. Practicing in the sacred valley where Buddhist and Hindu cultures converge brought us closer to the meaning and purpose of yoga. We had the chance to immerse ourselves in the cultural riches of the valley’s many temple towns, brave Kathmandu city traffic together, receive teachings from Buddhist masters, and take many deep breaths in the presence of the Himalayan mountains. The retreat was the perfect mixture of pilgrimage and play, and most importantly, genuine friendships grew among the participants that continue even now.
Gearing up for this fall’s programs, I had the chance to talk to Radhika, who returns for 2011, and DC’s own Shawn Parell, who will co-teach this year’s retreat, and find out what pilgrimage, practice and retreat means to the modern yogi.
Marni: What motivates the two of you to teach yoga?
Radhika: I was drawn to yoga after my first class in 1999 – after an hour and a half of fluid, vinyasa movement, I felt like I had hit a refresh button on my physical and mental energy and washed tension out of my body and heart. For me, a vinyasa yoga practice – movements inspired by the connection between breath and body – is like a moving meditation. I teach to create this experience for others – whether they are looking for a workout or a chance to connect with something greater in their lives. I offer my students a fluid but challenging physical vinyasa flow infused with inspiring music to help them find their internal body and breath rhythm, disengage from the typical patterns of stress often played out in their daily lives, and connect with themselves on a deeper level.
Shawn: I teach yoga as an offering of devotional service. As the greatest agent of integration and change in my own life, after 15 years of daily practice, it is also the most personally inspired gift that I have to share with others. My intention in teaching is to hold space for others’ awakening and healing. How does it work? We simply move, and breathe, and bring kind attention to the energetic unfolding of practice. In an alchemical conversation with self, we discover our vibratory, essential, and expansive aliveness. And as we awaken to the nature of our own being, we realize that we are connected to the beings around us — that we belong to the natural flow of the universe.
Marni: What role has pilgrimage and retreat played in your life?
Radhika: Pilgrimage enables us to dedicate time and focus to deepen our own practice, however we define ‘practice’. One doesn’t need to be very religious or ‘yogic’ to go on pilgrimage, and everyone, even the casual yoga studio aficionado, can benefit from retreat. In a very fast moving world, with lots of professional, personal and social activities and commitments on my plate, I sometimes find myself so caught in the motions and rhythm of life that I am disconnected from the purpose of my actions. Going on retreat represents the ability to silence the noise of our life and practice the act of absorbing, reflecting and grounding ourselves. I find myself more connected to my work, the people in my life and my sense of self after taking time off to practice living yoga.
Marni: Radhika, what inspired you to teach in Nepal again this year?
Radhika: I loved that the stunning scenery, natural beauty and many symbols of Nepal’s varied religious and cultural history were uniquely inspirational. More profoundly, the Kathmandu Valley seems to represent a place of living spirituality. Whether it’s a quick glance at prayer flags flapping in the wind, watching devotees offer flowers to the feet of Ganesh, quietly reciting mantras with a mala in hand or performing prostrations in public, people’s actions and the physical spaces they occupy serve as a reminder of connection to something greater, more universal.
I vividly remember seeing school children in uniform and grandparents with canes circumambulating the stupa at Boudhanath early in the morning on their way to school or opening up their stores and offices and thinking how beautifully people have woven their spirituality into their everyday lives. I left Nepal with that lesson in my heart – regardless of what we believe in, we can so easily keep ourselves connected to what matters in the bigger picture with a simple action or quick glance at something that reminds us to connect to our beliefs on a daily basis.
Marni: Shawn, why do you think pilgrimage and retreat is so important to the path of yoga?
Shawn: As students of yoga and mindfulness, we are asked to explore the sacred that lives within and around us in any moment. Although our intentions for mindfulness practice may be resolute, many of us nevertheless experience our daily lives as both abundant and demanding, blessed and (… let’s face it) stressful. If we are paying attention, in any moment we can catch ourselves in a consuming cycle of thought: determining what we could or should be doing, wondering what others think, trying to figure things out, organizing and digesting information, trying to solve a problem, planning for the future, reviewing the past, etc etc. The more we pay attention, the more we wake up to the fact that we spend much of our lives caught in a trance of wanting to get somewhere else. Making time for retreat is a commitment to step out of that trance and to reconnect with our basic and essential flow of being. In this sense, the true destination of a pilgrimage is never a place, but a new way of seeing. As a macrocosmic gesture of pratyahara (one of the eight limbs of classical yoga that describes the process of attuning one’s sensory experience from the external world to our inner landscape) it is also an integral step along the path of yoga. As writer Lillian Smith put it, “no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.” This is the essential invitation and opportunity of pilgrimage: to step out of our responsibilities and routine intentionally, to shift our attention inwards with compassion and possibility, and to open to the deeper currents of consciousness within us through this process. And, in so doing, we just may find our hearts, minds, and eyes open to the world in a brand new way.
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Join Radhika and Shawn for Vinyasa: Finding Your Flow, November 7-18, 2011, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Registration ends soon! For more information visit Yoga Nepal‘s website.
