The Yoga Manifesto: How Yoga Helped Me and Why it Needs to Save Itself

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Viv Albertine, guitarist for 1970s British punk band The Slits told me how to write this book. Kind of. I met her on a creative writing course run by the Arvon Foundation in 2015. The course ran over five days and on the third day, a guest author was invited to join us and share their work. Viv was there for that. In this book there is not only an incredible honesty surrounding her own relationship with yoga, but also a clear & inspiring manifesto of 8 areas where yoga can (& is argued, must) work to revolutionise itself in a new era to overcome the murky waters it has become trapped in. I really wanted to speak to Waylon about Elephant and how he grew a small local magazine to a worldwide publication that we all recognise. His story of growing up in a spiritual school and being a Buddhist is fascinating. And his sharing of the power of the big social media companies is food for us all. This is a fascinating insight into someone who has shaped part of our modern yoga and wellness culture" Today David is recognised as one of the world's foremost practitioners and instructors of Ashtanga Yoga. He tirelessly travels year round to teach and offer workshops. His courses are presented in a supportive and compassionate fashion making it accessible to all levels of practitioner to participate. Nadia is gentle and fierce and above all searingly honest in a way that feels refreshing and relatable. This book doesn’t just interrogate our approach to self care but how a practice that sits in line with true care extends to the way we politically engage with the world. ”

Nadia Gilani

Raw. Vulnerable. Open. Truthful . . . This is a book that will open up the floor for even more honest conversations about the side of yoga we don't often see.' - Angie Tiwari @tiwariyoga Set the container for yourself. Meditate, pray, set your intention. In your way, ground yourself in the widened awareness of the present moment and a sense of unity and connection that yoga offers us. 2. Prepare the Space In this deeply inspiring and wide ranging conversation Scott talks to Waylon Lewis on his life as a buddhist and the growth of the world renowned yoga and wellness magazine, Elephant Journal.

Peter Levitt on How Mindfulness Is Creativity Scott and Peter talk openly about his life as a writer and a Zen practitioner. Peter shares: Peter's book Fingerpainting On The Moon is a roadmap to getting underneath our own creative process. This conversation with Peter Leviit is beautiful and helps us to consider how we can make our way through this precious life with openness. It is one of my favourite conversations and has changed the way I see my own creativity." Gregor Maehle on Yoga As A Mystical Experience Scott and Gregor talk openly about Gregor’s life as a yoga practitioner and mystic. Gregor shares: If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also enjoy Scott’s conversations with Danny Paradise, John Scott and Prem & Radha Carlisi. Viv asked what I was writing. ‘Lots,’ I said. ‘How do I turn it into a book?’ I asked. ‘Do what I do,’ she told me. ‘Write it all in short bits and move it around later.’ It took a while for me to understand what Viv meant, and I didn’t actually write anything for several years, but when I started this book I remembered her advice. The chapters in Viv’s first book Clothes, Music, Boys are exceptionally short. This method had clearly worked for her. So I did the same – wrote a bunch of stories and threaded them together later. A bit like taking a set of yoga poses and linking them with a series of flowing movements (more on that soon). This is what you’ve got in your hands now.

The Yoga Manifesto: How Yoga Helped Me and Why It Needs to

I was starting to feel anxious about the night ahead, and wondering whether the journey was going to have been worth it. I was on my way to teach a yoga class for refugee boys at a community centre. I had been told that they were aged sixteen to nineteen, so some of them were already young men. I regularly led classes for people from vulnerable communities like this through a charity, but I had not yet taught teenagers. Now that I thought about it, facing a roomful of boys and getting them to do strange things with their bodies was beginning to sound scary. I realized that they might not be interested, just as I hadn’t been when I went to my first yoga class. I had been initially drawn to the idea of sharing yoga with these kids because the longer I taught yoga, the more I felt a calling to take the practice to those who might not otherwise find it. It made me feel useful and gave me a sense of purpose. I wanted to show them some resources to help them, like yoga had worked for me. If they weren’t interested, then never mind. It was worth a try. Teenagers could be cruel though, couldn’t they? I wasn’t exactly great company when I was their age. I hadn’t thought this through. This is an incredible book, and provided such valuable insight in to the yoga and wellness industry, and reflections for how we could be doing things different. It is absolutely essential reading for those practicing or teaching yoga and wanting to do so in a way that honours the roots of yoga and challenges the wellness machine bullsht and all the harm it can do. Please put this on yoga teacher trainings reading lists! A longtime student of Zen, he edited Thich Nhat Hanh’s classic,The Heart of Understanding, and recently he served as Associate Editor of The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye – Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi (pictures above with Peter) and he co-edited, with Tanahashi, The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master. In addition, Peter has published many fiction and literary translations from Chinese, Japanese and Spanish. Mireille Harper, writer and editor @mireilleharper “Nadia has written a brave and inspiring book that points to the way yoga has changed over the years. She shares in a beautifully raw way how yoga moved her, where she finds it now and challenges us to look at the practice we hold dear with tender eyes." Scott also intersperses the guests words with poetry that has inspired him over the year, words that he has shared with his online and workshop communities. Listen to poems from Derek Mahon, Julia Fehrenbacher, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Rumi and more...Nadia Gilani is a writer who teaches yoga (because she loves it). She first discovered the practice as a teenager when her mum took her to a class in the 1990s. Yoga hasn’t always been an easy ride. In fact it’s been really hard at times, but somehow the practice has been a constant source of inspiration in her life over the years. How he developed MBCT with his colleagues and working directly with Jon Kabat Zinn How he experienced the transformational power of mindfulness meditation only after having abandoned it. How mindfulness and his Christian faith work in tandem, with surprising similarities between Buddhist awareness meditation and the Gospel of St John. How, within the Christian contemplative tradition, God can be understood as the ‘loving heart’ at the centre of the universe. How effective the combination of cognitive therapy and mindfulness is at reducing the risk of relapse. The limitations and contraindications of mindfulness. How liberation is to be found in the present moment, and that each moment is a possible moment of freedom. _____

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Mark Williams - How We Created Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy In this conversation, Mark explains how cognitive therapy and mindfulness can be used to reduce the risk of relapse in people who have experienced depression. Mindfulness, unlike antidepressants and cognitive therapy, is uniquely effective as a preventative measure against poor mental health. By engaging in mindfulness even when we are not depressed, we can lower the risk of it affecting us in the first place. Among many rich and inspiring stories Mark shares how he developed MBCT after working with Jon Kabat Zinn, the founder of modern day mindfulness practices. I loved this conversation with David. He is one of the most generous teachers you'll find, with the information he shares and the way he shares it. David Swenson is one of the most loved and respected teachers for a reason. This conversation captures that..." From the beginning, you can let students know they are the leaders and you, as their teacher, are the guide. This focus on the practitioner and their own deepening awareness and connection to their own truth and wisdom is at the heart of yogic practice.Author Nadia Gilani will be the special guest at the Highland Yoga Collective Yoga Studio, where she will be leading a yoga session before presenting her book, The Yoga Manifesto at The Highland Weigh on the High Street. I’ve practised yoga for more than twenty-five years. It’s a practice I have a profound relationship with, but this has come after many years of getting it wrong. Yoga has somehow seen me through various scrapes in life: from attending classes drunker than I thought I was, head standing in toilets in office jobs to cure hangovers and chain-smoking roll-ups while training to be a yoga teacher. So the practice has never been a miracle cure when the chips were down for me and there were certainly times I wanted to give up on yoga but perhaps it didn’t want to give up on me. We’re still together today but it’s safe to say that yoga and I had a complicated relationship for a long time. A thorough and honest dissection of the ups and downs of modern yoga through the lens of one young woman's experience of yoga. Journeying through discovering yoga when at such a low point in adolescence, through abusive relationships, addiction, grief and in to teaching yoga, this book is both a tribute to the wonderful connection yoga brings and a stark warning of its flaws and what needs to change. Oh God, I hadn’t expected so many people. There must be at least twenty kids in here, I thought, and I realized that I knew nothing about any of them. I didn’t know which countries they were from – Africa and the Middle East was all I had been told when I had asked the organizers. Such vast geography didn’t offer much. I wanted to know more. How long had they been here? Were they doing okay? Were their families here too? Did they like London? And what were they so enthralled by on their phones? But they didn’t know anything about me either. Who the hell was I, dressed in smart leggings and a posh hoodie, coming in here to tell them what to do? I had no proof that this was what they were thinking but I would have understood if it was.