Lean Green & Kind

Lean Green

Story and photography by Jennifer May

In the Goddess Room of the new Jivamukti Yoga Center in Manhattan, David Life sits cross-legged on a floor made of recycled tire-rubber and explains his practice to someone who doesn’t know much about yoga. His eyes glow in the hollows of a face made lean by a vegan diet and dedicated yoga practice, and his voice is slow and steady as he composes his thoughts. “Yoga teaches that what you do does matter,” he says.

The particular practice he speaks of, Jivamukti (pronounced Jee-va-mook-tee), was founded by Life and Sharon Gannon in 1984 – a time when yoga in America was more popularly practiced for fitness and toning than for spiritual awakening. Gannon and Life wanted to go deeper than the simplified, modernized versions allowed, so they journeyed to remote mountaintop ashrams in India and found swamis and gurus to teach them.

By reconnecting the ancient elements of yoga – not just physical, but also meditation, chanting, service to others, devotion, and ethical social and political action – Gannon and Life discovered what they sought. As they explain in their book, Jivamukti Yoga, Practices for Liberating Body and Soul (Ballantine, 2002), “The aim of yoga is not a better body or a calmer mind, even though the practices may improve your body or calm your mind. The aim is enlightenment, the state in which everything fits together.”

They returned to Manhattan and began sharing their knowledge. At their first studio, they offered two classes a week. Their teachings caught on and there are now six international Jivamukti studios as well as a roster of renowned devotees, including Sting, Willem Dafoe, and Christy Turlington. Gannon and Life’s presence is continually requested around the world for seminars, workshops, and teachings.

The new center in Manhattan, which opened in May 2006, is a commitment to their message of integrating all parts into a life that is lean, green, and kind. Renovated using recycled and environmentally sustainable materials, the 12,000-square-foot studio includes a vegan café (to demonstrate that vegan food can be as delicious as it is nourishing and non-harming) and a boutique featuring yoga-wear woven of bamboo fiber and petrochemical-free mats.

“We are trying to take yoga to the next level – where all of the inspiration and well-being and comfort in your body is then radiated into the world around you in the form of good, compassionate, and charitable actions,” says Life. “Otherwise, what good is it?”

The asana practice is a method for gaining deeper wisdom and insight in order to live life more fully, responsibly, and compassionately. Each asana or position has a specific vibration that directly correlates to realizations we will have while practicing. The more we understand about the significance of the pose, the deeper the experience will be. As it is when we do anything with wisdom and insight.

Asana is the Sanskrit word for “seat.” Seat here means connection to the earth and all beings of the earth. Each asana gives us an opportunity to perfect an aspect of our relationship to ourselves and to others.

This sequence suggests that like a lotus that blossoms from muddy waters, not only can we bloom gracefully and courageously despite obstacles, but that the obstacles are our opportunities for greatness to occur.

It is widely known that when we are challenged and tested in our lives, we have access to greater stores of resilience and creativity. When success is not an option, but the only way out and up, miracles occur, like a beautiful flower growing up from the muddy depths. A mother can tap into the strength of an ox if that is what is needed to lift a car off of her threatened child. Lost in the desert, a man will walk leagues for his life. For the freedom of a people, great men withstand slander, threats to their life, and even death itself. The lotus flower blooming is a symbol of reaching for the highest in the midst of adverse conditions with miraculous results.

1. Sit in Baddha konasana: Put the soles of your feet together, allowing your knees to open to the side. Keep your spine straight with your head directly on your spine. Sitting in this pose, breathe deeply through your nose, opening your hips.

2. Holding on to your ankles, turn your feet out to the side, pressing the outside edge of your feet against the floor. Sitting in this pose, draw your spine tall, press firmly into your feet, and continue breathing through your nose, opening your hips.

3. Reach your left arm underneath your left leg, Reach your right arm up to the sky, then twist and look up at your right hand. Press the palm of your left hand and the edges of both of your feet firmly into the floor. Breathe into the twist, opening your chest and hips.

4. Bend your left arm around your left leg. Bring your right arm behind your back; your left hand holds your right wrist, pressing your right palm to the floor. Continue breathing through your nose, pressing into the edges of your feet and the palm of your hand.

Repeat steps 3 and 4 on your right side.

5. Facing forward, lift both of your feet off the floor. Balance. Press your heels together, weave your arms underneath your legs, joining your thumb and forefinger in chin mudra. Lift your gaze and look upwards. Breathe through your nose, experiencing bliss and joy.

6. Looking forward, bring your arms out from underneath your legs. Take hold of your big toes with your first two fingers and thumbs, extending your legs into a straddle balance. Breathe through your nose, lift your gaze and look upwards.