Celebrating The First International Day of Yoga
Yoga_Life_Winter_2015_WEB
Yoga_Life_Winter_2015_WEB
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PRISON YOGA OUTREACH PROJECT<br />
<strong>The</strong> Teachers’ Training Course curriculum<br />
includes Vedanta Philosophy and Study<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Bhagavad Gita<br />
outlined in the proposal was powerful, and it can now be a<br />
model for other prisons and ashrams to state their cases for<br />
similar yoga programmes.<br />
It says: “With 2.3 million prisoners, the U.S. has the highest<br />
incarceration rate in the world. When wellness and education<br />
pro grammes aiding rehabilitation are very limited, sharing <strong>Yoga</strong><br />
teachings proves to be a very interesting and low-cost alterna -<br />
tive… <strong>The</strong> inmates develop an awareness <strong>of</strong> the body; enhanced<br />
sensitivity toward themselves and empathy toward others,<br />
leading to compassion and in turn to prevention <strong>of</strong> violence.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is an interesting story to this that demonstrates the<br />
power <strong>of</strong> <strong>Yoga</strong> to generate empathy. Mahadev Chaitanya says<br />
that one <strong>of</strong> the early problems with the Teachers’ Training<br />
at Otisville was the tendency for the inmates to always choose<br />
the same partners when they broke into groups for teaching<br />
practice. Prisoners tend to stick with their group and not mix<br />
generally. Sex <strong>of</strong>fenders were shunned in the TTC at first as is<br />
the case in the prison population at large. Inmates did not want<br />
to mix. Mahadev Chaitanya gently encouraged them to treat<br />
each other the same but initially this did not work . This type<br />
<strong>of</strong> behaviour does not change easily because the underlying<br />
judgments are strongly held. But after only a few days, inmates<br />
came to him and apologised. From then on there was no<br />
problem. This was a big change and I was really surprised when<br />
he told me the outcome. Of course I should have known better.<br />
<strong>Yoga</strong> is very powerful.<br />
If you took away the gleaming coils <strong>of</strong> razor wire and the<br />
high chain-link fences that surround it, Otisville prison would<br />
look like a community college with low brick buildings arranged<br />
in a campus-like setting. Built in 1977, it is called a mediumsecurity<br />
institution and it is considered a good place to be if you<br />
have to be locked up. <strong>The</strong> fact that F.C.I. Otisville is open to<br />
having Sivananda Teachers’ Training shows that it takes the role<br />
<strong>of</strong> rehabilitation seriously and is not merely a place to separate<br />
convicts from the rest <strong>of</strong> society.<br />
We arrived a little after 7am on a Thursday and went to the<br />
reception area. At first I was not allowed to enter because I was<br />
wearing grey sweat pants which happened to be the same<br />
colour as the inmates’ uniform. <strong>The</strong>re was a sign stating that<br />
visitors are forbidden to dress like the inmates, but the problem<br />
was easily solved when I was given a pair <strong>of</strong> white yoga pants<br />
which I changed into in the bathroom.<br />
Getting into prison was harder than I thought it would be!<br />
We were allowed to pass through some big, heavy duty steel<br />
doors. When they shut behind us they made a sound suggesting<br />
something very gloomy like, “abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”<br />
About a dozen inmate TTC students arrived for satsang<br />
looking sharp and sattvic in their yellow T-shirts and fresh white<br />
yoga pants. If you did not know they were convicted felons, you<br />
would not guess it. <strong>The</strong>y say that clothes make the man and<br />
these prisoners proved the point <strong>The</strong>y not only looked like yogis<br />
in their TTC uniforms, they acted like yogis. Seeing them reminded<br />
“<strong>The</strong>ir faces were open, eager, serious<br />
and grateful. I saw some <strong>of</strong> the highest<br />
wattage smiles that I can remember<br />
ever seeing. I did not expect that either.”<br />
me <strong>of</strong> the opening ceremony at my own Teachers’ Training at the<br />
Sivananda Ashram in Neyyar Dam, south India, in 2000. We let<br />
go <strong>of</strong> our egos and joined one another in a quest to find our<br />
true Self. <strong>The</strong> uniform removed some <strong>of</strong> the differences between<br />
us and began the process. <strong>The</strong> yellow and white had power<br />
to unite us and reminded us that we were all in it together.<br />
<strong>The</strong> prisoners looked really good in their uniforms. I don’t<br />
know what I was expecting, but I was surprised. <strong>The</strong>y were<br />
really fit as physical culture is huge in prison and most <strong>of</strong> them<br />
looked as if they lifted weights. <strong>The</strong>y were a lot more muscular<br />
than most yogis and many <strong>of</strong> them were tattooed. To a man<br />
they looked tough, but they were not at all intimidating.<br />
This was the only all male TTC I had ever seen. <strong>The</strong>y were<br />
older, and more mature looking but generally did not appear<br />
to be hardened, quite the contrary. <strong>The</strong>ir faces were open, eager,<br />
serious and grateful. I saw some <strong>of</strong> the highest wattage smiles<br />
that I can remember ever seeing. I did not expect that either.<br />
Mahadev Chaitanya had gone ahead <strong>of</strong> me while I was<br />
changing and when I entered the gym where the classes took<br />
place, he had already set up the altar with portraits <strong>of</strong> Swami<br />
Sivananda and Swami Vishnudevananda. He and I sat in front<br />
on either side <strong>of</strong> the altar and the inmates were in two rows<br />
facing us. Mahadev Chaitanya took the microphone and with<br />
his gentle, unassuming directness greeted the class and thanked<br />
them for coming. I could see that they could relate to him.<br />
He talked about the TTC graduation in October and said that<br />
Srinivasan would be coming to teach them more about the<br />
70 YOGALife |Autumn/Winter 2015