Celebrating The First International Day of Yoga

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