I Dream of Yoga

by Anjali Rao

We are all here because we have a shared love: The love of Yoga. This Yoga, a breathing living practice, changes with us and changes us, breathes with us and within us, moves us in all the ways, is abiding. We are here. You are here reading this because you love Yoga, this ancient practice that we connect to on our mats, on our chairs, and ideally in our lives. 

Just as roots mysteriously find their home in the earth, we have found our ways into these teachings. The magnificence of a tree emerges only when the roots are nourished with care, when there is enough space for growth and flowering, when divergent elements of earth, water, and air alchemize together. When we fiercely weed out that which harms. We are all gardeners of this (Yoga) tree. 

I dream of Yoga, and for Yoga. Ever since this practice touched my life, I have witnessed inner transformation that continues to hold me in its loving shade and connect me to fellow beings from all walks of life. Being a conduit of these teachings is an honor and a privilege that I do not take for granted. 

Many do not have access to the liberatory potential of this ancestral practice. The unchecked proliferation of hyper individualism, propagated by capitalism and colonization, has made Yoga a realm for those who can afford studio and gym memberships and are from the mainstream dominant culture. Many of us are not welcome and are deliberately erased in yoga spaces. We are told we do not belong.

• My dream for Yoga is to co-generate a community of belonging. A space where all feel welcome, where all can be their authentic selves, where we can center those who have been pushed out into the periphery, where we can embody inter-being-ness. 
• My dream for Yoga is that we discern our unique roles in the collective, learn from each other, and course correct where we mess up. 
• My dream for Yoga is that we can recognize where we are stuck, so there is more flow, ease, and expansiveness.  
• My dream for Yoga is that we can identify and lean into the questions rather than replicate worn out solutions that have not worked. 
• My dream for Yoga is that we build spaces to facilitate conversations that are boldly outspoken, that lovingly beckon us to re-imagine a world that we want to live in, and that we can bequeath to the next generation.

I’ll end by sharing the story of Kalpavriksha, the mythical wish-fulfilling tree mentioned in Vedic, Buddhist, and Jain literature. It is said that when one makes a wish or has a dream when sitting under the canopy of this tree, the wish comes true. The tree symbolizes the immense power of the human mind to manifest one’s true longing. So what is it that we yearn for, if not for all to be free?  The Latin origin of radical is “that which is vital to life;” or “proceeding from a root.” May there be a radical dreaming of Yoga for collective liberation of all beings.

I hope you’ll join me and the Accessible Yoga Association as we dream together. 

Get involved in Accessible Yoga: 

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• Check out other stories in the AYA blog

Anjali Rao (she/her) — Board President
Anjali Rao is a yoga educator, an activist deeply interested in sharing the ancient wisdom of yoga in service to the challenges of the times. She brings an intersectional lens in integrating yoga philosophy and history, with storytelling, imagery and poetry. She is an Indian American immigrant, a cancer survivor, a faculty member of YTTs and offers a course on Yoga and Activism in Accessible Yoga Training School. She believes that a dedicated practice of yoga in all its expansiveness can alchemize and heal the world by creating ripples of change within and around us. She is an aspiring writer, and President of the Board of Accessible Yoga. She is a lifelong student of Classical Dance, loves chocolate, books, old trees, the ocean and napping with her rescue pup, Hershey.

Connect with Anjali at yoganjali.me