Cindy Lusk ~ Intersection of Yoga Philosophy and Social Psychology

Cindy Lusk is an experienced yoga teacher, author, and meditation instructor. She has a diverse background in yoga practice and has studied with renowned teachers such as Richard Freeman and John Friend. Cindy is the author of the book "Align and Refine: The Journey of Yoga and Meditation," which aims to make yoga philosophy accessible and easy to understand for beginners. She is passionate about integrating yoga philosophy into daily life and helping individuals connect with their hearts and minds.

Visit Cindy on her website here: https://cindylusk.com/
Purchase her ne book here: https://www.amazon.com/Align-Refine-Journey-Yoga-Meditation/dp/B0CPMT9L1D/

Key Takeaways:

• Cindy Lusk's background in social psychology led her to explore yoga philosophy as a means of addressing social issues and understanding human behavior.
• The intersection of classical yoga and Tantra provides a comprehensive understanding of consciousness and the human experience.
• Meditation allows individuals to connect with their hearts and minds, leading to personal transformation and a greater sense of interconnectedness.

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Transcript

0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. So happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage bodywork and beyond. Follow us @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com All right, let's begin Hello, hello, welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. My name is Todd McLaughlin and today I have the exciting news to bring to you. We are going to get a chance to meet Cindy Lusk. You can find Cindy on our website cindylusk.com. You can also find her on Facebook, Cindy Lusk. And you can also find her on Instagram @CindyLu108 links are in the description, click follow. She is the author of a book called Align and Refine: The Journey of Yoga and Meditation. You can purchase the book on Amazon which case I have the link there as well for you to make that super easy. So I really enjoyed this conversation with Cindy because part of her strategy and goal is to try to make yoga philosophy very approachable, and easy to understand for the beginner's mind. And she does a great job of this. She's very down to earth, she has a very clear concept of yoga philosophy. She makes it approachable, and I think you're gonna love this. She has a very diverse yoga practice background for many years now. And she's studied with so of many of the greats. I think you're gonna really enjoy hearing some of the insights that she's gleaned over the years of practicing. So let's go ahead and get started. I'm so delighted to have the opportunity to bring Cindy Lusk, today, on to the podcast. She is the author of Align and Refine: The Journey of Yoga and Meditation. Cindy, thank you so much for joining me. Can you can you just fill me in a little bit on how your day is going so far? How are you feeling? Hi, Todd. I'm so glad to be here. I'm having a good day. We've been in a deep freeze here for the last three, four days. And I've hardly stepped out of the house except to go shovel snow. Where are you? It's actually making me really grateful that I've got a nice warm house and all of that going on. Oh yeah. Where are you? I'm in Boulder Colorado. Wonderful. Yeah, lucky you. I hear it's amazing there. I've never had a chance to go to Boulder. But I just feel like it's the epicenter of yoga meditation. And yeah, I think it'd be too so much going on here over the years from Europa and you know, all the different yoga and massage schools and you know, the Yeah, just lots of things like that. That's cool. What was your where were you born? I'm actually from Morgantown, West Virginia. Cool. And my dad was in the military. And so we moved around a whole lot. Yeah, here. Yeah. Yeah. I believe including living in Europe for a while. Wow. So where did you graduate from high school. And California. Whoa, what part and that set me up to? I went to as an undergraduate I went to the University of California, Santa Cruz. And that's actually where I took my first yoga class. Oh, wow. Yeah, Santa Cruz. I had been to Santa Cruz. That is another epicenter. No great thing. No, I feel so lucky. I went to undergraduate in Santa Cruz and then graduate school in Boulder. What was your major and graduate work with? psychology, social psychology. Cool. I was really fortunate to study with a man named Elliot Aronson, who's one of the top social psychologists at the time anyway. And I had through the experiences of moving around, you know, been and pretty integrated schools when I was in military schools like in Europe, and then I got to San Antonio, Texas. And there was a lot, you know, and this was in the 70s, late 60s, early 70s. And, and actually, we went to Syracuse, New York first, and I was involved in a bussing project there. And then, when I got into junior high in high school, and in Texas, there was just a lot of racial tension, and, and so on. And I was very intrigued by all of that. And that is actually what sent me into studying social psychology. Because I wanted to address prejudice and racism. Yes. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Being around during that time and aware of what's going on. That's incredible. I can see Yeah, I could see how that would push you, or nudge you in the direction of how do I start to understand social psychology, the psychology of our society? Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting, because I wrote a dissertation on how to change stereotypes, and basically found they're very impermeable to change. At the same time, I had started really, really getting into yoga with Richard Freeman. And I, although I got a job for a while, you know, related to my PhD, I finally decided that if I really wanted to address some of these social issues, I had to look at people's hearts and minds, that no amount of like, evidence on the surface of life changes people that much. So I really wanted to find a modality that penetrated into people's hearts. So that's why I just kind of gave all that up and moved into teaching yoga. Very cool. Yeah. How have you been able to weave your social psychology background into your yoga teaching? Like? What's an example of a way that your curiosity about understanding why humans do what they do? in a social setting? How did that shape your yoga teaching? Well, as I said, I kind of got the sense that we really had to work with people's hearts. And what I found with myself, is that the yoga was changing me from the inside out, rather than trying to to do things from the outside in all that's important. You know, it's important to have laws and regulations and all of that stuff. But especially as I started studying yoga philosophy, I did see some overlap between what the sages, the ancient sages in the texts were teaching and what I had learned in psychology in general. And, you know, for example, when I got to studying some of the Tantras, one of which is the Shiva sutra. The very first couple aphorisms allude to these mechanism mechanisms that the tantra has talked about, called the malas, which are these obscurations of the heart, the fundamental one is called the ANA Mala, which is basically a squeeze from you know, from a tantric perspective, everything is divine consciousness. But we as individuals get squeezed into this human existence. And so we go from this very omnipresent, elevated consciousness into these human bodies. And it leaves us feeling kind of less than it leaves us feeling constricted. And from that place of constriction, also arises a sense of differentiation, which is another one of the molars where we see ourselves separate from each other. So that separateness when I started reading about the Maya Mala, it's called when I started learning about that I was like, wow, this is just kind of what I you know, is an explanation for that sense of in group and out group, which was a big topic and social psychology of us and them and how that can then lead to all of these differentiating and negative behaviors toward one another. Wow. Beautifully said that was a good explanation. Yeah, that's cool to us and then them as what being one of the underpinnings of why We can't get along. Yeah, of course. And I mean, you see it, it's all the so called tribalism or whatever it is the best way to put it in the different groups, and there's a lot of famous social psychology experiments around, you know, in group and out group and so forth. But yeah, that's cool. And so you wait, you were in Santa Cruz, you took your first yoga class. And then after realizing, Wait, I want to work with people on a level where we change from the Yeah, I mean, actually, I want to give a shout out my first yoga teachers was named and Barbara, she's very sweet Iyengar teacher recently passed away. And you know, I was in college, I was taking all kinds of things. And yoga was one of them being Santa Cruz, you can take yoga for credit there way back in the late 70s. And then I came out here to go to grad school. And what happened was, I was in a romantic relationship that just ended abruptly. And I was heartbroken. And I, for some reason, I was called to start looking for a yoga teacher at that time, which, you know, one of the things I take from that, as a teacher, a yoga teacher, really any kind of teacher is that you never know, like an Burroughs planted a seed in me that when the conditions were right kind of sprouted me to go back to that. Like, she probably saw me one semester and then wondered, or never saw me again and thought, well, that's a lost cause. But often, we never know when we plant the seeds, how you know, it's going to impact people's lives. And I found that out. So that's that led me to search out a teacher who sent me to Richard Freeman is an amazing teacher, as many people know. He's an amazing teacher. You're right. Yeah. So you, you work when from the ion gar school to the Ashtanga school, how was that transition for you? Well, you know, honestly, Richard was teaching more and Iyengar method at the time. And he it was funny back then, you know, there wasn't the internet, or email lists or any of that, you know, Pete, it was word of mouth a lot. And a couple of people said, You really need to, you know, if you're, if you want to do yoga, you gotta go find Richard. And so the way you found him was through some poster at the health food store, or it's awesome that and those are the good old days, for sure. Yeah. And he was teaching in all these different funky places, and, and then he would disappear for a while, and you'd look for another poster, and he'd reappear. And I remember, there was a distinct time when he was having a weekend workshop. And, you know, all of us showed up, and all of a sudden, we were like, doing these jumping things. And I was like, What is this? I remember one of my friends, you know, turned to me, like, what the heck is this? And he really brought us along in the primary series, actually, quite quickly, in retrospect, because he was really into it. And I think he, I think he had gone to a workshop with the topic joists at feathered pipe. And feather pipe is where where's feathered pipe is in Montana, Montana. That still existed. Way back. When is that still there? It's feathered pipes. Yeah. Wow. See, that's where he first and so he came back from that. And and then you know, and then he started bringing us through, and then he would go off to India for months at a time to study with batavi Joyce. And eventually, he established a studio. And honestly, I think in part the reason he established it was because he wanted to host batavi choice. In 1989 batavi. Joyce came to Boulder, and a couple other places. And I think any went to Encinitas. And here in Boulder, he did primary series. And then he was doing intermediate series in Encinitas. And I went out there to to do the the intermediate series with him. And that's, I think that's when I met Tim Miller. Yeah, he might have come to Boulder. Yeah. Show for you know, choice to use, but I'm not. I don't really remember. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I got to meet Tim then it was it was so it was funny thing. A couple of funny things about that whole situation, please tell Encinitas was, and I think it was Solana Beach was the where the where the studio was. And it was before Tim had his studio. But the first day we all showed up to do intermediate series. And Tim walks in says, Well, Tommy Joyce isn't coming today because he's going to get a haircut. And so Tim, let us do primary series. And it was funny because half the people couldn't do it. And he just at the in the classes, I don't know why you people are signed up for intermediate care. That sounds about right. Yeah. And then during the workshop that week, what another funny thing that happened was that for some reason, I was still doing headstand at the wall. And I don't know if I just got away with it in Boulder, because he had been in Boulder the previous week. But by the time I got to Encinitas, he was like, No, you're doing it in the center of the room. And so when we got to headstand, he would come and put, you know, that helped me balance. And then when he got me balanced, and everyone else was up in it, he would start his counting and you go won, do and for several days, he would get to about 20. And I would think, Oh, my God, because you'd walk away, and I'd be balanced it and I'd be saying, Oh, my God, I made it and then they'd fall over. And he would go all bad lady, and he'd come over and get me back up in it. And then he'd start Wah. and I were just mortified because I thought, Oh, my God, all these other people here. Exit my car. Forever. Oh, my God. But by the end of the week, I was doing headstand in the middle of grace. That's awesome. I love him. The other thing about that time as we got to, he was teaching Advanced Series tabi Joyce, and so many of us got to observe, we got to see Tim and I think Chuck Miller was there. And oh, man, it's fun time is super fun during that tour. batavi. Joyce, you know, told everybody Oh, you come from India, you know, you come India. So, in 1990. All of us trotted off and that was my first trip to Mysore. Wow. How was that? What did you think? You know what, it was really challenging for me on a lot of levels. I mean, India blew my mind. Yes. And 9090. India was a lot different. Traveling in India was a lot different than it is now. And I pretty quickly got sick. Oh, yeah. So you know, like, like, like Monty. On my diet. Yeah. Okay. The yogic weight loss, loss. Weight Loss fled. Oh, yeah. So were you able to practice or were you just laid up for? I was out a couple of days, and I was able to practice but what was unfortunate was, it was not, not too long after we first got there. And I traveled there with a couple of my girlfriends. Teresa and Annie. Hey, yeah, we've we've hosted any here at our studio before. Okay. Yeah. She, she and I, and this other gout traveled there together because we knew each other from here and. And batavi Joyce was hosting students at his house, and I was just too sick to go. So I was so disappointed about that. And at that time, I think there was only 12 or 15 of us there. You know, it's very early. It was way before it was before it exploded. Yeah. Because I went back in 94. And there was about 50 people there and it went back in 96. And it was about 70 or 80 people. Yes, it got to be quite a machination, but I got sick. I also read rip the hamstring and the infamous soup the hosta pod and Gustavo Sinha assist. Oh, and laying on your back. You have their big toe. You're lifting your body. It's heavy. Joyce came over, put his leg or foot on your leg is on the ground and laid on top of your other leg. pushed his hand pushed the other leg to the ground. Oh, and it audibly popped. And everyone in the room I cringed. Yeah, yeah. And then the next day he was like, Oh, you skip that today? Like it gave me two days of not doing. Yeah. So it was, it was. It was very painful. That's a rough one. I had trouble with the food, the spicy food. But actually, I was sad to leave when it was time to go. Yeah, it was it was good for me to leave because I really needed to heal my body. And yeah, so love him. I did go. And I went back. And he went back of course, right, because it's as challenging as it is. It's still somehow so fun. Yeah, yeah, I, I decided when I went back, I had to stay another month. Because honestly, I felt like it took me a month. The other thing I had trouble with was just the time change. I mean, India is 12. You know, it's day is Night, night and day for with the United States. And so I just really had a hard time. Yeah, just not feeling out of it a lot of the time. Yeah. I have to ask Sunday, just because I mean, I really only want to stay in a realm of positivity and good vibes. And I love hearing all these stories. But how have you been? Have you processed all of the kind of changes that have occurred over the years and people's feelings about it was too aggressive, I got hurt. You're being very honest. Like, look, it was amazing. But I got hurt. I had a great time. I also was really sick. I mean, this is the reality of international travel and or that type of yoga practice. Did you go through any growing pains in the last few years, when there was Fallout and all that jazz? How I had moved on from a Stanga, before the Ashtanga had its fallout? Yeah. Because my body couldn't take it. That's basically how it came down to. I had a I also had a chronic low back problem. And one of the beautiful things about Richard is he brought a lot of people into the studio. And one of the people he brought in was John friend. And so I met John and and when and one of the things I loved about John was he offered teacher trainings, and I did one of his teacher trainings. And one of the gifts that John gave me was, he got me out of pain. Like he taught me how to not have my back hurt. That was pretty important. Yeah, because I was kind of a little bit at my wit's end, because I loved the practice, but it was not working for me anymore, especially as I was getting a little older. So, you know, I appreciate your honesty. So I feel I feel like on a sari yoga saved me, and allowed me and then that had its own trajectory. So fascinating, right? Yeah. Because I have my back problems, and I'm learning how to navigate it. Do you know what sort of name the problem would have been given? I have a Spondylus thesis. So my L five has slipped forward. And and I ruptured in between s one L five. So my backbending game is just like a totally different, you know, experience these days, I bridge at the most, and I'm just ordered Don Ross and I'm like, no, no, yeah. And you know, so many Yoga people like Oh, backbending will fix your back. It's so good. I'm like, I know what I'm trying to tell you, man. It's, it's, it's not that simple in my situation, or maybe it is and maybe some light will shine and I'll go and figure something out. But I just would love to hear what you learned because I am learning so much. But talking to other people was Yeah, I mean, I I actually the only diagnosis I really got was that I had really severe disc damage in those lower discs. And the way I could work with it is first of all backing off and not trying to grab my ankles and bridges just really not in the range of motion of many people and back bends are always super challenging to me, I can whip my foot behind my head, stand up and do all that kind of stuff. The forward bending was my thing, you know, putting both feet behind Matt and that kind of stuff, but the for the back bending just didn't work for me. And so for me, it was really backing off. Really well. Learning how to work my feet and my legs very strongly. And then you know, not. So you know, for me to do the backbends with the tabi Joyce pulling my hands to my ankles, I was like splitting my legs out, shoving my coccyx up and you know, just crunching the lower vertebra. So I just really had to not let my legs splay and you know, work my legs and my feet and keep from really pushing my going forward and backing off and slowing it down. Yeah, cool. Well, then did you then choose not to go practice with photography choice? Because you were fearful of the fact that he would say no, no, I apply just slowly transitioned from Ashtanga to on Asara. Got it. Got it. And I became an honest, sar certified teacher and taught that but the Ashtanga, I really consider it my route. You know, my home? Many ways. Yeah. I personally don't think that the series are necessarily the most intelligent sequences. And I certainly think that the range of motion required for many of the postures is not possible for many bodies. And, you know, my sense of it is it was developed on, you know, young boys. So, you know, yeah, men and women in their 50s and 60s, maybe it's not your best thing. Yeah, I hear Yeah. But Well, I appreciate you laying all that out. Because it's so important, I think, to acknowledge the reality of all of this, it's excellent. So then, I mean, I what I love about Ashtanga, which is what I wanted to say was I love the emphasis on the breath, and of the Drishti. And just the, the beautiful thing that on a sari gave me is a discipline practice, you know, and showing up on the mat. And I took this into my meditation practice, when I finally started meditating, and just doing it, you know, you do, it's all practice, you know, 90% practice, or whatever the adage is, and but that was a gift, because it taught me a certain discipline, and to just show up, whether or not how I'm feeling or whatever happens on the mat, or the cushion that day. That's all good. You just, you just do it. And that's, that's a beautiful thing. And, and still, you know, now I'm teaching, you know, kind of my own thing. Kind of alignment based vinyasa, I would say. And I always start with the breath, you know, just emphasizing the breath and coordinating movement with breath. Yes, because I feel like for people who are just Asana students and maybe not meditate, that allows them some access to a little slightly deeper, more subtle place within themselves. And it starts kind of that inward trajectory. Yes. Are you currently making a living as a yoga teacher? Well, I'm right now I'm pretty. I'm semi retired, I would say, Cool. Cool. Yeah, I'm teaching four yoga classes via zoom week, and I teach meditation. Nice. So, you know, that's one of the things that I always felt like in the Ashtanga system, you know, where does it where does the meditation come in? After you learn third series and pranayama, I'm not, you know, I felt like it needed to be integrated in because when I started studying yoga philosophy, like when I read Bhutan, Julie's yoga sutras sort of like, it was all about meditation, really, it had nothing very little to do with what I was doing on the mat. And then when I got into on a SAR, I felt like that there was this presumption that you were meditating. But there wasn't really a method given I had in Mysore, I had hooked up with a teacher at the Sanskrit college, to study yoga to study the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita and other texts with and he had taught some meditation and but his only instruction was clear your mind which just didn't really work. And I I basically thought I didn't, you know, it's no good at meditating or is a bad meditator or something of that ilk. But one of the beautiful things is about John friend is he also brought a lot of amazing people into his workshops. And one of the people he brought in, I mean, one of them was Douglas Brooks who I studied with quite a lot. And Sally Kempton, beautiful being who also recently passed. And, you know, Bill Mahoney brought in, but he also brought in Paul mill Ortega. And from Paul, I learned meditation. And he, also, after he's, he has a meditation school called Neela, contact meditation. And after many years of kind of bringing up a bunch of students, he started training us to teach meditation as well. And so cool. I teach that as well. Nice. Well, that's awesome. What inspired you to write this book? Well, a whole a whole lot of things. And I talked about this a bit in the book, I integrate some of these stories that I'm telling now. But you know, when I was at the yoga workshop, I started, know, there were times when I would have missed some experiences in the asana practice, a feeling, kind of a witness conscious consciousness emerge. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about that practice is, again, that focused will take you internally on the breath, if you if you let it. And I was really curious about what was happening. And so I sought to study yoga philosophy. And I was so confused by it. Because it seemed, first of all, to have little to do with what I was doing in my yoga practice. And second, it was impenetrable. You know, back then there weren't a lot of translations out. Invariably, you were pointing to the yoga sutra. And most of the translations were extremely academic. And, and it was just very confusing to me. Like being in India, and all the gods and goddesses, and then the Swamis and just trying to put all that together. And so I put myself on a path of serious study of philosophy. And, and the form that took a lot was just putting it out there. I'm going to teach a class on the yoga sutra, and people came to my living room, and we, you know, I was like, maybe one step ahead of the students, and we just worked on it. And I started getting invited to come into teacher trainings to teach philosophy and that sort of thing. And in one of those trainings, I wrote a diagram on the wall or on a whiteboard. And I realized, well, this is a really succinct, nice summary of the teachings. And it was it was an amalgamation of both classical yoga, and Tantra, which is kind of where on a surah and Neela content meditation are associated with, and I realized it was a book and I realized that it would could be of great service to write the book that I wish I had had, when I first started exploring yoga philosophy, to honor the, the texts. So in the book, I, you know, I give actual aphorisms and translations of aphorisms, but then I really tried to explain them in a very accessible way. Make that makes sense to modern day practitioner, as well as I include a lot of exercises to make them applicable to your life. Nice. Oh, yeah. It's basically the book I wanted. That's great. How long did it take you to put it together? From the moment you said, Okay, this is what I'm going to do to this moment where it's actually published and available for me to go to Amazon and click, and it arrives at my door. It was probably seven or eight years. Wow. Yeah. And yeah, you know, yeah, what I learned is that a book has a life of its own. And it took me a while it was hard for me to figure out how to order it. For one thing, I had all the pieces but how to make it flow was a little harder to figure out and how to address some of the issues like highest consciousness, like what is highest consciousness and explaining trying to explain that good point. Can you help us out a little with Understanding the intersection points of the yoga philosophy or the philosophy of the Yoga Sutras, and such as a test texts like the Shiva sutra, which is a tantric text. And then we hear there's the renunciant path, such as the Yoga Sutras, my kind of cater to the monk, the nun, the the renunciate. And the tantra path, perhaps helping the householder. Can you touch upon a few points where they intersect and seem to have the same philosophy? And some of the points where they are really different? Yeah, well, that's a big question. It is a big question, how much time do we have, okay. But I address all of this in the book, wonderful. And in short, this is what was so perplexing to me in the beginning, because the yoga sutra, you know, classical yoga Patanjali is texts is clearly a renunciant text. And I went around to every teacher who I could and, and, and the teacher that actually sent me to Richard, we would sit around after class. And I would ask him, it's like, I don't really understand. It's like, if, if we're here in this world, in these bodies, and why is that? Trying to teach us to subjugate the bodies. Like I really, really, it just didn't resonate to me. And that's why I, I was very happy to find the tantric path. But the Tundra's assume that that they kind of take the yoga sutra and classical yoga for granted, and they build on it. So they don't completely negate it. But and this is kind of the history of philosophy, in general, and yoga, is that it's a progression. And this is what's kind of confusing about it is, there'll be, you know, a particular school, and then someone else will come along and say, Well, this is what they got, right, and this is what they got wrong. And so I'm going to make this other school and then the next people come along, and, and so what Tantra adds to classical yoga is this idea of a higher consciousness, because the yoga sutra has this concept, kind of mysterious concept of Ishwara. But they really don't want to go to the place of saying that there is. A there is a higher consciousness, a yoga sutra really is a dualist text, and that it says there is this separation between matter and spirit. Whereas in the tantric non dual schools, they say that everything is a manifestation of the divine. So all of you, you know, humans are as well, manifestations of the Divine. And the idea is to, that the path of yoga can actually help you amplify your life as a householder. And this is something that's been mixed up a lot where renunciate practices are given to householders and it can actually kind of block them. Whereas if you if you're doing instead a practice intended for householders The idea is that it supports your life. Yes. Good point. Yeah. Do you feel like that's a big mistake? Because I mean, there was really no mistake it for learning. But do you feel like that's a potential I think is a new, I mean, I remember sitting around in Mysore with having conversations with other students about you know, what you can eat and what you can do and you know, a lot of of there was a real renunciant thrust I felt in the community to some degree. And so, I just think it gives a lot of confusion. In general in the yoga world, when what is mostly taught and teacher trainings are is the yoga sutra, which has that flavor of negating you know, a great metaphor is one of the ocean in the wave where The ocean has consciousness. And, you know, we are each individuals who rise out of that ocean. And in classical yoga or renunciant. persuasions, the idea is to flatten your wave back into the ocean. Whereas in a tantric perspective, the idea is to amplify your life wave to draw on the power of the ocean, the power of the higher consciousness to really live your life in the fullest possible way. That's cool. And, you know, that's where I end the book with in terms of coming back full circle to the social psychology that I was in. The very last chapter of the book is called Change consciousness, change the world. Because I feel that as we each work on ourselves in these ways, it has this ripple out effect. And we all know this. I mean, that's why we want to hang out with certain people. That's why Richard classes you couldn't even hardly get in the door. There were so many people there because certain people have a vibe that you know, that you can pick up on. And so each of us as Yogi's can create the our practices a connection with our hearts, and that's going to ripple out into the world, it's going to help us as individuals make the choices in our lives, that is that is more most beneficial for ourselves in the world at large as well. But collectively, when you know, there's a mass of us that are starting to really connect to our hearts and live in ways that are aligned with the highest, that's going to slowly start shifting things. Good point. Can you speak a little bit about your original intention to help change racism, your Western witnessing late 60s, early 70s. Culture and what was going on? Can you explain a little bit about the transformation of consciousness that can occur from someone being racist to not being racist? Oh, boy. That's a big question. You know, I think each of us I know with a lot of the current events that have happened, even though I was well aware of the literature and social psychology, as well as the yoga philosophy, I personally had to and still have to look at, I think we each have to look at ourselves and understand our unconscious biases, first of all, and as well be honest about the structural aspects in our society. So that's one level that we really, you know, that really needs to be addressed. So I don't want to I don't want anyone to think, Oh, if we all just getting connected with our hearts, you know, there won't be any racism because it's, it's out there. And so the the, as I said, Before, the work I had done in graduate school convinced me that we really had to work at a deeper level as individuals. So to the degree people are willing to do that, it will shift things. Yes. Not it's not, not everybody wants to go there. So things get perpetuated. And that's why you really have to look at you know, I feel like we have to work at all levels to affect change. Good answer. Great point. So because I don't want to go into you know, this so called spiritual bypassing situation. The point good point. Yeah. When you say you have a new student, imagine I'm a brand new student. And I've never picked up a yoga book. I've seen a yoga sign on a building like I drove by saw sign that's as far as I've taken it, and I drop in on your meditation class. Where, how at what junction Do you want to enter me like what are you going to take me down a little bit of yours yoga sutra philosophy, just to kind of put I'm a little historical understanding of evolution from this philosophy and the the what Tantra brought to these classical philosophies to bring it a little bit more appropriate for humanity? Where Where would you want to start me? Like, what idea or concept? Do you think? And I guess it's not a real world situation or not? I have had a little bit of study. So, but if you if you could imagine I was just a brand new practitioner, where would you start me? Well, usually, when someone approaches me about meditation, I asked them why they're interested in meditation. So I mean, that's, that's kind of a segue in, that's cool. Because if someone you know, sees the sign, and they open the door, that means that there's something of interest to them. And, you know, in the yoga philosophy, parl parlance, that can be related to Adi Cara, you know, your, your readiness to pursue something. So, the fact that someone asked the question, you know, means that there's, there's something inside them that is wanting something more. And then, you know, the way Neela content meditation works is it's, it's a one on one thing, where you, you sit down, and you do talk a little bit about these issues that we've been talking about, like, what does yoga sutra teach us about meditation? And then what does Tantra you know, add on to that, and then you learn the practice and how to do it. And it's, it's, so I don't, the way I teach meditation is one on one and small groups. But so I don't, I don't have meditation classes. I have class, a class, where we, I call it the Full Circle class, where we do. We do, like 45 minutes of Asana, and then we sit down, and we do pranayama and some chanting, and then we meditate together as a group. It's a very beautiful format. It's not for very many people. But nice. Yeah, and I but I don't teach meditation, we just sit together. The part that wouldn't be for many people is because it's so you, would you it would take so much time, like when you so we do it in an hour and a half. Okay, so it's not too bad, but not too physically bold. Don't want you know, there's not a lot of yoga. Awesome. The teacher. Awesome. The students who meditate? Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Do you think that it's that scale will ever tip? Well, there's a lot of people who meditate and don't do yoga asana too. That's true. Yeah, I you know, and I used to have arguments all the time with one of my teachers about, you know, the superficiality of yoga asana, blah, blah, blah. And, and I always said, it's a doorway. You know, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for yoga asana. It's, I think, for many people, it's a way that they can in our modern society, that they can move their body and move energy and find a little bit of peace of mind. And I think once people get a taste of that, then many, many people are called to, you know, some of the other aspects of yoga. Very cool. When when you sit down for meditation, obviously, you made mention that you follow a tradition or a style of practice called Neela canta. Is there a certain technique there? How much does that technique weavin, chakra philosophy. It doesn't really I mean it directly. It's a mantra based meditation. And really, the work with the chakras would happen kind of as a result of doing the meditation rather than trying to mess directly with the chakras, if that makes sense. And that's one of the points actually that I make in the book is and that, that I learned from my teacher Pablo Ortega is that when we regularly meditate. And we take our awareness into these deeper spaces of awareness, a lot of things happen. And that's where some of the teachings of the yoga sutra come in, because the yoga sutra explains how the samskaras you know, the CIT 250s are brought to quiet by the, the, kind of the burning up of this, all this some scar ik residue that's within us. And, you know, dressing the clashes and all of that, that is in the yoga sutra. And when your awareness starts to become clearer, because of repeated, you know, burning up some scars and, and, and the attenuating of the clashes, then other things naturally happen from the inside out, rather than from the outside in, if that makes sense. So the chakras will start opening up and that's, you know, when you might have the Kundalini experiences, naturally, because that's been clarified, in the end, the subtle body is ready for it? How would you explain your own personal Kundalini experiences that you've had? Well, I think, you know, within the realm of meditation, people can have all kinds of experiences. And that's not really what we're after. We're after actually, higher states of consciousness. So you want to stabilize in states of consciousness that allow us to be centered and clear, and to start recognizing in ourselves, our own divinity and allow us to then also recognize that and everybody else, and again, getting back to the change consciousness, change the world when we can recognize the divinity and everything. It leads us to treating each other as divine beings and the planet as well. So the thing is, is because we all have a different samsaric patterning. Paul Miller Ortega calls it the prior originating matrix that we have all of our experiences, whether it's the experience in meditation, or how we interact with the world are kind of filtered through our unique, you know, kind of samsaric patterning. And so I think all kinds of different experiences can happen for different people. Yeah. Good answer. That's a hard one to answer, I think. Yeah. Well, the thing is, What's tricky about teaching meditation in particular? Is that you as a guide, you want to kind of let people know what to expect, but you don't want to set up expectations. That is a conundrum. Yeah, really. Be aware of this pitfall up ahead. What pitfall Oh, my gosh, I'm falling into that pit right now. Yeah. All right. Good point. Good point. And that's one of the beautiful things and this is so different from batavi Joyce, you know, tabi Joyce is really all about practice, no theory. And so, you know, one of the things that I appreciated about tantra, and this method of meditation that I'm involved in is that we always teach theory and practice simultaneously. So that you you understand what's happening and why you're doing something not not just do it. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me to do do you think sometimes I came across I used to my one of my first yoga teachers that I Bikram Choudhury, not a really nice man. And not very nice for pretty intense. Good yoga teacher, but not morally good yoga teacher, but anyway, and he would often people would ask questions, and he'd be like, Look, you guys are so stupid. You're not going to understand the theory. Just do the practice. So I when I heard that I was like, didn't settle with me. Well, I was just kind of thought. That's a really bad answer to give like, why not give us a little bit of something like give us some theory behind why we're doing what we're doing instead of like, Don't even ask you're not even smart enough to know if I tell you and I'm gonna build a here, I tell you to straighten your leg. You can't even straighten your legs. So what's your problem? Just focus on straightening your leg. Do you think? Yeah, well, that, you know, that kind of comes back to this idea of Adi Cara. I mean, he's saying, You're not ready to receive the You won't understand this. And one of the another thing that I that came out of the Tantra, especially the teachings of the this wonderful sage named Abbe number Gupta, is this concept of the culpa, samskaara. And culpa. So the idea is that when you first and what it means is refinement of understanding, and also refinement of your consciousness. So when you first encounter a teaching, in fact, you may not get very much of it. Sure. But as you work with the concept, then it starts opening up for you simultaneously, if you're meditating, your awareness itself is getting clarified. So that anything you place into, you know, any teaching or information that you place into that awareness is more readily understood. So it's a progression of understand understanding over time. And you know, that gets to the notion as well a tantric notion of rupiah, which is, means, you know, the correct means. And so really, as a teacher, you kind of have to be able to meet your student, where they're at with the correct methodology. Yes. So you know, and there's a way you explain things to beginners versus other people. Yes. Man, that is so fascinating. What type of response have you gotten from your book? Like, have you had anybody come back yet? And say, Oh, this is good. Or, or maybe negative criticism? Like, I don't like it, have you had any feedback? That's well, I, I had, I mean, I developed the book came out of many courses that I taught. So I had been teaching courses on yoga philosophy for many years, they took, you know, sometimes I would teach about a text. And then I started teaching things, like I taught something called the wheel of yoga, and then something a year of yoga, where I just was really developing the book, like pulling out, you know, just kind of making sense of it myself. And I got a very good response from it, which was supportive of me writing the book, I did, you know, kind of a beta test of the book with a course. And I'm actually I do have a study group. On Facebook, I might take it to substack. I'm debating on this, where we'll have kind of a book discussion. So mostly, you know, what I, the feedback I do get from people is that they're appreciative of me, really, bringing the authentic teachings and to play but also making them accessible and applicable. Nice. And, and so far, I've gotten good reviews. I'm, you know, I'll be honest, and say, I been scared to put it out there. Because, you know, once you do a subject, you're really subject to criticism. Yeah. And one of the points I make in the introduction of the book is I'm not a Sanskrit scholar. I've studied a lot of Sanskrit, but you know, I've provided my own translations, and I'm sure their errors and you know, I'm sure they're plain places people could say, I haven't treated particular topics appropriately, but Swaha it's my offering and the best I could do at the time and yeah, hopefully, benefit for people. Well, that's amazing. That is a big turning point actually be like, Oh my gosh, I've written this, but am I really wanting to put myself in that place of potential criticism and then just saying, Yes, I am ready. I feel good about this. I feel like this is a reflection of my life, my study, my everything that I'm about what I'm interested in, so I'm so glad you did. That's awesome. I I applaud you. I have fantasies and dreams or fantasies of I'm writing a book and then I just go, wow, where do I start? So just the fact that you like, follow through, as I'm asking this question tongue in cheek. I know we have a few more, just a couple more minutes here. How much of chat GPT did you use to write the book? Absolutely none. Well done, you know, the more I, the more I interact with, AI, I feel like writing eventually is going to have to come to a point where just like when we go to the grocery store, and we choose either chemically grown food or non GMO food or organic food, and that at some point, we're going to, we're going to need to like pass a test saying this was a human written book versus this is an AI written book. And then we can choose, okay, I want to read what a human wrote, or I want to read what the internet wrote, or an artificial bot. So that's pretty cool. I think that's worth bringing attention to that you, you wrote this yourself out of your own brain mind experience, which I still value, I really liked the AI thing. So I'm not Pooh poohing it. But I also, I think there's some good things that it can be utilized for. But I think what you did maybe even writing books, I don't know, but but AI wasn't around when, you know, wasn't as chat GBT wasn't no, no, no, I think I did follow a process that I actually do outline in the book of where you put it, teaching into your awareness, you know, you meditate a little bit, you put it teaching into your awareness, and then you write about it. Because there's something about letting it percolate deeper in your awareness, rather than using your analytic mind about it. And then letting your awareness stream out through your hands onto a piece of paper or onto a computer, you know, that's cool, cuter, that it's, you know, it allows you to get to a deeper, you know, understanding beyond kind of an intellectual understanding. And then when you have to articulate it, it even makes it more real nice. I wonder, if you were to say you were to come here and teach a workshop where we can workshop? Would you focus on writing prompts with students? Like, Have you have you led a workshop setting where you introduce a philosophical idea? And then say, Okay, I want you all to write and then have people share it? What what type of structure have you? Yeah, I mean, often, that's what I have done in my workshops. And in my courses, in particular, where we, we, you know, take a teaching, and we do just that we read about it. We know we do the intellectual work of understanding on an intellectual level, but then you sit back and you just kind of, it's like, you know, it's like a contemplative practice. It's called Bhavana. And so you just allow, again, I already explained it, but that's cool way to bring it's a way for people to make the teachings their own. Yes. Oh, I like it. Yeah, wow, Sandy, this has been such a treat, I am so thankful to have this opportunity to meet you and to speak with you. All the links for everything is here. So for you listening, just click below and you can find Cindy, her website, Cindy alaska.com. You can find a link on Amazon to purchase the book. Can we can they reach out to Cindy via your website on an email, if they have questions? If we have questions, there's a contact on my my website for sure. Nice. Is there any thing else you would like to add? In closing for our session today? That that you want to share? Well, just you know, one of the reasons I wrote the book was because I wanted to really make an argument for why meditation can be a beautiful practice. And I think many people feel that this is somehow takes away from life. And it requires some major effort when it can actually be easily introduced into your life and can have profound effects. And so I just encourage everybody to, you know, consider integrating meditation into their lives. Yes. Oh, man, thank you so much, Sandy. I really appreciate this opportunity. And I look forward to hopefully meeting you in person although this computer thing is pretty cool that we can. You're in Colorado and freezing, freezing temperatures. I'm here in Florida and I'm sweating, and some and here we are is awesome. We transcended space and time for a few moments. And thank you so much. been a delight to Thank you, Sandy. Thank you. Thank you. I look forward to meeting you in the future in person. Native yoga Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. If you liked this show, let me know. If there's room for improvement. I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of what I can improve. And if you have ideas for future guests or topics, please send us your thoughts to info at Native yoga center. You can find us at Native yoga center.com. And hey, if you did like this episode, share it with your friends, rate it and review and join us next time