Sanna Kokkonen-White ~ Bhakti Yoga and Kirtan: A Musical Path to Spiritual Awakening

Sanna Kokkonen-White is a distinguished yoga teacher originally from Finland, now residing part-time in Bali, Indonesia. With a rich background in fitness and yoga, she encompasses various styles, bringing a unique blend of Ashtanga and Bhakti Yoga to her teachings. Sanna is an accomplished teacher who travels and instructs across Europe, particularly investing in yoga philosophy and mentoring others. Her commitment to animal welfare in Bali also highlights her compassionate nature, alongside her passion for Kirtan and spiritual growth through yoga.

Visit Sanna Here: https://www.skyogini.com/

Key Takeaways:

• Integration of Ashtanga and Bhakti Yoga: Sanna reveals how her practice and teachings combine the discipline of Ashtanga Yoga with the devotional aspects of Bhakti Yoga.
• Patience in Practice: Emphasizing the importance of patience, Sanna explains how this virtue has been a guiding force in her yoga journey.
• Holistic Healing through Yoga: Sanna discusses yoga as a tool for personal transformation, functioning as a pathway to overcoming mental challenges and deepening one's spiritual practice.
• Community and Mentorship: Highlighting her role as a mentor, Sanna outlines how virtual and in-person interactions help her support others in their spiritual and personal journeys.

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Chapters

• 0:01 Connecting Across Continents Through a Toddcast Interview
• 2:20 Caring for Rescued Animals in Bali's Evolving Culture
• 5:30 A Gypsy Lifestyle Balancing European Winters and Bali Summers
• 9:47 Sanna's Journey from Aerobics to Ashtanga and Bhakti Yoga
• 18:15 Kirtan Connections and Bhakti Yoga Retreats in Bali and Cornwall
• 28:18 Bhagavad Gita as a Lifeline and Source of Inspiration
• 30:51 The Symbolism of the Bhagavad Gita and Inner Battles
• 36:25 Exploring Individual Paths in Yoga Practices
• 39:17 Embracing Failure and Growth Through Yoga Mentorship
• 42:11 Supporting a Suicidal Student Through Compassionate Teaching
• 43:50 The Journey From Asana to Deeper Yoga Understanding
• 45:31 The Importance of Patience in Life and Yoga
• 47:04 The Journey From Yoga Practice to Teaching and Patience
• 52:47 Teaching Yoga to an International Crowd in Bali
• 55:08 The Natural Evolution of Mentorship and Yoga Teaching
• 1:00:03 The Power of Gratitude and Music in Everyday Life
• 1:03:56 Gratitude, Forgiveness, and the Legacy of Lama Marut

Transcript

0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, so happy you are here. My goal Hello and welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. My name is Todd McLaughlin, and I have a very special guest for you this week. I have Sanna Kokkonen-White, and Sanna is a Finnish yoga teacher who teaches part of the year in Indonesia, Bali and the other part all throughout Europe. Go visit her on her website, skyogini.com, and also follow her on her instagram handle at@SKyogini, she has an upcoming Bhakti Yoga Retreat in Cornwall, England, May 17 through the 24th of 2025 and I really enjoyed this conversation so much with Sanna, because she has a long history of practice and multiple diverse background of practice, and she, I feel like, relates her ability to understand a challenge in life and how yoga helps in the long term trajectory of continued practice and the benefits that come from this sort of approach. She offers mentorship. She teaches public classes in Bali currently, and I really hope, personally to have a chance to meet her in person. But better yet, right now, we all get a chance to hear and listen to Sanna here and now. So let's go ahead and begin. I'm so happy to be here right now with Sanna Kokkonen-White, and we're in with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the both in the darkness because, Sanna, you're in Bali, Indonesia. I'm here early morning before the sun comes up mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. in Florida, and I'm just so grateful to have this opportunity to meet and speak with you, and can you share a Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at little bit about how your day was, since it's already evening, nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. what does a day look like in your life? Well, well, thanks. Thanks Todd. First of all, for you know, asking me to do this interview. It's, it's an honor. First of all, it's an honor because, you know, you trusted to interview someone you don't know at all, I mean, based on whatever you found online. So there's a lot of faith, you know. Thank you.And, yeah, it's lovely to make this connection. So, yeah, it's an honor to be in this, in this Toddcast, which also love the name. So cool Toddcast. Well, thank you. Yes, very creative. Very creative. I have to give my wife credit for that one. That was her idea. I said I'm creating a podcast. She goes, Well, you got to call the Toddcast. And I'm like, Yeah, Tamara, thank you so so anyway, my wife gets full credit on that not that's not my creativity. Okay, well done. Tamara, thank you. Thank you. I'll tell it. You asked me how my day has been. Well, yeah, as it's 7:30pm now here local Bali time, actually, it's been a lot about animals today. Today's my day off. I was teaching yesterday. Today is my day off. And, you know, we have this kind of like, I would just say, like a curse and blessing with my husband, we are weak. Point is animals really. And Bali is one of those places in in the world where you can just endlessly keep on rescuing animals. You know, there's kittens, there's puppies, yeah, and it seems like it's our karma somehow that we we always find them. So as long as we've been in Bali, we always had, like, bunch of bunch of animals, and now only, like, a week ago, my husband found two freshly born. Kittens that were done somewhere there on the rice field, nice. And since they were so young, and still are so young, that, you know, they would really need the mother, they need constant feeding, like every two hours. We need to do the toilet for them and clean them, and it's a lot of work. So the day has been revolving. Brought a lot around these two kittens, and then also, our dog was quite sick. She's recovering now, so it's been a lot like how to give her the meds and things like that. So wow, do the Balinese appreciate that you are caring for these critters, or these critters, these animals, these creatures, these sweet little, little animals. Or do you find that in the culture there, maybe folks wouldn't What is your understanding of of that? Because I have been to Bali and and there's lots of chickens and animals cruising around everywhere, and monkeys and all sorts of interesting animal encounters. What do you do? You find people are when you take them to the vet, or you say, here I have helping these animals. What kind of response do you normally meet with? Um, well, I guess both really. You know, it's like everywhere there are people who, who locals as well, who love animals, and then there are people who don't care about the animals. So it's not so black and white anymore. Used to be, used to be the situation. Used to be worse. Actually, what I'm seeing more these days is that even local people have started to, some of them have started to walk their dogs, which we never saw, like, let's say, 10 years ago. So definitely there's more awareness creeping in, which is a really good way. Yes, it's a really good way to see that. You know, people are caring, caring more for the animals. However, you know things, it's still a very different culture and and we gotta understand it this way, that there's still a lot of poverty, you know, and to take your animals to the vet, it's costing money for the local people and and oftentimes the locals feel like the Animals can actually heal themselves. So there's this belief, Balinese belief, that if doc, for example, is sick, he or she can cure himself or herself by Le King, you know, yeah. So, um yeah, there. There are very different beliefs. The belief system is very different. That's fascinating, yeah, yeah, that's what's so fun about travel, international travel, and coming up against our own ideas, and realizing how different how we see things so so uniquely, which is really fascinating. Yep, now it sounds like you mentioned, I think you just said something like 10 years. How? How off? How, wow. Where do I even start? So you are you originally from Finland? Correct, yes, correct. And, and, and, before we started, you made mention that you traveled to Bali during the Finnish winter, which makes very good sense, because, oh, my God, it's gotta be so cold over there right now. And so how long have you been doing this for? Do you do this every single year for? How long now? Yeah, I do this pretty much every single year. I mean, the first years I was living permanently, permanently in Bali, so we moved. So when we say we I mean not only myself, but my husband, who's from UK originally, and then our son, we moved to Bali, 2013 and the first years I was living permanently here. And then, after the first initial years, I realized that I sort of need more time also in Europe. So I started to sort of balance it out by sort of having the not so nice months. So the winter European winter months, I started to have in Bali and then have nice, long summers in Europe. Since I have a lot of things happening in Europe, so I don't only stay in Finland, but I have a lot of like yoga teaching gigs in different European countries cities. So I need also more time there. Understand and you. I'm kind of like a gypsy. I don't know. You may remember a singer called Paul Young. He used to have this great song, wherever I lay my hat, that's my home. Wherever I lay my hat, that's my home. Ding, ding, ding. So that's, that's kind of like me, you know, yes. So wherever I go, I'm like, Yeah. And I'm so happy here. I don't want to travel anywhere. I'm so fed up with, like, you know, unpacking and repacking and all that. And then as soon as I'm gone again to the next place, and I feel equally home there. So this kind of, like, gypsy chipsy lifestyle, amazing. And I'm curious, where did your Senate son end up after all this? Did he decide to stay in Bali? Or is he European? Or does he travel with you? Um, yeah, so he, he was traveling with us. We were traveling the world. We've been living together as a family in many different countries and and he actually, when he was a teenager, he decided that he wanted to move to Europe, and he's currently living in Finland, and he's looking into moving now somewhere in Europe, but he's looking at different, different options. So he's running his own own business. He's developing, actually, games, yeah, and, and he's doing really well, so he could basically live anywhere so, but yeah, at the moment he's, he's actually, oddly enough, in Finland, even though he's really the citizen of the world. Yeah, very cool. Congratulations. Raising children and seeing them go out into the world and make their way is such a challenging and rewarding adventure. So good job. That's cool. Sana, I'm curious, you know, to dive in a little bit into your yoga history and background. Can you tell me what your first experience with yoga was? Yes, so I was like a fitness, fitness person, actually, before yoga came into the picture. I The late in the late 80s, I was in a corporate world, but I also was teaching. I was, you know, Arabic instructor, you know this, yeah? Jane Fonda, yes, yeah, exactly that kind of thing, you know. So late 80s, early 90s, I was doing that kind of stuff, plus lots of other things like jogging and anything that had to do anything with sports. I was some, some kind of like a maniac, you know, really. And, and then I had a friend of mine who was also like Arabic coach, and she did lots of things, ballet and you name it. And one of our many jockeying tours were, you know, doing a morning run. She said to me that, listen, I found this new, new way to move this. It's called Ashtanga Yoga. And I got really interested, because she was someone I was really looking up to, and she was kind of like my idol, you know, when it came to sports, yeah, so. And then she said that next weekend, there's going to be like a yoga Ashtanga Yoga immersion by this Italian yoga dude called lino Miele, yes, I've met lino. Yeah, you met lino, right? Yeah, that's so cool. I thought, Oh, she's about to say lino mele, yeah, right. That's cool. So then I joined, I joined the workshop the weekend, long thing, and I was sold, bang like that, straight away, yeah, and lino became my, my main Ashtanga teacher for the first sort of solid 15 years. And it's no surprise then that, you know, I started to do less and less arabics. I started to teach less and less arabics. And I was practicing Ashtanga, like six days a week, you know. And I started to teach, I started to sort of like bring more elements of yoga into my other sort of fitness classes in Finland, and I started to travel. I went to Italy for, you know, like, one month long immersion, and then lino was also coming. That was kind of like the peak, the high time of Ashtanga, when I remember, yes, I remember, you. S and Finland, where, where one of those countries that we had the highest amount of ashtones at the time? Ah, it was just everybody got excited at the same time. And you're right at that point in the trajectory of fame, of yoga and commercialization, it wasn't fully, full blown yet, right? So it had that. I didn't really come into Ashtanga until 2004 so it sounds like you've, you're able to access that scene long before it really started to get popular, which I hear is an amazing time period of excitement. And it really was, I feel, it feels like we've a bit like pioneers in Finland, because there were no, you know, like proper Ashtanga Charles or studios or schools yet, really, as such. Yeah. So I remember, I was practicing with Petra raisin, and who's quite famous Ashtanga teacher, and you how yamainen and we were renting just this dance studio room. We used to pay 10, uh, finish marks at the time. That was the time before the Euro came into the picture. Yeah. So, yeah, we just rented this room and did our thing, and it was very little about adjustment at the time. So we're just going for it and, and that was a real hardcore, hardcore time, and really cool time. And much later on in life, then the boys, petrei and Juha, they started to open up. They, you know, shalas and the whole Ashtanga thing started to grow like a snowball effect. Yeah, amazing, well and then, but was it I'm curious, just from reading your bio, had you come into bhakti yoga prior to that ashtanga yoga experience, or was it from your strong yoga introduction that you then started seeking the philosophical side, in which case you found Bhagavad Gita and and Krishna consciousness. Yeah. So there's lots of different layers to that. The very first experience when it comes to bhakti and Krishna consciousness, it was really that I was just handed the Bhagavad Gita, the first finished translation at the age of 15, and I couldn't really understand it. However, there was something it really did fascinate me. You know, there was, I guess it felt a bit like a fairy tale, like really funky, colorful Indian fairy tale, yeah, to me at the time. And I kind of like always had a look at it, and couldn't really understand it too much, and I put it aside, and kept on going back to it and and then I remember when I was walking down the street in Helsinki, and I just saw this, I came across this poster on the wall which read that we have free vegetarian meals every Sunday at 4pm there's going to be, like a ceremony, like a service, and then there is this meal. And I said, Wow, what is this? And I went there, and it was actually a Krishna temple. So there was this super funky, funky ceremony, a lot of chanting. And I had never, like chanted before and and I just felt this pull. It was some kind of magnet, you know, like, wow, there's something, something really fascinating about this. So I started to go, mostly because of the free vegetarian meal, you know, every Sunday. So that was a good carrot, and it's quite delicious too. Like, right? It's, it's quite yummy, yeah, oh my god. It's like the best food, like ever. I still love it, and the incense and the colors and the smell and the taste, it's like a full sensory immersion, isn't it? Totally, totally, I couldn't agree more. And, you know, because it's cooked pipe, people who really are in this kind of like satvik state, this in this very pure, conscious, loving Seva, this service state. So of course, we can taste that, we can taste that love. We can taste that they are like oozing off this kindness and all these beautiful things while they are cooking. So surely we can, we can taste that in the food. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So that was the first when it comes to bhakti. And it's sort of like there were lots of like I mentioned before, different lay. Estate. So I'm not going to go like into every single detail. Otherwise, we need to be chatting here for five hours. Yes, I understand. I'm going to do a little leap now into so from the age when I was 15, and then when I found Ashtanga. So being in my, you know, 20s, whatever, so I'm jumping into the year early 2000 when I was living with my husband and I was son in at the time, in Berlin, in Germany, yeah, and I had been listening to some kirtan artists, and I was really, really, like, drawn, really drawn to Todd kirtan and chanting in general. And then I was going to this one kirtan gig in Berlin in one of the local yoga studios. And, you know, as I was walking down the street in Berlin, Mita, the very center, there was a man who came to me and he said, oh, excuse me, sorry. Can I, can I ask you something you look like exactly the person who would know the answer to my question. I was like, Yeah, sure. I was wearing, I still remember the t shirt I was wearing, this green t shirt, which had, like, lots of images of Krishna on it. And and this man said that, you know, we are trying to find this yoga studio. Would you know where it is? And I said, Yeah, I actually do know really well. I'm on my way there. There's going to be a kirtan concert. And you know what the man said? He said, Well, actually, I think I am going to be the artist of that. And you know who the hell he was? He was child, oh my gosh, that's I love his music. Oh his voice music so much. And suddenly he was there on the street, and off we went together, me and triuta and his wife and I escorted them to the studio, where then he was going to be the act. You know, yes, it was so cool. That is very cool. So that was, like the the big bhakti sort of eye opener. And then later on in life, when I found Vijay Krishna, that was like the final kind of, like nail on the head, and I realized that, gosh, there's so many ways of doing this bhakti. And that's so cool. That's so cool, Sana, because I noticed that you're going to be leading a bhakti yoga retreat in Cornwall, England, May 17 through the 24th this year, and I saw that it's with Vijay Krishna, and you had used the words in your in the description of and the rock star of Kirtan, Vijay Krishna. And so I definitely got the feeling from you that he's, he's pretty amazing, that he really knows how to, well, obviously, sing and play music, but get the everybody involved and really connected. And, you know, deep in on the bhakti practice, can you talk a little bit about him and your partnership, or the way that you guys collaborate together? Yeah. So I met Vijay many, many years ago here in Bali, and kind of like accidentally, I just there was a yoga festival over one weekend where I was teaching Asana, and then he was doing the closing circle, the very final, sort of like ending, ending thing, where he was a kirtan act. And I hadn't heard of him. I didn't know anything of him, and when I saw him performing there the stage, I was, like, totally blown away. I thought, wow, this is the real bhakti. I mean, the gusto that he had while he was like chanting and performing, and he was like living and breathing bhakti, totally. And he had this real rock star vibe, however, at the same time, very humble and very grounded, and just like he ticked, you know, all the boxes. And I was like, wow, I gotta have more of this. Then what happened? I have too many stories to share with you. No, please. You can you? We can? We can keep going for we'll go for days. No, maybe we'll have to do certain segments, because I know we have, we both have an hour here now, but we'll, we'll keep it going. But I appreciate it thank you. I love it when, when you can open up and just like, oh my gosh, I have so much to talk about. Thank you. That makes my life and job very easy right now. So I appreciate. Okay, fabulous, fabulous. So, um, so I left that festival feeling like, Wow. I found now the real bhakti artist. And, you know, the funny thing happened then it was probably pretty much the following day. I was coming back from work, driving with my scooter, and I saw this beautiful Indian woman, you know, dressed up in her beautiful Indian clothes, and she had just parked her scooter, and she was having her harmonium on her shoulder. And I had to stop because I had a feeling that she's due to play somewhere, since you know she was carrying her big harm on him. And I said, Excuse me, but is there possibly going to be Kirk on somewhere here? And she said, Oh yeah, we're going to have here, um, under the banyan tree the studio. Do you know? I said, Yes, I know. Um, we are going to have here a Kirtan, me and my my friend, my artist friend, so you're very welcome. Come. We are starting in one hour. I said, Oh my gosh. I just, I just need to dash home, you know, to get changed and have a shower and and I'll come. I'll come. I'll join you. And then I went to the studio. And as soon as I opened the door, guess whom? I saw? Vijay Krishna. He was the partner. He was going to do the Kirtan, you know, with if this is not meant to be, that nothing is meant to be. And then after that gig, I started chatting more with this lady, this Radhika, beautiful lady, half Californian, half Indian. So has the best of the two worlds, both worlds. They are always the most beautiful people. These half, you know, Caucasian, half Indian. Yes, total beautiful human being, like inside out. So then I chatted more with her, and she said, you know, Vijay probably will host like Indian Yatra next year. And I was like, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. I so need to do that. And then one thing led to the next. And then BJ did indeed have his 2018 he hosted his first I mean, obviously he had been going to India many, many times, and he lived in varindavan and everything for long periods of time. But now, for the first time, he was hosting, like for a group this experience, like showing his, his experience, showing his like most loved sites in India, yeah. So 2018 I joined his yatra. Then I went again, 2019 then again, 2020 and we were supposed to do like every year, like a bill like that. And then, of course, two or 20, I just managed to come back to Bali in February, and then March, the pandemic happened. So then the Yatras obviously stopped, but I kept the contact with Vijay. I actually invited him to Finland, 2019 we were performing together in a yoga festival magnesia. We were there at the main stage, you know, I taught vinyasa, and he was doing the live music, playing instruments and chanting. And it was beautiful, really beautiful collaboration. And ever since, after that, we've been a lot in contact and doing certain things together. We've been performing in Bali Spirit festival here in Bali, together and doing, yeah, certain, certain things together, really nice, nice gigs. And so hence the retreat we are going to offer now together this year. Oh, it sounds amazing. It sounds really cool. Yeah, it looks it looks amazing. The pictures you have the I recommend everybody can go check out your website, which is skjogini.com really easy to find. Yes, that's so awesome. I would love to hear about you mentioned that the first time you read Bhagavad Gita that it seemed like a fairy tale, and now you've had many years to continue to read it, I'm sure, over and over again, and also come in contact with lots of individuals who are passionate about it, reading it and bringing it to life in our own daily life, or using The lessons and the teachings from it to help guide and instruct daily living. Can you explain a little bit now your understanding of it in relationship to do you still see it as a fairy tale, which can be a really beautiful thing and or has it taken on a new meaning for you? Yeah. Yeah, beautiful question. Thank you for that. Todd, I really love questions like this, like meaningful questions. Certainly it has, you know, transformed from a fairy tale into like, I would say, like a light lifeline, more like a lifeline. So how I see it now, it's like, it's like a guide book for any situations in life. You know, sometimes what I do is when I'm kind of like looking for direction or looking for clarity, or even something like I'm looking for a theme for my vinyasa yoga class, because I always give a Dharma talk before I start to teach, and also I do chanting before the asana happens. So I may just randomly open up any one page from bhagavakita, and then I read a verse, and I'm like, oh yeah, oh yeah. That resonates. How interesting, you know. So, so it's I use it a bit like that, rather than reading it in a rigid way, you know, like it has to be certain order or something like that. So I use it in many, many different ways, and I do, especially like this sort of random, random way of opening up the pages. And yeah, I've got a lot of inspiration from my teachers when it comes to bagor kita. I had radika Das, who's a great kirtan artist in based in London, he used to host these online sessions during the pandemic. That really saved me. And we were reading, doing Bhagavad Gita, reading together. So that was very helpful. And Vijay Krishna is really one of the best ones. I mean, you can ask anyone question about Bhagavad Gita, and he will explain, playing to you into detail. So he definitely has inspired me so much with Gita. I would say that's my go to book. Out of any any books, people often say, Oh, can you give me any recommendations about books on yoga? Yes, I can give you a list. However, I would say Bhagavad Gita is definitely the most important book when it comes to yoga. I mean, just the word yoga on its own is mentioned more than 100 times in Bhagavad Gita. Yeah. Great point. Great point. How do you in the storyline where Arjuna is faced with warring against people that he's known and people that are familiar to him, family or relatives, and in the teachings of, say, Christianity, where there's this idea, if you are slapped, turn your other cheek right, like if you're if harm comes your way, putting violence back onto violence will never solve violence. And so one thing I find fascinating about Bhagavad Gita is and that's why I'd like to ask you, because maybe you've come across a different understanding, or you've have a different understanding, or the same understanding, that when faced with this challenge of wondering, should I defend myself or my dharma, My is it my duty to defend myself and not just turn the other cheek and let the invader kind of beat me down, so to speak. And I guess it's probably one of the greatest paradoxes of all time. And when I look around the world today and I see the conflict that's going on everywhere, I just can't help but see this brilliance between this storyline the Bhagavad Gita, that people were mulling this idea 1000s or hundreds and hundreds of 1000s, but 1000s of years ago, I guess I'm curious what your take is in relation to the violence and non violence, and then standing up for yourself, have you developed any sort of understanding around that, yeah, beautiful again, really beautiful question. Todd, so first and foremost, Bucha is not advocating war at all. Definitely not. So we gotta understand that the kids are is loaded with symbolism. Is heavily loaded with symbolism, and this whole Kurukshetra. So this place, which in today's world, is actually nearby Delhi. So where the battlefield happened? This. Not really like a real war where we are killing people. It's the battlefield of our own mind. So, so how I see it is when Arjuna is hesitating and when he sees his relatives, these cousins, his aunts, uncles, whatever, and he's hesitating and he doesn't want to go and kill them. So it's about the it's about the mental afflictions. Actually, it's about when in our own lives we we are dealing with difficulties. We are not wanting to see things as they really are, and so dealing with our own kleshas and vrittis, those mental afflictions, that's what it's all about. Yes at the end of the day, yeah. Great answer. So yes. So for some people, it's disappointing to hear that, oh, oh my gosh. Doesn't that mean I should go fight my neighbor because the Bhagavad Gita told, you know, Arjuna to go and stand up for yourself. But I like that idea around the mental the mental challenges that we have and perhaps overcoming if we can choose to look toward gratitude, or we could choose to look at what we lack to have that ability to know I'm going to focus on gratitude, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, yeah. That's, that's how I that's how I really see it that we often it's much easier to turn our backs when it comes to our own, you know, mental weakness and and the challenges and our own demons, you know, so it's really our own demons that Arjuna needs to fight, and we don't always want to because we like to identify. We like to identify ourselves through our own suffering, like our own darkness. It's easier to sort of stay in the darkness than to take responsibility of our own lives and and step onto the light side. Great point. Well said. Sana. Have you ever heard in the yoga world this idea that out of all the different styles of yoga, Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, that bhakti yoga is the easiest for people to connect to Yoga with. And would you agree with that? Or do you have a different take on that concept? I know to just clump something into this is the easiest. This is the hardest. There's so much nuance. I know it's like a true bhakti Yogi who's trying to chant Hare Krishna all day long in their mind and not let other thoughts come in. I mean, that's not easy. There's nothing easy about that, but, but maybe it is. I'm curious what your feeling is on this, and how you would potentially relate bhakti yoga and say a hatha yoga practice like Ashtanga. Yeah. I would say firstly that it depends on the person. It depends on the individual. So some people are by nature, karma yogis. So for example, somebody like Mother Teresa, you know, she, we could easily say that, okay, she, she was a karma yogi. So doing good through rightful actions. Um, someone could be highly academical, which I'm not definitely at all. Um, so someone who's highly academical could be naturally Gianna yogi. So reading like ton of books, studying, studying, studying, getting as much knowledge as possible, and sort of seeking for enlightenment that way. Or someone could be just naturally drawn towards music and chanting and singing and dancing, then the natural path would be bhakti yoga, since it's emphasized in bhakti that kirtan is so important. I wouldn't say that one path is easier than the other, because I really personally feel that so much down to the individual, and I wouldn't say, I wouldn't feel that I'm the person to say that which path is better or worse. I would rather say that every road leads to road. Own. And it would be better to try a road than not any road at all and just figure it out yourself, you know, like, Okay, try this. If it doesn't work out with you, throw it out of the window and try the next one. So I kind of like tried pretty much everything in my own life, I tried things that certainly didn't work, like sex and trucks and rock and roll. You know, I tried so much. And in my own case, Bhakti definitely was the most natural, natural one, and I could see how it's been haunting me all these years, and then I grew older, it started to make more and more sense, and I could see that okay, I was always leading towards this path, but it took me, you know, certain number of years to realize that That's fascinating, isn't that that's so cool. Sana, to to have enough time in a field to where you get exposure to these different elements, and then slowly getting drawn so gradually more toward one certain aspect of the path. That's so cool. How that evolves. What sort of advice would you give either yourself or someone in their 20s that is going along this path to just give some encouragement to don't give up and keep going? Yeah? Yeah. That is, that is a big, big question. Like, you know life is, life is loaded with trial and error, and when you fail, not if, but when you fail, don't get upset by it. And never give up the hope. Never give up the hope I can say from my own experience, because I went through really low, lows in my in my youth, and I suddenly tried methods that were not very helpful. However, I had to go through that phase in order to grow and land where I am today, and because of, you know, those muddy waters that I have to swim through, it's easier for me now to help other people who are struggling and going through through challenges. And this is what I'm doing in Bali as well. So I'm mentoring people and and this is what I really love about teaching yoga, is that I feel that I can, like, help people on a deeper level, I have, oftentimes, students who come to me either through just studio classes, not only through the yoga teacher trainings, that's where things happen. A lot really deep things happen. However, even through, you know, weekly studio classes, I have students coming to me and opening up their hearts and really heavy things happening. You know, I just actually had a girl the other week who was very suicidal, and she had just cut herself and and she was all shaking, and she came to my class and said that I can't stay at home anymore. I go crazy, so I had to come to your class, but excuse me if I need to leave halfway. And I said, Listen, you don't need to do anything. You can just lie down, and if you need to sleep or whatever it is, but please just stay. It's good for you to stay the energy and let's chat. Because I was teaching two classes back to back, I said to her, please wait, and then I had this half an hour gap between the classes, so let's sit down and chat. And indeed, she did stay and we talk, and she already felt a little better after our chat. And then she also participated the second class, and she was in a much better place already then, yeah. So, so this is thing, but I feel that, you know, Asana is kind of like a carrot, if we really now get a little bit serious here it's Asana is like a carrot, where we tempt people to join this thing called Yoga. And then what really is happening is that people start to dig deeper. They use Asana as a tool, and then they start to see things with more clarity. And it's really self. Help, self help. And then when things are meant to happen, more things will happen. And we detox the body first through Asana in order to be able, then to take more deeper, uh, teachings in so like, for example, Pat up the choice. I remember he was asked some time that, why? Because, you know, if we think about the eight limbs of yoga, Yama, Yama, niyamas, Asana, prana, pranayama, pratya and Samadhi. So if we look at the order, Asana only comes as number three, right? And then, when part of choice was asked that, why Guruji? We we started Asana, why not Yamas? And yamas and he, he gave this great answer, which is so true. I went something like this. He said, the Western mind is so busy and not so capable of taking these, this information, you know, this deeper level of teaching. So we first need to detox the body and through the body, then we detox the mind, and then slowly, slowly, we are more able to understand the yamas and niyamas as well. And it's so true. It's really true. And this is what happened to me as well. I remember because first I detox myself through the Ashtanga Yoga, and then as I did that, then I also started to understand suddenly, like, wow. Bucha verkita, now I get this book. Yeah, I don't know what was the original question that was really well said. Sana, yeah. I mean, I love the way you broke down. It's very clear the way you just broke that down as to the process, like the long term trajectory of this process, and I agree 100% Can you speak a little bit about patience and the the role of patience. I feel like you, you kind of answered this already, just in the aspect of, like you said, working with somebody who is really on the edge of believing that life is worth living and and slowly, I think there's like, patience is required to, like, just have this patience with life, to just trust that it's gonna things are gonna come our way and evolve, to make it where we do see a lot of beauty and that life is really incredible and amazing to be a part of. I can also, I can understand. I've seen both sides. You know, I've been in both places, so I, I, I really love how you also, it sounds like have been in both places and have had enough time to be patient, to let it unfold to where you're ecstatic about life. Now, I'm sure you have been throughout life mode, but I can feel that you're obviously very passionate in love with with what you do and this experience of yoga. Can you talk a little bit about your own patience cultivation? Yeah, I feel the patience really. I learned about patience through my ashtanga yoga practice for sure. And you see, I I never actually wanted to teach yoga. I never wanted to be a yoga teacher. I because I loved my practice too much and I love the discipline, and I could really feel that it was giving me so much, not only Asana wise, however, The patience definitely was developing there throughout the practice. So so this yoga teacher thing, I'm trying to sort of answer your patience question at the same time. So, so what happened with myself was that early, early, 2000 so I was asked to join a yoga teacher training program, and at that time, I had been practicing already, you know, really long time, really long time Ashtanga, Ashtanga Yoga. So I believe is, it was about 13, maybe 13 years I had been practicing, like six days a week practice, and I said straight away that No, why should I join this yoga teacher training program? Because I have no intentions of becoming. A yoga teacher and and why? Because I just love my practice too much, and I don't want to turn something that I love so much into a profession. So then I was lured, you know, with the usual things like, oh, but you don't have to teach, you know. You can just, you know, deepen your own practice and your understanding and this and that. So then I said, okay, yes, fine. Then. And then I joined, and I had this beautiful my main teacher was ELIZABETH CONNOLLY, who was this beautiful, beautiful lady from UK, Cornwall, and she had a very strong background, both in I younger and Ashtanga, and she was this really strong lady and high discipline, which I loved. And when the training then started to come to the end, she asked me that, okay, Sana, so when are you going to teach? When I going to start to teach? And I said, No, I'm not going to teach. That's not my intention. And she was like, what you have to teach. I really, I'm telling you have to teach. I was like, no, no, no, no. She said, You know what? If you are not going to teach yoga, the world will lose a fantastic teacher in you and, you know, I started to cry because I felt there was this pressure. I mean, her words were really touching me. And at the same time, I felt there was this pressure that I have to, I have to teach. And then, you know, the patience. Then it was all about patience, you know, all the way through, then I started to sub someone else's classes. And I felt like, okay, I can do this, because it's not my responsibility as such as they are not my own classes, so I'm only subbing for someone else. But then you can just guess how things started to evolve. You know, one thing led to the other and in no time, I had my own classes and and more classes and more classes. And, yeah, it went that way. So all these years, the patience has just like it's yoga that has taught me the patience. That's why it's really good for people who are dealing dealing with any kind of like mental issues or mental health issues or whatever it is, yoga is such a great self help. I agree that's so cool. Sana, thank you for detailing that. I agree with you. I think that that's one of the most incredible things. I like that you put emphasis on patience in your on your website. Oh, I like it. I like hearing about patience. It's something that I keep trying, wanting to cultivate more of. And it feels like a in, like a bottomless well, like sometimes I think, yeah, I'm a patient person, and then, and then I'm at the red light going, Yeah, I'm a patient person, yeah, I'm real patient. I can keep working on this. I can keep working on this. I feel you very patient. Oh my gosh, I so I'm curious, you know, I would say probably a lot of yoga teachers and or just people that love to practice yoga think I want to go to Bali and and hang out and like you're you're living there, and you're there on the regular. And I know the grass is always green, really, really green when you get somewhere new, so green, and then the green starts to not be so green. And so you know what you're feeling now that you've been on in Indo for so long. And I know you know probably your strategy of as a gypsy, maybe I shouldn't use word Gypsy, but as a traveler, as a wanderer, that you are, you said you're, you can wherever you lay your hat, you're at home, or wherever your heart is, you're at home. So I'm here, I'm at home. Do you what is it like teaching in Bali? I would imagine, because Bali has a very so many people want to go, and so many people do go, that teaching there could be really fun, because maybe there's like, a really free spirited, like searching feeling and like, I want to open up. I want more. I want to be exposed to more. What is your take on being a yoga teacher in the time that you spend in Bali? What kind of feeling do you get from it? Yeah, um, for me, I would say the best thing is that it's a very international crowd. So we have people coming from every possible corner of the world, we have people coming from loads of different European countries, from all over Asia, a lot of Americans, Australians, Russians, you name it. A lot of Russians too, right? Some, yeah, for sure, I heard as well. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. There's. Said, There's Russians living, living in in Ubud as well, and but not so many, maybe to the yoga classes. There are some, but we are not the biggest, biggest crowd. I would say, Yeah, we have one Russian. One of my colleagues, jagor, is Russian. He left Russia, maybe, I think he said couple of years ago, something like that, yeah. He's a beautiful, beautiful person. Actually, really soft, really lovely, lovely, lovely man. The softest, softest, like ever, like Teddy bear, yeah, yeah. So international crowd, and then the fact what I mentioned earlier that I really feel that I can help on a deeper level, a lot of people, since there are a big number of people who come to Bali for a proper reason, like they are searching for meaning in their lives. They are searching for answers. They are going through a lot of pain, lot of suffering. They're looking for healing. So, yeah, I feel that I can help that's cool area a lot. Yeah, so cool. That's a really neat take. That's a really interesting take on it, because you're right, the older and longer that we get and we practice, it feels that perhaps we have more to offer coming back from that patience thing isn't patient such a cool thing, because you can't give that to somebody. You can't in that idea of like, I'm searching for healing, and we want it now, and it's such a patient journey to allow things to unfold, for healing to occur, or to change perspectives. And that's so neat that you can see that, and that you're able to facilitate that. And I'm curious, then, on your mentorship, the way you mentor people, what does that look like, like? How does that I mean, I understand it be just, probably through conversation and presence and and probably, I think, you put attention into carrying yourself in a way of exempt as an example, and therefore that just rubs off over time. Do you have a protocol and or certain strategy that you use in a mentorship relationship? Yeah? Yeah. There's different ways of doing it. One is that the people who want to have this mentorship, they can come, they can come to Bali and be with me for a month. That's That's one option. So then we basically do work together every day. Then there are a lot of these sort of semi unofficial mentoring sessions happening, and then this really, totally unofficial, like this girl I mentioned, who came to the class. So I'm doing a lot of lot of helping, really without any kind of, like financial interest. I never asked for any money. It's just something that comes automatically, because I know how it feels when when you're suffering, as I've been going through that myself. So so it's just I often feel that, in all honesty, that these people, they somehow are drawn to me because there is something, because I had that stage in my own life for a long time. So you can pretty much come to me with any kind of issue, and nothing would shake me, because I, I seen it all. I've experienced it all. So, so, yeah, it's, it's, it's just very natural for me to be together with people like that understood. So they sessions. They can look so different. They can be very short, they can be really long. They can be official, unofficial, semi unofficial. It depends so much on the individual again and what is kind of like, what is it that they are dealing with? Yeah, so there's not really like one set formula only, that kind of like fits all, not like one size fits all. There has to be, like, tailor made for the individual, really? Yeah, well, I understand that, and I like the fact that it sounds like it was just a natural progression for you in each of these elements. I don't feel like it didn't sound like you pushed becoming a yoga teacher. It doesn't sound like you hurt. Hurried up to be a mentor. You know, it's almost like it just slowly or patiently evolved, which is, which is an amazing thing. Yeah, well done to you know, exactly same thing. How I started to teach yoga here in Bali. We actually came here with the intention of taking a sabbatical so me and my husband and our son. So when we came to about 2013 I had planned to take one year off, so a sabbatical totally from teaching. I had been teaching so much yoga in Singapore and and all over the place, in many different countries, cities. So I just felt like, okay, now I really want to take back my own time one year. I'm not going to teach. I just want to focus on to my own practice. I go to all these wonderful teachers. And then after six months, I was head hunted to this studio, and yeah, and then, kind of like, you give your little finger, then in no time they took the whole hand. There's a very happy ending to that. I'm again, clearly it was meant to be, you know, that's awesome. Sana, that's so cool. I hear you. Well, you know, this has been such a pleasure to meet you. I I started a gratitude journal that someone gave me just five minutes in the morning wake up, write down three things I'm grateful for, three things that would make today amazing. And this morning, I knew I was I woke up early because I knew I was coming in to set up to to meet and speak with you, and one of my one thing I'm grateful for is the opportunity to meet new people. I love this chance to meet new people. I feel like it. It just gives me so much inspiration. So I'm really grateful for for this opportunity and for your open heartedness to converse with me and to meet with me. So I feel your generosity, and I really appreciate it so much. Sana, is there anything that you feel you would like to add to close our conversation together? Any, any last or not sounds so like intense, like, what's your final message? Is there any, is there any, any other little tidbit of love and and encouragement you could, you could offer us and with the hopes or intention of closing our session and all of us going about our day and being pumped for life, you know, excited for all the things that are coming up the jam, thinking about all these 90s great songs you write me, oh my gosh. It's actually a little bit special that way. I you know, many words, they instantly give me, you know, a song like, when you said pump, I'm like, pump. I love it. Me too. What was it yesterday? And in excess, song came into my head. It was a new sensation. New sensation, yeah, and I'm like, every you'll say one thing, and all sudden, the song just comes back into your mind. You know, I'm like, I could, we could talk in song riddle, you know, we could just go to our entire our history. Next touch based on that. You know, when I teach yoga philosophy in our that's my sort of main area of responsibility in our yoga teacher trainings. I just love it totally turns me on yoga philosophy, oh my gosh. So it happens to me all the time when I'm speaking, or anyone else is speaking, you know, someone is sharing from the group, you know, one of the trainees, they say something, and I hear just one word, I'm like, Oh my gosh, oh yes, you know heart, Oh yes, oh Daniel, hurt to me. Like, how many just around the heart, right? It's like, so crazy, yeah, but what you said before, actually, this gratitude thing, that that is a huge, huge thing. And if I would say if, if you are in trouble, or, let's say anyone is in trouble and they can't think about anything else, you see what happens, you probably know it very well through your own experience. I certainly know it very well through my own experience. When we are depressed, what do we do? We think about ourselves. We think about the Holy Trinity, me myself and I all the time. This is another song, me myself and I the rap song. Oh yeah. I. Right? I'm trying to think who it is, who was that? De La Soul, or I think it is, oh yeah, oh yeah. So so my one of my great teachers, Lama Marut, oh gosh. I learned so much from him, my love, I'm writing these. You should check him out. But how do I spell is it Marut, M, M, A, R, U, T, thank you, Maruti. Maruti, yeah, actually, I mean, bless his soul. He very sadly, passed away when he was just 60. Over 60, he got cancer and passed away. He was my teacher when I lived in Singapore for a number of years, I learned so much from him, and some of the main things were gratitude and forgiveness and and he was actually American. He was, he had PhD in comparative religion, and he, he, he was a Buddhist monk for, oh, for many, many years. And, and he lived monastic life, and then later on in life, he gave up his ropes because he, you know, he also had a past, like we all have. He had a past. He used to be like a surfer and Harley Davidson dude and, and I loved him so much because he was like a real person, you know, he had that past, and then he had done his academical path, and he was highly academical. And then when he spoke with you, he always came down to the level of the listener, and he was just playing it down, always so much. And he was so funky. He was like the rock and roll of all the like, philosophy, yoga, philosophy teachers, like such an amazing human. I miss him so much, and I learned so much from him. And yeah, the gratitude thing, like he always said that, because he also used to suffer from depression in his past life, in his young age, and he said that, what do you think about you're thinking about yourself. I mean, how egoistic is that? And just, you know, if you, if you can't do anything else, think this. How can I help someone else who's suffering. Like, you know, if you're lonely, go to an elderly person's home and and go and chat. Give your precious time, one hour from your precious time to some you know, elderly person and and there are so many people out there. Like, especially elder people. They have nobody because they don't maybe have any more family, whatever. Nobody cares, literally. So go and chat with them. It means, like, everything to them, and it's nothing really for you. So like, if the more we start to think about the others, the less we have time and energy to feel sorry about the little me, you know. So he had all these great teachings. He was such a wonderful, wonderful human so I wouldn't, I don't think I would be who I am today if it wasn't for him, plus all my other teachers that I mentioned before already. But I mean anything. Whenever I teach, actually, in this yoga teacher trainings, I say something which is totally true. If anything good comes out of my mouth, and this also applies to this talk, if anything good comes out of my mouth, it's only because of my great teachers. And if anything I said wrong or not so nice. It's because of me. That's how it is. I love it. Thank you so much, Sana. I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much. My total pleasure. Thank you, Todd, you're doing great job. Oh, thank you. I can't wait for next time. Yeah, same and come to Bali. Just twist my arm a little harder, Sana, come on, just like pull my arm up in the parsvatanasana a little harder, right? Exactly, yeah, come with your wife, yeah. Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. Well, I am so thankful I really enjoyed this, and I look forward to actually meeting you in person. Thank you. Sana, Yeah, same, totally. Thank you, Todd, yeah. Native yoga. Todd, cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce. One. If you like 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 you for you know you.