Margabandhu Martarano ~ Swami Satchidananda's Disciple: Insights into a Yogi's Lifelong Practice

Margabandhu Martarano is an esteemed yoga teacher with over 50 years of experience. He has been at the helm of the Integral Yoga Institute in New Jersey, where he has dedicated his life to spreading the teachings of Integral Yoga. As a direct disciple of Swami Satchidananda, Margabandhu has been influential in teaching yoga and pranayama across diverse environments, including prisons, psychiatric wards, and schools for children with autism. He is also an herbalist, a massage therapist, and has provided guidance in acupressure and reflexology. His holistic approach integrates multiple facets of Eastern wellness and healing practices.

Visit Margabandhu on his website: https://iyinj.org/

Key Takeaways:

• Margabandhu emphasizes the powerful healing effects of pranayama, sharing personal stories of recovery and resilience.
• His teachings are rooted in a comprehensive approach to yoga that embraces postures, breathing, meditation, and diet.
• He highlights the importance of holistic health, having effectively taught diverse groups, including inmates and autistic children through yoga and pranayama.
• Margabandhu shares insights into the life and philosophy of Swami Satchidananda and his influence on yoga in the West, particularly during the 1960s.

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Chapters

• 0:04 A Journey of Yoga, Health, and Vegetarianism with Swami Satchidananda
• 4:43 Healing Through Pranayama: A Journey of Breath and Recovery
• 8:59 Teaching Yoga and Nutrition in Prisons and Psychiatric Wards
• 13:54 Exploring Pranayama, Meditation, and Hallucinogens for Mental Clarity
• 20:22 A Journey of Yoga, Discipline, and Unexpected Encounters
• 28:22 A Journey Through Five Decades of Integral Yoga
• 36:27 Advanced Breathing Techniques and Prana Mudras for Healing
• 39:43 Teaching Autism Through Pranayama and Alternative Therapies
• 43:10 The Inclusive Teachings and Legacy of Swami Satyananda
• 52:38 Holistic Healing and Herbology for Dentists and Personal Wellness
• 55:57 A Journey from Altar Boy to Yogi and Teacher

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, body work and beyond. Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Todd, welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, and my name is Todd McLaughlin, and today I'm bringing a special guest, Margabandhu Martarano, and Margabandhu has been running the New Jersey Integral Yoga Institute for 54 years. Now, think about that, running a yoga center for 54 years, huh? I mean, come on, what a legend, right? I mean, I and he's so full of life and energy, a direct student and disciple of Swami Satchidananda. He started practicing with him back in the late 60s, and he's still teaching yoga and pranayama and bhakti and Raja yoga and holding it down for such a long time. Wait till you hear all the different things that Margabandhu has been up to in the last 50 plus years. I mean, it's really impressive, and I feel his passion. And the way he's talking, he seems so lit up about yoga and so inspired and motivated and so and you'll hear him say even more motivated now than he was 50 years ago, which you know that says a lot. Please go follow him on his website. iyinj.org, which stands for Integral Yoga Institute New jersey.org, and you know, I think you're gonna enjoy this, and I have a special treat and surprise for you, because next week, podcast is gonna be with Reverend Jaganath, who also is a direct student disciple of Swami Sadchidananda. And then the following week, I have this opportunity to interview both of them together. So you get a chance to meet Margabandhu on his own. Get a chance to meet Reverend Jaganath, and then wait till you hear these two together. I mean, they are like so special. So, you know, thank you so much to everybody behind the scenes that have been helping to organize this series, this podcast series, Premajyothi, thank you so much. And Barbara, you're the you know, you're the one who got this whole fire lit. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, on that note, let's go ahead and begin. I feel so lucky to have this opportunity to meet and speak with Margabandhu. Margabandhu, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you doing? Good! Thank you so much. This really, really is a tell me, I'm sorry. No, it's a real honor to be here, and I heard so much about you, so there's a mutual respect here. So whatever you want me to say, and whatever you want me to cover, I'll be okay. Oh, well, I really appreciate that. I mean, I I see that you have been running the integral Yoga Institute New Jersey for 50 plus years, and that is absolutely amazing. Congratulations on finding yoga and spreading it for that long and holding down a center. What is it? How do we encapsulate 50 years of teaching into a one hour yoga podcast? It's gonna be challenging. I think we can do it, though. I think we can do it. I'm up for it, all right. Well, I appreciate that, just so our listeners are hip to your history, and the way that I found you is because I love the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Swami Satchidananda. And I had a student come in and she told me that she she knew you and that you have are a student, a direct student, of Satan Ananda. And I guess I'm just so curious to hear about how you met Sachin Ananda. Well, you know, in the 60s, when that revolution was going around, and I. Uh, we were all looking for, there was the Vietnam War, there was drugs all over the place, and everybody's looking to find their place in society. And I was in school at the time, in college at the time, and and I, in a way, I was, I wasn't really happy being in school, but I was just looking for some type of direction that would make me focus on something that I want to do for the rest of my life. And I met Swami Satchidananda through the rascals they were on tour, and they took me to see him and and at that time, my health wasn't that great. I wasn't feeling well. I was doing a lot of things I was supposed to be doing. And And Swami said to none right away, got into the whole energy field of like what I really needed. And he says, the first thing you have to do is, you know, he says, I'm not going to tell you not to do anything. I'm just going to give you an alternative the way I think might be better. So I got into the yoga postures, breathing the meditation and watching my diet, watching my eating habits. And like I said, he never said, to become a vegetarian. What he did first, he taught me the mechanics of everything, even with diet. He didn't say, become a vegetarian. He taught me the mechanics of eating, no all the all the pluses that I should be doing, as eating and appreciating everything else around me. So I learned to focus on what was really necessary for me to, like, maintain my health and and follow find out what direction I really wanted to go in, you know? Oh, that's amazing, yeah. And the first thing he did, you know, in the beginning, because everybody did yoga. He was doing yoga. He gave me a book called All life is sacred. And it was about, you know, animals and human beings and how sacred life is and and he, and it was like, almost like my introduction to becoming a vegetarian. You know, I read the book and I'm saying, Well, it sounds logical. And so I tried becoming vegetarian, and I was working at an Italian deli at the time, so I was like, I was eating coca every day, and so, but yeah, I became very natural to me. I became a vegetarian, and as I got more involved with him, and I was concerned about my not only physical health, but my emotional and mental well being. He gave me a book called The Science of pranayama by his teacher, Swami Shivananda. And they read the book, and it was a very small book, but it showed me the different aspects of the different types of pranayama that you could do for certain conditions, like physical, mental, emotional health. And so I really got into it in the beginning, pranayama. And it was, it's kind of for me, it's like the best way to go. I mean, I do the postures every day, I do the meditation, but every morning I do at least 25 minutes of pranayama before I even meditate. Nice. And I do, he has a Swami Sivananda, had a particular healing meditation called the Shivananda breath, and I do that three times a day. Can you explain what the mechanics of that breathing is like? Well, it's basically done like the basic three part deep breathing and yoga, where you inhale and you know, and then exhale, you know, like, but what happens when he says you would inhale, counting to three, hold the breath, counting to six, and then the exhalation, the amount of time on the exhalation didn't matter. But during the retention, you focus on that particular the body that you feel needs that extra energy, that extra prana, nice. And that's what I did. And he said that by doing this particular breathing technique called the Shivananda healing breath, and focusing on that particular body that needs that extra prana is you could heal us anything in about two or three weeks. Wow. I was in a car accident a few years ago, and the ventricles to my heart were damaged. That was in the hospital, they thought I had a heart attack and, and I just started doing these breathing techniques and, you know, and the venue, because they were going to, they had me on operating table, they put a stent in, yeah, and then the the cardiologist, he says, No, it's not his heart. He said, The the airbag, when the bear bag hit me, it damaged the ventricles to my heart, so he didn't need a stent, so they didn't do the surgery. Then my niece's husband, who was a doctor, he says, You know what margamando? He says, You know what to do. So I went into the Sivananda healing breath, and then we build up those vents, because I was getting shortness of breath, and I was, I was in the hospital for a while. Yes, wow. You said three second inhale, six second hold, and then the duration of the exhale, as long as you want. Yeah. And do you retention? In yoga, they call it kumbhaka, yes. And that's when the body heals the retention of the prana. So when you inhale, it. In counting or three, whatever you want to count into, yeah, and you hold the practical the retention is actually when the body rebuilds itself. So that's what I did. I still do it every day, three times a day. Do you do you add in some sort of visualization at that point? If you are, you had indication that there was something wrong with your heart? Did you bring it? I imagine, I imagine the part of the body that needed extra healing. I imagined it in a healthy state. Wow. There was the ventricles that were damaged. The capillaries were broken. Yeah, imagine capillaries in a perfect, healthy state. Imagine the blood supply going through the capillaries. See, how long did it take for the doctor to notice that what you were doing was showing some positive results. Yeah, we do really well, because he was my niece's my husband, you know. So he was very cooperative, you know, good relationship today and, and he says, you know, because he told me, so, you know, Mark man. He says, You know what, you know what to do. He says, you know, he just had, I was released, and he said, go home, take care of yourself. And that's what I because what happened during the hospitals in the hospital was called, I got COVID Because they had me in the COVID ward. So I got really sick. Oh my god. So I would walk for a while. I couldn't stand up. I was really in bad shape. Pranayama really helped out tremendously. I mean, it's like, for me, it's a lifesaver. That's incredible. That's incredible. Raghavandu, I love hearing this sort of stories. Now you've been able to teach pranayama for so many years. Have you had any students come up to you and say, I can attest Margot bondu to the power of this? Yeah, there's a few. There's See, we're doing a pranayama training program. So one of the people that leading the training program, and this few people that are taking the training program, really feel that pranayama has really saved them. On the physical level, an emotional level, we're doing a pranayama training program starting next month, and it's on all the different, the prana, the mujahs, the bonders, all the hidden, all the different conditions. You know, because I've taught pranayama in different like, I taught in prisons for a while, Psych. I took in psychiatric wards, I taught autistic kids, you know, so breathing seems the best way to go, amazing postures, you know. You know that I taught Christmas for like, five years. Wow, I'm so curious about that too. I What was that experience like? It was, it was really when I first went I was approached by a psychologist. This was about 19 seven. We were living in common station, New Jersey, and conversation was a there was a prison, there was a jail there. That was where all the trials went. So you had all the, you know, psychologists and all the wardens. They were all there at this in this particular prison. So they approached me and asked me if I would do they want to do, like, like a test, you know, like, how prisons would function during yoga, deep relaxation yoga, Nidra is, that's what we call it, yeah, yeah. And so I said, Okay, I went down and there was seven prisoners, you know, and so what they wanted to do, they wanted me to teach them yoga, but they weren't curious about the deep relaxation part, so they put electrodes on each one. And before the class, they tested them in their anxiety level was eight or nine, and he wanted to see after yoga nidra, what happened? Like, how much they would, you know, progress, yeah. So, after deep relaxation, they were down two or three. Wow. So, so they were so impressed, not even to have me teach classes on a regular basis. I mean, so, yeah, so that day I was gonna, you know, I had to go through, we had to go through some political channels. You know, there was a psychologist, there was a war, and there was a bunch of people that had agreed to all this, because it was like a they were trying to do some testing with these prisoners. And so the first day, they said, like, we're going to do the class. They had seven prisoners come in, and there was in this room, and they wanted two guards to come in with me. And I said that one that's not going to do you're not going to have two guards watching, you know this, yeah, like, what? So I told my I didn't want to do it that way. I would rather do it by themselves. Keep the room locked, and I think I would be all right. So one of the guards, his name was cap Johnson. The prisoners really respected him. He took the class. Ah, very quickly. I'll take the class. Perfect solution. Yeah. And the class went really well. And there I signed the contract for three years, and went three days a week. I taught them pranayama and breathing techniques. And it was I had a really good relationship with the, you know, teammates for years, it's incredible, some really good guys, some of them, like a couple murderers and stuff. But it was I really they trusted me, you know. And I got into their language, you know. And I know how to respond to them. And it was, yeah, and I went three times. So when, actually, after, I think, was I. Five, three or five years, the grant was over, you know, and politically, they didn't want to do it anymore. I volunteered to just teach for nothing because, you know, I wanted to leave these guys, but they didn't. They couldn't do it, you know, such a Yeah. So it was really something, you know, but that's so cool, dedicated five years, that's a long that's incredible. That's incredible. I love hearing that story. You know, is it? Tell me, sorry. No, please tell me. Tell me. We actually, there was a part what we wanted to do with this. The woman psychologist, name is crane grosbeck. She was really into rehabbing the inmates, you know, that's what you want to do. So I don't know if you ever visit a prison, but the diet is, like, horrendous. So we talked about working with the diet. And at that time, there was a fellow in North Carolina. His name was Bo Luz off, and he was working with inmates too. So he got a hold of me, and we were trying to get a program together for for, uh, nutrition for inmates, you know. But like, once again, politically speaking, it was, you know, it didn't work out. But I felt that because the diet is horrendous, you know. I mean, I used to eat with them. Sometimes you sit down during lunch and it was like, sugar, white flour, mashed potato. It was like, terrible. I hear the food is not very good. It was like a man say, Well, if I eat like that, it'd be dead in two days. But that, that part didn't work out, you know, so, but it was a really nice experience. And then I also taught in the psychiatric ward in St Joseph's Hospital in Paterson, New Jersey. I did that for a long time. Did you have any harrowing experiences in that department, because, like, I remember I've from learning pranayama. There are, I've heard people say stories about how you have to be careful when learning pranayama. And then I heard my teacher would made a joke once that there's like, you know, dedicated wards in India for pranayama victims, like, if you if you didn't practice pranayama properly, you could have some type of psychiatric reaction. And personally, I've never experienced that. I don't know if you've ever met anybody over your years of teaching and practice that has had a negative reaction to pranayama, but I'm so curious to hear about what you're working with psychiatric patients, what type of reaction you witness? Well, I was very, I was very careful. See psychiatric seminar on medication, so you have to be very careful. And I never heard a lot of people say that, you know, you have to be careful with pranayama, it could be dangerous. I've been teaching it 54 years. I never had an experience where I felt, you know, maybe because I felt that I knew what I was doing, but never that had a really bad experience. You know, some people, because of their digestion or the pressure, sometimes you have to work with them a little bit. But there's different breathing techniques that you could do that would counteract whatever they were feeling, see, and this pranayama techniques for digestion relaxation. So, I mean, if I learned directly from Swami Satan on, so whenever I had a problem, I would just, you know, I would ask him, sir. So I had first hand experience. Yes, I had with a fellow in Watts during the red when they had the riots and years ago. And there was a African American fellow. He was in a wheelchair, and he couldn't be he was in a car accident, and friends of mine asked me to go see him, and I so I saw him such an under what should I do? Called the most, you know, I'm teaching fellow can't move his fingers or his hands. What could I do to help? So he said, do the three Part D breathing, he says. And during the inhalation, let him bend forward and come back on the exhalation, just like very little movements. After about three weeks, you could start it. He started moving his fingers Toronto went right into the rest of his body, amazing. And, you know, he's still, he's still in the wheelchair. And then I so I would call, Gird up against Swami Satan. And again I see, is there anything else I could do? He says, Ask him moves his last thought before the accident. So I asked him, and he there was a trauma. And what happens is, I told Swami said. He says, sometimes, when there's an accident, the trauma manifested such a like, a fierce vibration that would like really affect the person, not only mentally but physically see. So the fella told me what the trauma was, and we worked on that little meditation, and he seemed to get better and better. Yeah, it was, it was really nice. I was in California, so I had to go back, so I kind of lost contact with him. But, you know, but for the month I was with him, there was some results. That's amazing. That's incredible. Do you think the rocking of the body forward and back in relation to the inhale and exhale created some sort of like lever system? Dumb or like, almost like it well, allowed the prana to enter deep into the where the core of his digestion, that's where he was having problems, to getting noise. That makes sense. You know, I've dead. I've seen that's all right. I've seen. My first introduction to such Ananda was always I was born in the 70s, and then in the late 80s, I started listening to 60s music and getting nostalgic and kind of wishing that I was around for Woodstock. And then so I was watching a Woodstock film, and I saw a yogi with, you know, orange robes on and, and I thought that that's amazing what, what's going on here. And and then it had on this particular film, there was, like the classic footage that we see of Woodstock, of some hippies hanging out, doing some yoga, also having a wild drug induced experience as well. And then, and I remember it caught my attention as to like, how fascinating that here's this Indian yoga guru spending time at Woodstock and having this interaction with all these, all of the folks that were seeking some type of liberation. Can you talk a little bit about that time period, and what you learned from I don't know if you did experiment with hallucinogens, but what did Sachin Ananda teach in relationship to how to do it naturally, or what his thoughts were on all these crazy Westerners tripping out? That's exactly what he told me, usually, in the beginning with Swami Satchidananda, if you want to have a personal consultation with him, you did that was like going to see a psychiatrist almost, you know, so and at that time, I did hallucin genetics out of the herbs, you know, getting high every day. So when I went to see him, he was asking me, you know, 12 years it's just a casual conversation. Then he asked him what type of, you know, drugs I did, and I told him. So he told me about what, LSD, why it was so popular and at that time, how just Huxley and Timothy Leary were advocates of so he says, What happens when you take a chemical like that? And he gave me, he broke down all the compounds in LSD, it's, you know, what they were. He says, that type of chemical, what it does, it releases serotonin from the brain at a very rapid pace. He says, what happens with your third eye? There's a channel. He says, it opens up the third eye. The serotonin being released opens up the Third Eye very rapidly, you know? And that's when you get all these visions. What happens? It closes shut. The next day, you really lost because all those thoughts manifested, you couldn't figure out what it was all about. He says, what meditation does during meditation, when your mind is completely still, it opens up that third eye very slowly, but doesn't close anymore. So you get that awareness stays with you, and you can interpret that awareness through that meditation. And on a daily basis, your mind will get clearer and you'll be able to see or explain what was happening at that time. Wow, wow. So that's how it explained meditation, and difference between meditation and drugs. So it was very somebody brought right into, you know, so I did the medication every day, you know, I mean posture, breathing, very cool. You made mention that he knew the chemical breakdown of LS. I know it just did you, did you? How would you what sort of insight do you have on his like, level of intelligence? Did he strike you as a very intelligent man, very, uh, intuitive. What if you were to analyze on all levels, on all levels he was, you know, yeah, I mean, like, I give you an example. Like, he knew he his students very well. And when I went to see him, I told him everything about everything you know, personal, depression, whatever's going on. I never told him I was bad in math. Why would he even say that? Right was I get to learn him? He would call me up see Mark a bond. He says, I'm getting a Jacuzzi tub. But the doorway, the tub is 37 inches the doorway. Said, What could I could, could you get a tub? You know? He would say that, and I would figure out, dementia, I'm supposed to tell me that the next day, close to him, he's telling me he's getting these MICHELIN tires, and the rims are 40, you know. And I'm saying, You got to be kidding. Then I figured, after the third time, I figured out, Wow, he really knows you. You know, it was like, it was like, That's how well he knew us. Yeah, he knew the deepest part of what was going on with you and he and he figured out every time with me was, was he a would you say? Was he a strict teacher, or was he compat like it was compassion, more of his basis? Yeah. The compassion was there. But he wanted it. He wanted for you to be the best at where you could be. So if that required a little discipline, he was right there, yeah, can you do you have any any times that you can remember where you feel he disciplined you, but many times you left me on a Santa Monica freeway once what you guys were driving in the car together, and you made him upset. He dropped. He pulled over. And I gotta tell you start. I gotta tell you the story. So I get a call. Swami session is in Pasadena, Apocalypse town. He was in. It was, was simply, anyway, was in California, and I go to see him, you know. And it was a couple cars. And from this place where we were, we were going to go to, like, a housewarming from Swami Satyananda. So there was two women in the car that I never was, kind of like, I didn't know him, but there was, like, a flirtation going on So, and I was in the car with Swami, session now, and then this girl is looking behind me like you see she was coming. So he stops the car on the freeway, smug, man. I know you see the tires, you know, something like that. So I get out of car, and also he takes off. That's how you write the discipline. But the best one was what happened when he first came to New York, they did a program at Carnegie Hall on yoga, and they had two Heidi Zupan was his name, and another fella were demonstrating the posture. Was sitting in the chair in the middle, and these two guys were doing all the advanced stuff. Mayor Lindsay was there. Everybody was there, and they did the advanced postures. It was, it was a fantastic show. And and it was run by the New York Times. It was, it was unbelievable. And the people really mesmerized by these fellas doing the postures. So two years later, he's in New Jersey. No, I'm going to do the postures. Okay, so I'm training life for the Olympics, and everybody's training. My ego got so big, I couldn't my head couldn't fit through the door. I'm going to do this because Philly Dickinson University, and I'm going to do the postures. I'm really Todd. I was like, training like I was going to go to the Olympics. Yeah, right, yes. My ego was so big. Was ridiculous. Like, about 20 minutes before the bosses, he let somebody else do he put me in charge of extension cords. And that was it bosses. That was it. Knew he could see the video, and he knew, you know, this isn't going to be good, so let's, let's get him doing the electrical instead, yep, oh, man, what's classic. I love it. So his discipline was, you know, it was, and, you know, and do you understand? I understood a lot of times. I really understood, yeah, yeah. When did you open a yoga studio? Because if you've been the studio first started any guy who was a lead singer of the rascals. I was living with him at the time, so he was on tour a lot. So and I had what happened. There was a couple from Montclair, New Jersey, they wanted to open up a center. So in hottie Zupan was the director of the New York iyi. So he called me up. Mark Obama, I'm teaching a class in Montclair. These people want to open up the center. Why don't you come and take the class? Because I used to do the postures. So I go take the class. And after the class, these people don't want to start the center, asked me, Hey, I did the posture pretty good. And they said, if I would help out, and I really didn't want to get involved. But I said, Okay, how about so I took teachers training. When they finished teachers training, the couple broke up, and that is no center. So I got, I'm a yoga teacher with no class and but I was living with Eddie at the time, so he says, Look, I'm on tour a lot, and he had a really big room apartment. He said, Why don't you start classes here? So I invited friends over, and then, you know, they knew exactly we got his apartment. I would get 40 people in the class, you know. Oh, wow. We did that for almost a year, and I start going two, three times a week in his department, you know, yeah. So there was a couple that came and they, they there was a building down the street from his apartment, and the parents owned the part the building, and we cleaned it out, and we we were in that center for about how many years, about 18 years, you know. And then from there, we had a house in common station. We rented it from the Sisters of Charity. There was a brother monk. His name was brother David. He was close with Swami Satchidananda, and he was a Benedictine monk, and he did a lot of programs with Swami Satchidananda. So he we became very closer to me. So you know, margamanda, if he's wanted place to live, there's a st Elizabeth's College in Morristown, New Jersey. The in conversation New Jersey, he said, you can rent the house from them, and you could teach classes there. So we had a center in Garfield. We taught the classes, and we had a house where 17 of us lived there. Oh, wow. And so from there, we taught classes at this conversation. And there was a lot of Morristown was the upper middle class area. So I met her. There's a lot of socialites there. So I met a woman who wanted to have private classes. So I went to her house, and I go to house, and just people sitting in the living room, she's introducing me, and it was she said, This is my son in law, Kurt Vonnegut, oh man, I love Kurtz blur. I've read so many of Kurt's books. I love Kurt Vonnegut. There was, yes, that was a son. Oh, so. And then this other lady was, they were very there was a lot of money with them. So there was one woman, Miss stole, that took the class, and I taught her for 35 years. Ah, and she was Christopher reason, wow. So I'm Superman, yes, yes, I do know it. Love all these people, you know. And this woman gave us$25,000 to buy the building that we're now in, ah over here, you know. And you're still in this you're still in that same location. We're in, safe family, New Jersey, beautiful space. I gotta come visit. That sounds so I can't wait. I'm coming. I can't wait. I want to come visit you in Florida. Well, I'll come up there in summer and you come down in winter. That's, that's the perfect trade. All right. So 54, years later, we're still here. Wow. That is so inspirational. Mark Bondy, because I just, I hope I can do the same thing. I want to follow in your footsteps. I do. I really do. I feel like there's so much joy in holding down a center and teaching. And I just, I want to keep going until the very end. And so I just, I I love to meet you and hear your enthusiasm. You sound just as passionate about it as if you started yoga yesterday. So I love that. So we're so refreshing. No more. So you feel more inspired. I love that. So, you know, I'm thinking of, if it's been 54 years, this has to be, if it's to 2025 it's like 1971 you somewhere around about there. Medgar, ever 67 Okay, then, but, and then we opened up our own center in 19, actually, Eddie's apartment says it was actually 69 but then housing wired the play. How long have we been here? Sean in this building where we own now, you know, we own it. Owns it. So, I mean, with with that many years, with five decades, what have you seen in the yoga world that you're very proud of, to see the evolution and what have you seen that you're a little disappointed in? Well, most of it really. People have really responded very well. The people that took it, like to a higher level, you know, now their lives became much better, you know. And I teach it, but having a lot of times, I do different programs in different centers, you know. So I do a lot of pranayama. Has really been very popular lately. So there's one place in South Jersey I go and everybody wants to learn pranayama because it wasn't really that big with other centers. You know, yeah, past two centers I work with, they wanted pranayama So and there's, there's an interest in them, and I see a lot of people, they feel much better by doing a complete yoga class yoga. See, the way Swami said to designed our integral yoga. He covered all the aspects of yoga. That's what he called the integral yoga. It covers the breathing, the meditation, Braj yoga, bhakti yoga, the chanting, see? So he covered everything in one shot. When he first came here, he only had a 30 day visa. So he we were all like, 60s experts, you know, pseudo intellects, you know, like chemistry majors, you know, that type of, type of guys. So he says, What am I gonna do with these kids? You know, plus he was, he was, you know, like people used to get on this case, you know, he's teaching these hippies. And said they're like, you know, they have no direction. So he gave us the direction, see. But the class he taught us covered everything, you know, yes, yes, all the different aspects of yoga. He worked with our diet, you know. He worked with everything, everything possible for us, you know, yes. And then we all bought into it, you know, Peter Max was one of the main avocados. So we had access to everybody and everything. He had very successful people supporting him. See Alice Coltrane, you know, wow. So well, what have you observed? And maybe this is off your radar completely, have you? Is there anything that's happened? The yoga world, in the yoga community, in the evolution of yoga in the last 50 years that you've witnessed that sometimes makes you go, Oh man, I wish. I wish yoga wasn't being represented that way. Or is there something that's caught your attention that's that's made you feel like it's being misrep, misrepresented and in its authenticity. Well, sometimes it becomes just like an exercise, you know, yeah. I mean, it's more like our yoga. I mean, it's all good. Maybe you're doing your to some degree. But a lot of it's misinterpreted, you know, the real meaning, you know, finding yourself and stuff. A lot of it's like, yeah, like, physically oriented, you know, in a way, and it's not that bad, but, you know, if you want to find the spirit of a dis go, you know how it is, it goes deeper than what they sometimes they advocate, but sometimes it's their lack of experience, maybe too, you know, yeah, we learned, in a way that we learned All the different aspects he taught us, Raja Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, you know, all the different levels. So you were fortunate to have a teacher, and then if you have someone that could explain that to you, and then you buy into it, then you're fine. But a lot of times, people don't have that experience, or don't have that access to a person that would teach them that, you know, yes, that's awesome time. I remember one time it was at a talk, and someone asked, Swami said, No, you know, Guru Dev, you know, I don't think yoga is, you know, we need to do aerobics. So he says, go look up aerobics in the dictionary, it means with oxygen. And there's nothing that brings more oxygen into the body than yoga, the postures. Yes. Yes. So that was his answer, you know, yeah, you don't need, like, kind of like, you don't need to go and do a million jumping jacks and ride your bike 100 miles, like, yoga breathing. You're gonna get it all. You're gonna get it all that that's stuck in my head, you know? So I the breathing is the most important thing for me right now. You know, that's amazing. Have you maintained a vegetarian diet through the course of these last 50 years or so? Yes, wow. I I was working in the deli when I became a vegetarian. Yeah, the last I tried was a liver sandwich, because he's like livers. I made about to become a vegetarian. I was gonna say, let me try for a while. I took one bite a sandwich, I put it down, and that was it. 54 years later, wow, and never showed it. And even it wasn't even interesting me and I was drinking a belly cuts every day, making sausage and everything. Ridiculous. My boss went nuts. The real Sicilian? No, he's a real Sicilian. You know, were you getting me? What did? What did your mom and dad think? You know my father, my mother and father were really great. You know my sister, my old sister, rosemary, who's a scientist, she got concerned, because I might be lacking something, but, but, no, my family is very accepting. Yeah, my mother did yoga after a while. Yeah, you got your mom doing it. That's cool. My father did it for a while, and my mom passed. My father even came to classes at the institute. Nice. Yeah, my parents, you know, my father being Sicilian, you know, being stubborn. Sometimes he was really good. My parents were pretty cool. Yeah, that's amazing. That's so cool. Yeah, so I, for me, the yoga path was easy. It was something I write into I bought it to Swami satyannas teachings. I was surrounded by I had good support from friends, family. So it was very easy for me, you know, yes. And whatever I did, you know, I lived in the nostril. I took the vow of a monk for a year. I was celibate for a while, you know. So, yeah, I did the whole thing, you know. And I found it very rewarding and very healing and very mentally relaxing for me. Yeah, I can imagine doing it, I hear ya. I hear ya. After the the breath that you mentioned, the the inhale, the retention, the exhale. What is your next go to breathing technique that you either enjoy yourself or enjoy teaching well for my own personal practice, which I feel made me, I don't want to say advanced, but it's a little more than I would normally teach a regular class. I do a lot of bandhas and mudras. You know, there's a technical prana mudra. I know the hand mudras, and I do that every morning. And each hand, mood you deals with each hand. There's different fingers for the fingers, and they work on different areas of the body, the different five Piranhas, Samana prana, udana prana, and I work on that every day to bring that energy to different areas of my body. I had a fractured knee, so I do udana prana. Every morning to bring the energy to that particular party where the knee had been fractured. See, is it udana, the down breath? Yeah, udana, where it's this prana. Then the prana itself is the one from the navel to the throat. That's prana. Apana, prana is downward that goes from the navel to the lower extremities. Samana, prana is the digestive tract. It goes gallbladder, liver, stomach and spleen. Udana prana is the extremities, from the shoulders to the fingertips, hips to the toes, throat to the top of the head, and then vayana. Prana is all the promise. So each finger mudra represents a different prana. So for example, if you're doing something with the gallbladder, you do hand mudras for Samana prana. So that's what I do every day. I do each mudra and like, depending on what particular part of the body I feel these that extra energy. But I've been doing udana prana for past year or so just to heal the fracture in my knee. It works nice, amazing. And in this method, or the way that Sachin Ananda taught you, was their emphasis on trying to increase the duration of kumbhaka of retention. Was there any sort of like here you'll build up to maybe doing five seconds, potentially 1030 a minute long. Was there ever any sort of like endurance challenge involved in the Kumbh? Be careful with that, with the retention, because sometimes, like you said, before you know, you have to be careful. So there's one we do, the alternate nostril breathing so and then the advanced stages. They call it sucrovict, where, when you're inhaling five and then usually exhale in County 10, that's a normal one. When you do the retention, you inhale five, hold five, exhale, 10. Then you build up to 142, and build up. So then it goes, inhale, five, hold 20, exhale, 20, see. So that's an advanced variation, plus the different bonds for the, you know, Kabbalah Bhatta, that breathing technique we do, alanda, Banda, Ula, Banda, you know. So, yeah, we have to be careful. So in the beginning class, we don't teach the bandhas or the mudras, you know. So we're very careful with that. Gotcha, what I had success with, I teach, I was teaching autistic children, you know, and I found that the the alternate nostril breathing, seemed to help because of the fact that, when I did research on the autism, most of them, there's a fibers that connect the different hemispheres in the brain. They call it the corpus callosum. And a lot of autistic children, I found that they don't have enough fibers so that switching doesn't go it doesn't happen. So they do a thing called stemming. Where they start they vibrate. That's what they quote. That's what they call it. When the autistic children start moving their body, because the energy gets stuck. So the alternating seems to help, that he seems to stop that. Wow. Also autism, I found that a lot of them have digestive disorders, so I would give them certain herbs for the stomach, and that seemed to help out a lot. I know I worked children for about five six years, yeah, about five or six years, yeah, incredible. I found, yeah, that really helped out a lot. Yeah. You know, sometimes with autism, children might have a hard time, like focusing and staying still, and so to the in my mind, the thought of attempting to teach pranayama in that environment could be a more challenging environment to do it. What was some of the things that you would do to make it where it seemed fun for them that they'd want to do it, versus like the teacher coming in and saying, you know, here, do this and follow me, and having them be like, I don't even, you know if I know I want to do this, what was that like? That's a good question. Well, I remember when I first went to teach, years ago, I was teaching school, there was autism, bunch of kids, and ask Swami Sachi, now what to do. I'm going to go to the school I have no experience, just like 40 years ago, I just started teaching. He says, Bring a drum and do the chanting and do and give him the balancing exercises. So bring a drum and chant, bring a drum and chant, have him try to balance it the same. Yeah. Do the best vagus nerve you do the chanting. It goes right through the vagues nerve to the parts of the brain, the hippocampus area and the hypothalamus, the the memory center of the brain, as well as the emotional center. That's what chanting does, so and I taught them balancing, and then went to the school for hyperactive kids, emotional kids, and I thought balancing and the chanting and the directors were amazed that the kids responded because they're mimicking you too. You know, autistic kids like to mimic you, and it was pretty successful. That's cool. This woman I worked for, she had a an organization called ashrams for autism. I. So she had teachers, so I used to teach the teachers what to teach. Oh, man, that is so good. I work her diet and everything with them. I'm so happy I'm hearing this because I have a local teacher who is involved in an organization called surfers for autism, and she's like, we got to do a yoga program for the surfers for autism. And I said, Okay, I'll follow your lead. She was so excited, but I'll have to introduce her to you. And perhaps, I'm sure, a ton of great ideas that's amazing. Margo Bandu, what is, what is your name? Translate as, and did Satan Ananda give you your name. Friend to all that comes across this path. Can you say that again, please? Friend to all that comes across this path, thank you. Nice. And that was a name that he gave you. Is that something that's a part of the tradition of studying with him is receiving a spiritual name? Marga means path. Bandu means friend, yeah, when you meet people that have no idea what yoga is, I don't even know if that probably happens to you now, because probably everybody coming up to is like your reputation proceeding, dude, do you introduce yourself as Marga bondu to everyone? Is it catching? Right? Yeah, it's rough being a yogi in your hometown, because everybody knew I went somewhere else in Marga Bondo. I grew up with all my friends, but they call you like Bitcoin mark a bond Yeah, love it. My friends are into yoga, and I still see them, you know, but they're great. They support me and everything. Yeah. Do you travel to help me out with the the name of the ashram that's really famous around about the the Yes, please, yeah. It's called the great air once a year. Nice. It was a couple months ago. That's yoga Ville, right? Yoga Ville, yoga. Where is that? It's in Virginia, nice, in the country, in the mountains. It's a Yeah, yeah. I can't even think Charlottesville, near Charlottesville, okay, what is your experience going there? Oh, I love it there. Last time I went there, I gave Satsang there. Nice, nice. And is there? Are there residents there? Like, is it an ash? Oh, yeah. People live there. You're monks. There's a lot of monks. There a lot of female monks, mostly, but there's a lot of people. It's like a community. It's like a city. It made it like a city. It's not only in Ashram. There's a city. People, you know, regular people have regular jobs, you know. But everybody's into yoga and supports Swami Satyananda, you know, teachings. Oh, that's gotta be, that's gotta be incredible. Is what, what does it entail to become a monk or a nun within this tradition? Well, you take vows, you know, you follow the teachings, and you take vows of, you know, different vows that you want to live by. And you know it's, it's to me, it would be, you know, when I did take the vows, I was okay with it, you know, because I wasn't married. But you know, it depends on, you know, where you feel, how you feel about the teachings, and if you're going to go further, then, you know, I had experience. One time I had to give a talk on celibacy to 150 nuns and priests, and I wasn't even I saw about the time I called good I says, What am I going to do? So he said, you know, he told me the first thing to do, he said, Tell him it's not a sacrifice, and give them the physiological benefits. And so I went that day, and I had first got, maybe 50 years ago, and I just nuns of priests. There's nobody else involved, you know. And I gave him to talk about it, how, you know, Physiology of and stuff. And they were in. One of the priests was a scientist, and he came up to me after the talk. He said that was very interesting. Yeah. So Wow. Grito, his main, I would say, main, absolute attribute that he he was all about was that he explained everything to the lowest common denominator. He made you really understand what you were doing, no matter, and that was no matter what you were doing, he would explain it. That's how he was such a clear thinker. It's really interesting. Did when he came to us, I don't know what year it was, what was his what was his first visit? You said he met Peter Max and Conrad rooks was in Italy, I think. And they brought him to New York, 6766 or 67 Yeah. And then from that point, did he travel internationally again, or did he kind of stay put? Oh, what happens? He had a he had a 30 day or 60 visa to stay in New York. And Peter Max had invited a group. Of people for his friends, because at that time, Peter Max was really popular. You know who he is, right? The artist I did, I do so he and people kept coming, and then he opened up a center in New York City. That's where I used to go see until we opened up our own center, and people really gravitated towards him. He spoke at Carnegie Hall in different talks, and he became friendly with the Rabbi gelberman and brother David, you know a friend. You know a Ben, addicting monk and a rabbi. So between the three of them, it was like, you know, it was really interesting. And that's how yoga became more popular. Just with those three men together, there was a retreat. In the beginning the Anna's retreat. There was Rabbi government, Swami Satchidananda, brother David. There was a Buddhist monk. It was the first Annas retreat. 350 people showed up. It was amazing. Wow. It was 10 day silent retreat. Did it? Did it? Did it seem to you when you met him that he was a proponent of all religion, and if you were to try to, if, if you were, if you were to attempt to put what philosophical leaning he was, would you say He was like an Advaita vedantist, or was he, you know, did he have any specific like Hindu, you know, yeah, yeah. But that with him, because I was in such a space that never entered my mind, yeah. I just wanted to see, of course, of course. You look over here, you see, we have our youngster has all the different yoga. They're all the different religions. See, he introduced a way that we all understood all religions are acceptable. Yeah, see, I love that. Yep. Yes, yes. Yes. It didn't matter. Yeah. It sounds like he was very inclusive in relation to whatever religion, male, female. He was comfortable. Yeah, yeah. He was comfortable. Anyway. He was anywhere, wherever he spoke. He would speak at a Buddhist monastery, a Hindu center, Catholic Church. It didn't matter where he was, and he made everybody around him feel comfortable. And to me, it was amazing that he knew so much about everything else. You know, he just had that feel for everything. It is incredible reading his work that, yeah, what? What were the circumstances of his transitioning from this world? His death was there, when was that, and what was the circumstances? Well, he, he kind of knew he was going to, you know, he, he contacted us here in New Jersey, and he said, and had a secretary, get a group of us and get together at that time, we know it was going on, and we met with him, we stayed with him, and maybe two months later he passed, yeah, two months later he passed. So I guess that was his way of saying, I guess he knew he was going to, going to pass. His time was up, yeah? He just had a hand on everything, you know. And when we try to figure it out as much as we can, it's like, you know, yeah. Understood. What year was that? 2000 2002 gotcha. Gotcha. Did the community draw together? Were there any challenges in that, in that time period? Yeah, yeah, he could as well. Yeah. Yeah. He may stand the people that stayed with him understood his whole trip, you know, yeah, yeah. Especially here in New Jersey, we have such we have a song, we have a small group. Everybody's on the same page. Understood, yeah, what? What is, what is it? What does a day in your life look like? Are how many hours a day are you teaching? Are you I have my own practice. See, I'm here every day. I mean, thank God. I mean, he gave me such a position to be in. I'm here every day, you know? So I have my own personal practice. But then I teach. I I teach at fairle Dickerson University for the past 54 years, and it's accredited. Yoga is accredited. So I teach there two days a week, you know. So, and then I work on people, you know. And then in between, teach a class or something. So, you know, it's, it's really pretty easy day. And you're I noticed that you're a master herbologist as well. I don't call my sister myself a master. I know a lot about herbs. I just did a program Saturday on them. Once a year. There's this dentist, Dr Malika, and he has a school, a college for it's called the integrative a. A program for for dentists, just for dentists. So once you I give a talk, I'm the herbalist, and give it. I just did last Saturday, and I'm there from nine to five on talking about herbs to dentists, not only herbs, lifestyle and stuff like that. And they come from all over the world. Dentists, like there was a dentist from China, was from Costa Rica. It's really good school. Dr Malika organized a school, and it does all the I do, all the alternative healing methods for dentistry, and just and let them want to know about their own personal health as well. Wow, wow. For example, I talked a little bit this Saturday about constipation with dentists, because, you know, they're doing root canal and you got to go to the bathroom. They're not going to leave. They can't leave, you know. So something like, you like, say, so I was explaining to them, you know, like, what to do and how to handle that, you know, because a lot of times it happens, you know. You know, they're in the middle of a root canal. You can't say, I'll be right back. You can't the mouth's open, so you got to really be careful. So they have a really explained to them. I see you really have a, like, a tough job sometimes, just for your own personal health, you know? Yeah, I hear it's a really challenging job, like neck and shoulders being hunched over in that position. And they can have really chronic pain they get. Yeah, so a lot of them want to learn not only about herbiology, but their own personal health, what they could do. Very cool. I also saw that you're a massage therapist in an acupressure, acupressure, acupressure and reflexology practitioner, when At what point did you feel called to do hands on body work. Well, I always, I always felt that way, even as a kid. It was, I know, but when I was at Hippocrates, you know Hippocrates? I Well, I know there's one here in West Palm Beach. Is that the same moment? This was run by Dr Ann Wigmore. When it was in Boston. Okay, when I was in Boston, they made victorious COVID. He was author of survival of 21st century. So I was running the kitchen there, so Dr Ann would put me in charge of working on certain people that needed extra help. So I learned reflexology, because the main therapy Hippocrates was reflexology. And then while I was there, there was a fellow named Stephen up Richard. He was considered the master acupressure person in Boston, so I took classes with him, and then I learned acupuncture from Dr Ralph Allen Dale, some, but I never practiced acupuncture. I never felt comfortable with that. Yeah, but so then I studied with Dr Christopher herbology, and and then, so, yeah, so that's why I do, I work with people. They come in. I do iridology. I try to figure out, I read out a program for them. I work or make her you should come, if you come up here with do a whole thing that sounds that would be incredible. Margo bond. Do I love all the facets that you're speaking of. I mean, I just love that you have such a breadth of history, the amount of different situations you have taught in, from psychiatric wards to prisons to with children with autism to holding down your own studio for 50 plus years, running teacher training programs, teaching priests and nuns about celibacy prior that one would make my palms sweat. Yeah? Here, everybody don't do it, yeah? I always remember the first thing he told me, you know, tell him it's not a sacrifice. Yeah, that makes sense, because I was, I used to be an altar boy, me too. So, you know, I was about to boy, juvenile delinquent, juvenile delinquent. I went from altar boy to delinquent to yogi. Yeah, that's the typical trajectory, isn't I think I followed that. I followed that same but so, but I always had, I always had a, like a yearning to learn more about God. There was something that I always, even as a kid, you know, saying no, who is God? You know, what's it all about? And then when I met Swami Satchidananda, you made it really clear how everything should be, what I should do to experience that. And that's it, you know, man, so yoga for us, you you me, you know, it's a it's a nice for us, it's a lifestyle, almost, you know. And and people come to us, you know, it's a blessing that they come to us and we're able to make them feel relaxed, even if you make them just feel relaxed. That's like a blessing for us, you know. So I find, I find, very blessed that we're here. We have an environment that we have our own right. You have your place. We have our place. It's we're really fortunate, you know, we consider what's going on in the world today. We're really fortunate to have a place where they come to us, man, you know, well said Margo Bandu, well said, I am so grateful for this opportunity. Thank you so much. I mean, we're on a little three week run here where this podcast will be released. The next one will be with Reverend Jagannath, and then you'll have one with the two of you together, which I can't wait to to have this opportunity to get the two of you together and hear stories from both, both of y'all. I when I had a pre POS podcast interview with with you guys the other day, it was just so refreshing to see how, how much you guys respect each other. I love seeing that. It's really something. Yeah, so close. Oh man, well, I can't thank you enough. I appreciate your generosity and thank you for holding it down for so long. And I can feel your passion for what you do, and it really is inspirational, and I just am very grateful. Thank you so much. Margo Bandu, thank you so proud of you really thank you. Native yoga. Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. 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 Yeah, now you.