Holly Skodis is the Founder Yoga Is Vegan.
Sharon Gannon is the founder of the Jivamukti Yoga School and Jivamukti Method, created with David Life in New York City in 1984. Sharon is an artist, animal rights advocate, musician and a best-selling author of many acclaimed publications with the release of The Magic Ten and Beyond.
Sharon’s roster of students have included many celebrities including vegan superheroes Kris Carr and Cowspiracy and What the Health filmmaker, Kip Andersen. It is my honor and pleasure to share my interview with this legendary vegan yogi.
HS: For folks who might be meeting you in this interview, please provide a little background about Jivamukti Yoga and how veganism and ahimsa relate to it.
SG: I became a yoga teacher because I felt it would provide me with the best platform for activism—vegan activism, animal rights and environmentalism. Ahimsa forms one of the five foundational tenets of the Jivamukti Yoga method. We define that further by saying: Ahimsa is a nonviolent, compassionate lifestyle that emphasizes veganism, animal rights and environmentalism.
HS: Were you already vegan or vegetarian in ’86 when you met Swami Nirmalananda?
SG: I have been a vegan since 1983
HS: In the pranayama section of your new book, you mention that improving the diet is the first step towards improving the breath. You recommend that the yogi should choose foods that are sattvic (light) in nature consisting of organic fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains while referring to meat and dairy as being tamasic (heavy) foods. While I agree with you 100%, often raw milk is listed as a sattvic food in Ayurveda. Can you expand on why it shouldn’t be there?
SG: If we want women to be respected, if we do not want to condone sexual abuse, rape or slavery then we should avoid all milk products. Because milk, raw, pasteurized, organic, whatever as well as butter, cheese, yogurt etc. are all cruel products of a cruel system based on the sexual abuse of women and children—cow mothers and their children.
Why should a yogi wise up to this—to what the dairy industry is all about? A yogi wants to be free—moksha means liberation. You can never be free by causing others to be enslaved. Cows are slaves.
Yes it is true that in the past milk products were designated as sattvic foods for yogis. We cannot change what happened in the past, all we can do is to start now, question our past habits and beliefs and do our best to live as kindly as possible. Exploiting and abusing cows is not kind. Exploiting anyone should not be condoned. Certainly slavery should never be condoned.
If we want yoga to be relevant today—we have to make yoga atha, which means now. It has to be hip and that means present, current. I believe this is what Patanjali suggests when he opens his yoga sutra with the word atha. I mean he could have said, “Once upon a time….” But he didn’t.
Now people are beginning to wake up and to realize that how we treat others will be how we will be treated. At this time people are beginning to understand the power of their own actions—to see the connection between action and reaction; between what they think, say and do and the reality they find themselves living in. There is a shift in consciousness happening now in human beings where we are beginning to make the connection between how we treat other animals and our own health and happiness. If we want to be free then we must free others if we want to be happy then we must not make others unhappy, if we do not want to be sexually abused then we should not abuse others and on it goes. A whole new world of possibilities opens up to us, when we begin to realize that our actions towards others will determine what happens to us.
HS: The simplicity, digestibility and clarity of your new book, The Magic Ten and Beyond is phenomenal. You have a true gift to modernizing ancient teachings while keeping the magic alive. How did the influence of your guru, Shri K. Pattabhi Jois, and his sense of adventure and mysterious ways help you in this way?
SG: He was light hearted, filled with joy and very very humble. He never seemed to take himself too seriously, perhaps because he didn’t identify so much with himself—his body/mind self. He was focused on God. To us who were still focused on our small selves his devotion seemed to defy logic and appear very mysterious. Often students tried to pin him down to blacks and whites and he seemed to nimbly avoid all the traps. His method was one of love, kindness, patience, and humor. His approach was infectious.
HS: What kind of magic did you hope the reader would find when you started writing your new book, The Magic Ten & Beyond?
SG: An understanding about how magic actually works—that it is a shift in perception. Many people are unhappy and devote themselves to blaming and complaining about others as well as circumstances that they seem to find themselves in. Yoga teaches us how to realize that there are no others separate from ourselves; reality is not out-there. What we see as appearing out-there is actually coming from inside of ourselves. If we want to change the world—we must go to the root and change ourselves. Yoga advises us to take responsibility for our actions and stop blaming and complaining.
Bios:
Sharon Gannon is the founder of the Jivamukti Yoga School and Jivamukti Method, created with David Life in New York City in 1984. Since, Jivamukti Yoga studios have opened all over the world, including in London, Moscow, Munich, Berlin and Sydney. Sharon is an artist, animal rights advocate, musician and a best-selling author of many acclaimed publications with the release of The Magic Ten and Beyond.
Twitter: @jivamuktiyoga
Instagram: @jivamuktiyoga
Website: http://www.jivamuktiyoga.com
Jivamukti Yoga studios have opened all over the world, including in London, Moscow, Munich, Berlin and Sydney.
Holly Skodis is a Main Street Vegan Academy Vegan Lifestyle Coach and Educator, 500-hour Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT 500) and co-founder of Digital Creative Agency, Real Pie Media, Inc. Her goal is to help lead you on a trajectory of building a stronger, happier, healthier and kinder you. She has been featured in Yoga Journal’s Stoke Your Spirit: 26 Images to Inspire Authenticity with renowned photographer Robert Sturman. Holly lives in Fairfield County, Connecticut with her husband, 2 daughters and 2 dogs who are also vegan. Follow Holly on Instagram at @hollyskodis or visit www.hollyskodis.com to connect with her.
PART 2 RELEASED NEXT WEEK