Introduction to David Life and Sharon Gannon
David Life and Sharon Gannon are the founders of Jivamukti Yoga,
which they have been teaching out of their New York City yoga center
since 1989. There are now Jivamukti centers and teachers worldwide.
This style, which blends vigorous vinyasa
practice with spiritual teachings, chanting, and an emphasis on how to
bring yoga's philosophy into daily life, is at the forefront of yoga's
current popularity.
Life and Gannon's methods are now even more accessible, thanks to their video Transform Yourself with Jivamukti Yoga. I was fortunate enough to be able to ask them a few questions about how Jivamukti began.
Yoga Guide (YG): How did you meet?
David Life : Sharon's band, Audio Letter, toured New York
City from Seattle in 1983. I [owned] Life Café in the East Village, and
it was a venue for new music, poetry, and art. We met when Audio Letter
played at the café.
Sharon Gannon : I was the vocalist/violinist in the
band. David was very nice to us and seemed to like our music. Later on,
he actually joined the band and played musical instruments he made
himself.
YG: How did you first encounter yoga?
David: In college, 1968, I took a couple of free yoga
classes that did not impress me at all. At the time, I was studying the
great yogi Mahatma Gandhi and his teachings of non-violence. I was
involved in protest actions against the Vietnam War and was inspired by
the Hindustani concepts of non-violent grassroots social change.
Tara Rose, one of the waitresses at the Life Café in New York, was a
yoga teacher and we started studying asana with her. In 1986, we began
yearly trips to India to study with many teachers like Swami
Nirmalananda, Pattabhi Jois, Shyam Das and others.
Sharon: In 1969, I went to hear a lecture about yoga by
Bob Freedie, who did psychedelic light shows in Seattle; he was a
devotee of Krishnamurti. That was where I got my first introduction to
the Theosophical Society. Sometime shortly after that, I got a book by
Richard Hittleman and did my best to follow the instructions and mimic
the poses pictured in the book.
During the seventies, while a student at the University of Washington,
I studied Indian music, dance, philosophy, and culture. The first asana
class I went to was in 1973 in Santa Cruz, California; I was not
impressed with the class and did not go back. The significant
experience with asana practice was with Tara Rose. We started to attend
her classes in the East Village around 1984.
YG: When did you realize that you were creating your own style of yoga? Was it a conscious decision?
David: Any yoga teacher can only teach the methods and
practices that worked for them. We had many great teachers who inspired
us with methods and teachings that served them well. We practiced yoga,
and our friends asked us to share the methods that resonated with us.
It was only after the fact that it came to be called Jivamukti yoga
Sharon: It was a conscious decision to call the style
Jivamukti, because we wanted a name which, when people said it, they
would connect to the aim of the practice, which is enlightenment.
Jivamukti is actually an American rendition of the Sanskrit word,
Jivanmukti, which means liberated while living. A Jivanmukta is one who
is liberated and lives to benefit the lives of others.
YG: How did it evolve?
David: Organically. It grew quickly, but was always a
reflection of our personal growth and the larger cultural developments.
At some point, about 1997, we launched a program nationally to promote
Jivamukti (liberated living); we now work internationally to promote
non-harming lifestyles, political and social activism, and evolutionary
techniques through Jivamukti yoga. Our students teach all over the
world and have created centers in New York, London, Berlin, Munich,
Toronto, Vancouver, and Charleston, South Carolina.
Sharon: How did it evolve? It was definitely an organic
process. I mean, we didn’t wake up one morning and decide we are going
to be yoga teachers, we are going to create this method called
Jivamukti yoga, and we are going to rent a space and etc., etc. We were
artists who were also political activists, and we were trying to shift
the values of our culture through our art. We recognized pretty much
immediately that the ethical percepts of yoga were in line with our
activist views and aspirations, especially ahimsa and aparigraha.
Speaking for myself, I was always trying to find ways to speak out for
the animals and the environment in my art and, when I discovered yoga,
I saw that it could certainly provide space for this type of activism.
We began to incorporate a lot of yoga into the performances, and the
people who came to see those performances began to ask us to teach
them. It seemed to make more sense to teach people how to practice what
we were practicing than to let them sit in a theater or some place and
watch us perform some artistic rendition of it.
But I think with the meeting of our holy teachers, first in the form of
Swami Sankarananda and then later Swami Nirmalananda, Shri K. Pattabhi
Jois and Shri Brahamananda Saraswati, we received blessings and
encouragement which provided us with a tremendous dose of shakit which
instigated the unfoldment of the method.
YG: What was the yoga scene like in the early days in New York? Where people practicing at home or in yoga centers?
David: There was no yoga scene in 1983 in New York. Yoga
was neither popular nor practiced much. There was a small Iyengar
community, Sivananda and Integral
yoga centers. Norman Allen had begun to teach Ashtanga Vinyasa in the
70s in New York, and many of his students continued to teach.
Of course, Dharma Mitra was a teacher to us and many others in the
early days. It was a great time to experience the wonderful teachers
from India that brought the teachings to the west, like J.
Krishnamurti, Yogi Bhajan, Swami Satchidananda, BKS Iyengar, Vishnu
Devananda, Swami Dhayananda Saraswati, Brahmananda Saraswati, and
others, who were all in New York at some point.
Sharon: I am not a historian so I feel very inadequate
to speak on this subject, but I know that Swami Prabhupada came to New
York from India perhaps in the 1960s or 70s. He first came to Tompkins
Square Park, which is across the street from where we live in the East
Village. There is a large tree in the middle of the park, which is
always adorned with flower garlands, put there by Krishna devotees in
remembrance of the fact that Swami Prabhupada chanted the Hari Krishna
mantra around that tree on his first visit to America.
Our teacher, Shri Brahmananda Saraswati, started the Yoga Society of
New York in the 1960s. But when I moved to New York City in 1983, I was
not aware of it. The main yoga schools which I was aware of at that
time were the Sivananda Center, the Integral Center, Dharma Mittra’s,
and Swami Bua taught out of his apartment. I think there must have been
an Iyengar Center, but I never visited there. I don’t know if people
practiced at home or in yoga centers at that time.
YG: Was anyone teaching vinyasa-style yoga?
Sharon: Norman Allan, who was an early student of
Pattabhi Jois’s, taught Ashtanga yoga, I think in the 1970s in New York
City. I do know that he taught Swami Sankarananda because we learned
about Norman Allan through S. Sankarananda. Our first teacher in New
York City, Tara Rose, besides being a Sivananda trained teacher, was a
student of a man who had studied with Norman Allan. She incorporated
Vinyasa aspects into her classes. She taught us Vinyasa, for instance,
in the form of the Surya Namaskars from the Ashtanga system.
YG: Based on your experience training yoga teachers, what do you think makes a good teacher?
David: Three qualities:
- 1. Their good practice
- 2. Their good connection to a teacher who acknowledges them
- 3. Their good desire to serve others
Sharon: 1. Lineage, 2. Practice, 3. Other-centeredness
- 1. I think it is very important to acknowledge a
teacher and to have a teacher acknowledge you as their student because
the deeper teachings of yoga are transmitted from guru to student
energetically.
- 2. In order to teach others, you must continuously immerse
yourself in practice or you really can’t teach from a place of fresh
experience.
- 3. To be a good teacher, you must have a sincere liking for
other people. You have to like to be around other people -- not all
yogic practitioners like to be around other people. It [the teaching
experience] has to be not all about you. You have to want to put your
students before you. A good teacher lives for their students and is
only interested in facilitating the student’s enlightenment.
David: I consider vegetarianism as the traditional
keystone to a yogic way of life. It is an action that can lead to
liberation- the goal of yoga. However, I consider veganism as the
modern imperative, the translation, if you will, of the principles of
non-violence into action in the modern time where the implications of
violent living and animal industries are threatening the continued
existence of the earth.
Sharon: Vegetarianism, real vegetarianism, which means,
not eating animals and only eating vegetables [veganism] is the most
important aspect of a yoga practice. A vegan recognizes that animals do
not belong to us -- they are not ours to eat, to wear, to experiment on
or to use for entertainment or any other exploitive purpose. Our
present culture is based on the arrogant notion that the earth and all
other life forms exist for our human benefit. The enslavement of other
animals is considered normal in our culture.
The yogi who is seeking enlightenment knows that if they
themselves want to be free, then they cannot cause the imprisonment,
the enslavement of others. What does what you eat have to do with yoga?
Not everyone can stand on his or her head every day, but everyone eats.
The goal of yoga is enlightenment. What is realized in the enlightened
state is the oneness of being; the interconnectedness of all of life.
Traditionally, a yogi was an environmentalist and animal rights
activist. The lineage comes from Lord Shiva who was considered the
protector of the earth and all life forms. One of his names is
Pasupati, which means protector of the animals. A yogi is moving toward
enlightenment through living harmoniously with all of life. In order to
harm another you must objectify and separate yourself from that other.
As you do that, you become disconnected to the whole.
Yoga is a holy connection, a realization of the interconnectedness of
all of life. Through eating a vegan diet, you contribute to the
happiness and well being of others, yourself and the planet.
(continued)
Sharon (continued): Through making compassionate food
choices, you will begin to experience a diminishing of selfishness and
low self-esteem. You will feel more self-confident, as all the disease
associated with harming others is lifted from your daily life. What we
do to others will come back to us. If we want to be happy, then we
should not cause others unhappiness. If we ourselves want to be free,
then it seems to be we would not make a slave of anyone else.
Fundamental to the teachings of yoga are the teachings of karma. Karma
means action. The yogi begins to realize through the practice how
significant each thought, word and action really is, and how it affects
the whole community of life. How we treat others will determine our
reality. A yogi practices yoga to purify their karmas.
When we practice asanas, we come face-to-face with all of our
past relationships in the form of unresolved karmic residue, which is
actually what our bodies are made of. When you feel this through yoga
practice, you tend not to want to increase the karmic burden you are
trying to unload. You don’t want to continue to cause harm to others,
so you stop eating them and causing their enslavement and exploitation.
You literally want to become lighter -- more enlightened.
You begin to understand Patanjali’s sutra, Sthira Sukham Asana, which
means that our connection (relationship) to the earth and all other
beings (what the word asana means) should be mutually beneficial,
should be coming from a consistent (Sthira) place of joy (Sukham).
Being a joyous vegan makes your life happier because you get to
participate in increasing the happiness and well beings of others,
rather than their suffering and death.
A vegan diet is not one of deprivation, it is really the only
option available to those who want to be happy themselves and who want
to contribute to the happiness of others and the future life of this
planet. I consider myself a joyous vegan because I get to contribute to
the enrichment of this planet instead of its demise. Not only am I not
causing the degradation and death of farm animals, but I’m not causing
so much water pollution, deforestation, wildlife habitant destruction,
the sickness and death of wild animals, air pollution, or global
warming.
The United Nations has issued a report stating that the waste
emissions from animals raised for food contributes more to global
warming than all the car and truck emissions in the world. That’s the
real inconvenient truth.
What a wonderful article and interview. This has been great to read. Thanks
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