KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) - Yoga philosopher Ram Vakkalanka is blunt when talking about common perceptions about yoga, the ancient Indian practice of meditation and physical movement.
“Many people when they hear the word ’yoga,’ they think that it’s about making sure that they look good in tight, stretchy pants, which it is, but yoga goes deeper than that,” he said.
Vakkalanka said he hopes he is presenting Ketchikan residents with “a comprehensive look at yogic discipline, yoga as a lifestyle, yoga as a mantra of philosophy to live by” this weekend with a series of workshops and performances organized through Ketchikan’s Advaita Yoga Center, the Ketchikan Daily News reported Saturday.
The weekend retreat included a catered concert featuring Vakkalanka on the sitar — a traditional Indian stringed instrument — accompanied by local musicians Chazz Gist and Dave Rubin. Elizabeth Johannsen and Raffy Tavidagian of the New York Cafe provided a traditional Southern Indian meal for the event.
Vakkalanka and Advaita Yoga Center owner Carol Naranjo also hosted a series of workshops and meditative yoga classes throughout the weekend.
“The workshops are essentially about energy work,” Vakkalanka said. “Most of the time, we tend to identify ourselves with our physical body … but actually we are a confluence of various wonderful energies inside of us. Those energies are trying to express themselves through the medium of the physical body. The workshops are focusing about those energies - which are known as ’the Chakras’ in the Sanskrit language — and how to balance those energies, because when the energies are balanced, we experience a state of wellbeing at many, many levels — physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. We feel healthy only when the energies are balanced.”
Workshops addressed the origin and evolution of yoga, Sanskrit language, mantra chanting, the chakras and the Bhagavad Gita.
“Bhagavad Gita helps us to understand our life’s purpose — Why am I here? Why am I born in this time, in these circumstances, among these people? What’s the purpose of my life? What’s the reason of my existence?” Vakkalanka said.
“The idea is once we’ve discovered that, then we have a true purpose in our life, and unless we know the true purpose of our life, we will not be able to achieve fulfillment in life. Many people confuse fulfillment of life with fulfillment of desires. Those two things are very separate,” he said. “You can have all your desires fulfilled, but life itself may not be fulfilled. There can be a certain metaphysical emptiness in life if we do not know the purpose of it.”
Vakkalanka said he knows the power of the Bhagavad Gita first-hand. A native of Hyderabad, India, Vakkalanka was both trained in the yogic tradition and educated in a “quite regular” education system. As an adult, he became an accountant and eventually the chief financial officer of an international company based in Singapore that had him living and working in Africa and Denver, Colorado.
“I felt a really strong calling and was drawn to yoga and yoga philosophy,” Vakkalanka said, adding, “I talked earlier about fulfillment of life versus fulfillment of desires, so that was a question that I had to face at one point in time in my life. In 2008, I decided I was going to give up the comfort of a regular paycheck and salary and benefits and stuff and instead seek out the adventures of teaching yoga philosophy. It has worked out well so far.”
Now Vakkalanka lives in Toronto, Canada, and works as a full-time Sanskrit expert, sitar artist, keynote speaker, yoga philosopher and meditation instructor. He travels all over the world to lead retreats and workshops. Vakkalanka said he will travel to Shanghai next week for a similar workshop series, and he begins a European tour in mid-August.
Naranjo said she learned of Vakkalanka through a yoga email newsletter she subscribed to after visiting India and learning yogic philosophy.
Naranjo picked up yoga after her daughter gave her a yoga video to help with back pain, but she said she really committed to her practice when she saw an ad in a yoga magazine for an Indian yoga retreat.
“I had never dreamed of going to India. South America, yes; Spain, yes, but never thought of going to India,” Naranjo said.
Yoga “just fits in to my life, as far as the self-discovery (aspect of the practice.) I think something inside me, from a young child, was always looking for more in life, like there’s something inside that’s deeper and richer than just going to work, coming home, watching TV, get up, go to work, do that same thing.”
She spent some time in India and Nepal practicing yoga and traveling, and when she returned to Ketchikan, continued to practice. Naranjo opened the yoga studio in February of this year, and said she hopes to have Vakkalanka return or to host other yoga guests in the future.
Naranjo said she especially values how yoga helps yogis to discover themselves, but Vakkalanka said the individual is both bigger than, but also just as big as one person.
“Yoga philosophy teaches us that the universe is as much part of us as we are part of the universe,” Vakkalanka said. “We are all micro-universes, basically. … Yoga philosophy goes very deeply in the macrocosm, as well as the microcosm, and explores the relationship between these two and teaches us how to use the tools that are available to us — such as meditative capability, even language or music — (and) how to use them to make sure that we are aligned with the universe, because if we think about it, this entire universe is like a beautiful orchestra.”
“Everybody is contributing to this universal melody, but we have so much cacophony inside of us,” he said, “that we fail to hear (and) listen to this beautiful melody.”
“Now the yoga practice teaches how to use music to calm down the negative chatter of the mind,” Vakkalanka added. “You know, the mind is always running like a crazy monkey here and there, but now yoga helps us to focus, calm down, concentrate and listen to the melody inside of us as well as outside of us, so life feels like a beautiful journey rather than an uphill task.”
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Information from: Ketchikan (Alaska) Daily News, https://www.ketchikandailynews.com
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