The Yoga Lineages series, which Kim envisioned and pitched to Yoga Alliance, began with two webinars on Integral Yoga. As moderator of these events, Kim has a conversation with lineage heads and hosts their subsequent master classes.

It was particularly fitting that Kim kicked off the series with Integral Yoga because her own yoga journey began in New York City with this school; it was even the lineage of her first teacher training! 

The inaugural event, An Introduction to Integral Yoga, featured Swami Asokananda, a monk since 1975 and the President and Spiritual Director of the New York Integral Yoga Institute. He is one of Integral Yoga’s foremost teachers. Kim and Swami Asokananda probed deeply into the origins, evolution, and modern-day story of Integral Yoga. 

Integral Yoga, which has about 25 centers around the world, is known for its founder Sri Swami Satchidananda, whose translation of the Yoga Sutras, as Kim pointed out in the first webinar, has been used in countless yoga teacher trainings globally. 

Swami Satchdiananda was a monk in India and Sri Lanka before he came to New York City in the 1960s. Shortly thereafter, Swami Asokananda, who began taking Kundalini Yoga classes in college after a romantic breakup, found Integral Yoga through NYC’s yellow pages (which is actually how Kim found Integral Yoga in 1995!). He met Swami Satchidananda, who became his Guru, at Woodstock, where Swami Satchidananda opened the event with a blessing and a chant of “om.” Swami Asokkananda moved into an ashram in 1971 and became a swami four years later.

Integral Yoga has evolved through the years, but teachers have made sure it has kept a meditative feel to the classes. For beginners, the teachers are very explicit about how to practice asana and pranayama, and there is an emphasis on the physicality of the practice. As students progress, the teachers help students focus more on the energetic aspects of the experience and the movement of prana. One important facet of the Integral approach, regardless of the class level, is for teachers to talk less and to leave more space for the students to be present for their own experiences. 

Through its classes and comprehensive lifestyle system, this lineage synthesizes six branches of yoga:

• Hatha Yoga—getting the body as your instrument in as refined an attune state as possible

• Raja Yoga—a systematic approach to yoga psychology

• Bhakti Yoga—developing a relationship with your Self as the higher consciousness

• Karma Yoga—learning to act in a way that doesn’t generate karma (action and reaction)

• Jnana Yoga—making the intellect so clear that you can see what’s beyond the mental level

• Japa Yoga—repetition of the sacred sounds called mantra

In the second event, Integral Yoga Practice, Swami Asokananda led a multi-level asana class, which struck a balance between “ha” (heating solar energies) and “tha” (cooling lunar energies), or “hatha” yoga, generating strength and flexibility in the same class.

Swami Asokananda said the aim of the class was the very definition of “yoga,” to still the activity of the mind. The practice—which Kim afterward described as “a true master class”—included a warm-up, uddiyana bandha (defined as an upward abdominal lock; Swami Asokananda also demonstrated this movement a second time after the class), core strengthening poses, hip-opening poses, backward-bending poses, forward-bending poses, twists (with an exquisite Bharadvajasana!), yoga mudra, yoga nidra, some pranayama, and a brief meditation.

I loved taking this class, was very impressed by Swami Asokananda’s sequence and pacing, and really valued the Integral teaching approach of talking less. I even enjoyed the yoga nidra, which is a practice I typically find challenging because of my constantly-running mind!

Watch the recordings of both events to learn more and to try an Integral Yoga class for yourself! Next week, we’ll be recapping the second two events in the Yoga Lineages series on Viniyoga with Gary Kraftsow. You can watch the recordings of all events on yourya.org, and don’t miss the next live events with Pritpal Kaur Khalsa on Kundalini Yoga on August 18 and 19. All events in this series, both live and recorded, are free!

-Alyssa Yeroshefsky