Will you be the Hundredth Monkey? By Gaby

The story: the Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, (also known as snow monkey or Japanese Macaque) has been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand.

Macaca Fuscata, photo credit  E. Tasker

The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant. An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers, too. This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists.

Between 1952 and 1958, all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.

The myth: Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes — the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes. By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But notice, a most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea — Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes!*

(*Lifetide by Lyall Watson, pp. 147-148. Bantam Books 1980. This book gives other fascinating details.)

However, the story is now popular among New-Age authors and Gurus, it has become and urban legend and part of new ages mythology. For more check here.

I am interested in modern mythology here, and what the myth is telling us is that people desperately hope for change.

The hope: Yoga is all about (self) transformation and transcendence. But change is often difficult and motivation is key. I feel the story of the Hundredth Monkey is a good source of motivation. Although it always seems we are too few who really want to change and even fewer who want to change for the benefit of a greater thing than just ourselves, the mere fact of change may one day trigger a much larger wave of change.

So despite I know the myth of the hundredth monkey is just that, a myth, I still think we do not have a choice but to believe that there is some tipping point, that if we reach a sufficient number, things will really start to change. Everyday I wake up and direct my focus to that endeavor only, create an environment of example, where others can learn, get inspired and finally find motivation to change for the better.

On the other hand I know some interest are working to keep people subject to the same model we have had for the last century, a model that has clearly shown its limits by now, but that solid economical interest protect from evolving to some other model more fair, more environmentally friendly, less based on profit and more based on compassion and Love. Sometime I find the battle impossible, it feels like David facing Goliath. The financial and lobbying power of theses interest, their lack of ethics, their selfishness and short sightedness scares me and I feel they expand so fast that it dwarves all my efforts. At that moment I think about the hundredth monkey.

So if you have read these lines until here I am asking you, will you join us in our efforts?
Will you be the Hundredth Monkey?

With Love&Light, Gaby

Freedom is not given to us by anyone... By Ana Paula Martinez Lanz

In October 2011, two students were granted a scholarship to study during Yogi-nomad's 6 weeks Teacher Training Program in Nepal. In exchange, the student had to invest their new skills and knowledge in a welfare project. Ana Paula decided to teach Yoga in a women's jail in her native country of Mexico. The following interview was a result of Ana Paula's participation in the "Yoga in Cholula Prison project".

Yogi-nomad is profoundly grateful to Ana Paula for spreading the light of Yoga.

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Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves.

It is a daily practice. No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.  Thich Nhat Hanh

This interview was made on October 27, 2012.

The following interviewed person was an inmate in San Pedro Cholula prison, in Puebla, Mexico, for 4 years and 8 months. During the last 9 months she received yoga classes from the Yoga in Cholula Prison Project. Very soon she started feeling a deep transformation, and later she became a guide for other inmates.

I am very grateful with this person for sharing her experience in this interview, and I also want to thank Ilyanna Berman, coordinator of the Yoga in Cholula Prison Project, for inviting me to be a part of it.

What was your first impression when yoga was presented to you? Did you know what yoga was?

I had already heard about yoga, and to me it was discipline, religion. So I thought, I do like discipline, but I do not follow any religion, so I will see what it offers me and maybe it will be interesting, but I will not change my ideas because of one course. But as I kept listening to the concepts about yoga, I started getting more and more interested. I understood that it is very personal and that you cannot understand it if you don't practice it. At first I thought that it was related to Buddhism and to Asia, and I doubted if I was going to like it. But after hearing more about it I felt more interested. I was attracted to it because you can enjoy every moment in your life, the good and the bad times, and it is just a matter of paying attention to what you are doing. I felt that it was something that was going to help me, at least, to accept my self as I am.

Did your experience in prison change after you started practicing yoga?

Yes, a lot. I have always been a very calm person. When someone new arrived I used to think, 'if she speaks to me, good, but if not, that's better cause then I will not get in trouble' (laughter). Before yoga, I was in my own bubble, I barely got out of bed. I knitted and did other activities but it was really hard to get along with the other women because it was only problems with them. I started doing yoga and then understood that, no matter how people are, everyone deserves respect and attention because that's what I want to receive. I like being respected in my space and in my character, so I have to do the same towards others, so I started to understand that way of life. Sometimes we didn't agree in some ideas but I knew that their reasons were not the same as mine, and just to try and listen to the other's ideas, even if I didn't agree, but the attention to listen was very important to me, and that was a huge step. Or when I was yelled by a guard, at first I would get really angry and thought: 'I would like to see her inside this place', but afterward I learned to respect her work, because she didn't put me there, she was just doing her job. In a physical level, yoga helped me because my body started reacting in a different way, I got very relaxed and felt that my body was useful. The space that we had was very small, we were very limited about the physical activity, so I was really happy when I realized that I just needed the space for my mat, where I could do so many things. When Jesús started teaching us meditation it also helped a lot because then I also started using the space in my bed to meditate. Outside was for yoga, all the asanas that all the teachers taught us. With meditation, I learned how to experience wellness, despite what was going on around me, I was feeling fine. My experience changed so much, everything changed a lot. I started seeing beauty in all things, even if it was a smoke circle, it is beautiful because it is real. I became more sensitive, less superficial, and I let go of many attachments. I realized many things, that we have to live now, always in present time because you have nothing else.

Can you tell me how you became a guide for the other women in your yoga practice?

I started doing Sun Salutations everyday by myself when some of my fellow inmates started asking me to guide them. The officer told us that somebody should be responsible if someone got injured. I couldn't be responsible for them so I told them that we could practice together but each one on their own thing. They insisted me to guide them, they said that I knew more and did it better. So I started little by little, first just Sun Salutations. I would go out at 8 am everyday, no matter what, with company or by myself, I would find a little space for my mat and started doing yoga. Before that, I meditated, I would be aware of my breath and at the end I did relaxation exercises. We started like that and then with some vinyasas, the sequences that all the yoga teachers showed us, and then some other more advanced postures. But by then, we were already practicing every morning, even if we didn't have class, we had our yoga for the day which cheered us up.

How many of you were practicing by then?

Seven. Sometimes there was another fellow but I got very nervous with her because she was very impulsive, she wanted to do a headstand right away. I told her that she needed to practice slowly and with patience, but she was hyperactive and always asked: 'what can I do?! what can I do?!', 'stop drinking coffee', I would tell her (laughter). I explained to her that she would get to do the headstand but only by working step by step.

Do you think that the other women had any changes with yoga practice?

Yes. Specially one of them, changed a lot. Before yoga, she used to keep her feelings to herself, she didn't talk to anyone. Afterward, when she wanted to cry, she asked me to meditate together, so she would join me before going to bed. Sometimes we did vipassana breathing, which we learned from other two guys, and then when we opened our eyes or came back, she cried or laughed and then she would tell me that she was feeling better after expressing her feelings, not like before when she kept all her emotions to herself and she was bitter (laughter). I think she really changed. If she fell down, she would laugh. She became more positive, in advanced postures, she told me 'yes you can, try again, and if you fall down, just stand up'. Every time I looked at her I made a face and she laughed, so I thought 'she is fine, even though she is in here, she is ok'. Another fellow inmate, with just a little time practicing yoga, I saw that all she was trying to do was to assimilate her situation. I never asked her anything, I heard some gossip from the other women but I didn't really know why she was there. But she tried to accept her responsibility by being honest to herself. She used yoga to feel real, that's what she told me. 'I need to stay calm knowing that I will be here I don't know for how long', she said to me. She liked doing breathing exercises, that was what mostly relaxed her. And she sang mantras, she sings really beautiful. We chant Om or Lam, which Sol taught us, to activate muladahara chakra.

Do you still practice yoga?

Yes. I go outside at 6:00 am because my sister likes to run and I go with her. First we walk, then we run, and then we practice yoga. At night I try to meditate and sometimes I do some Sun Salutations to release tension from the day because I am very stressed now, the house work stresses me a lot. So I do practice, but not like before when I had a lot of time. I am trying to organize my daytime to practice properly.

Would you like to learn how to teach Yoga?

Yes. I really enjoy my practice but I also like sharing it with other people. Like now, for example, I am doing yoga with my sisters and I explain to them a posture step by step, and my sister really enjoys it, the youngest, she didn't know what yoga was and she loves it now. She says that she wants to take a yoga course but she is not going to pay for it now because she has me at home (laughter).

In the future, if you become a yoga teacher, Would you like to be part of the Yoga in Prison Project and teach there?

Yes. I would have no problem with going back, but I would have to get very prepared to teach. In one of the spare time that I had back there, I memorized all the names of the body bones. I also know some sanscrit names for the postures. I left all my copies and books that I had, I can get everything out here, or in the internet. They can't.

Would you like to share something else about your yoga experience in prison?

I think that it went deeper and deeper in me, until it reached something very profound, because it attracted good things for me. They say that yoga always brings good things to your life. I saw my exit from there, and I really saw it. I also observed that I had to be more peaceful, more humble, be more, always more. But mainly, and most important, it helped me to assimilate my imprisonment, not because of the place, but to learn not to lock myself in my head, in my problems, not to invent my own world because it is not mine. I am here, and I exist as a part of a whole. I should not imprison myself, and I don't mean between walls, but in my mind. To open my head and to know that, even though I was living in that place, I had my own way of thinking, and acting. It really helped me to open my head and liberate myself from my mind. I also learned about impermanence, so I don't want to get used to anything, I don't want to make my life boring or repetitive. I got free from that place and I learned how to let go of my feelings when they have to go. I was very limited in many ways but they couldn't limit my thoughts or my heart. Your freedom is inside of you, inside. You are free to think, to feel and to live whatever you want.

Thank you very much for sharing your experience, your thoughts and feelings.

Thank you.

Ana Paula, Mexico, November 2013.

Are you a Nomad? By Gaby

At Yogi-nomad, we have been asked many time "Are you Nomads?" or "Do we need to be a nomad to join?" Beyond our travel habits and a life lived around the globe, we had to go back to the basic reason of why we call ourselves nomads.

Tuareg nomad, Sahara, 1986

Early 80's in the Sahara desert. My friend were tuaregs, people who have always been nomads. The only thing they would take when moving was a few goats and their camels. I remember a day when they were moving to another camp, they placed an old worn out  tarpaulin on the sand and everyone threw in their belongings. A couple of recycled food tins, an old plastic water container, a piece of iron bar to stir the fire, some old stuff that in the west would have gone to the dump field. They folded the tarpaulin and hanged it in a tree, they where ready to go.

It was a powerful and decisive moment in my life, these people who had so much to share, an incomparably generous hospitality, who were always joyful and ready to sit for a tea and a chat, were traveling across the desert with nothing more than what they were wearing that day. It was in stark contrast with the world I came from where summer traveller disappear behind the mountain size of their backpacks. Our luggages have become so heavy that almost all of them have wheels nowadays.

It was clear to me that it was fear that was making us travel with so much stuff. My tuareg friend were free. Free from fears. I then understood that being a nomad is an ideal: It is the ultimate expression of your trust that the universe will provide what is needed when it is needed. It is the full acceptation of “what is”, without useless resistance. It is moving with the flow of the Universe like my nomads friends were moving with seasons. It is the recognition of our belonging, total dependence and our need for union and harmony with the environment, both human and natural.

Ascetic and Nomad on the ghats, Varanasi, India, 2011

A few year later in India started my yogic journey. Yoga has long been associated with asceticism, a form of anti-materialism that reminded me of my desert friends. In between, 25 years have passed and consumerism and capitalism have spread to most of the world. All our major  challenges like climate change, corruption, overpopulation etc. find their roots in the choice we have made to consume and capitalize.

We have disrupted the balance. You need 2000 Cal to live a day but a 10 hours jet-flight will burn 1.250.000.000 Cal, each passenger's share being the energetic equivalent to 4 year of food*... Capitalism can be easily summarized: invest little and expect large returns. Consumerism is similarly simple: buy, throw away and buy again. The first feeding the second and vice-versa.

(*Travel responsibly and offset your carbon emission )

This is the exact opposite of being a nomad, this is also the opposite of the yogic life ideal: take from the environment as little as possible, give and share as much as you can and do not worry for the return. My desert friend had taught me my first yoga lesson. This lesson was later expressed by the sanskrit term "aparigraha" (non-accumulating) the fifth of the yama, the ethics rules of self control. 

Aparigraha requires to have the capacity to discriminate (viveka) between what we need and what we want. Consumerism is making its best to fog your vision and make you believe your wants are in fact your needs. Capitalism fuel your fears and want to convince you that "material surplus" will keep trouble away. Being a nomad like being a yogi, signifies your non-attachment to the material world and its cohort of illusions, it is an anti-consumerist, anti-capitalist behavior.

There is a clear battle going on out-there between to world of the yogis and the consumerist world: a watered down version of Yoga is being turned into a consumer good. Expensive yoga mat and clothes, expensive training and classes, yoga "registered", "branded" and "copyrighted" styles. Check Google trends, Bikram Yoga, Hot Yoga, Ashtanga yoga, Anusara Yoga are leading the race. This neo-yoga is being turned into a multi million dollar business. The business world is trying to convince you that you need that next training, you must meet that famous teacher, you must go to that yoga conference etc. Videos on UTube, front page of Yoga Journal reproduce the perfect image of this new yoga, just like Vogue or Cosmopolitan fashioned our current world, and well trained consuming crowds follow the trend, a trend known as spiritual materialism. A vision of yoga we do not share. 

Beyond these political choices, I remember clearly my friends stoping five times a day and humbly prostrating, forehead in the sand, before the creator. They were muslims of course but they shared many values with the yogis I met later. Further than the material choices there is a deeper link between my early and later teachers: the recognition of the godly intrinsic value in each human, the spark of the divine burning in every heart. This is the treasure they bow to, what they really pay respect to as many time of day as possible.

Namaste: the divine in me bow to the divine in you.