What If?
a poem by Ganga White
What if our religion was each other?
If our practice was our life?
If prayer was our words?
What if the Temple was the Earth?
If forests were our church?
If holy water—the rivers, lakes, and oceans?
What if meditation was our relationships?
If the Teacher was life?
If wisdom was self-knowledge?
If love was the center of our being
©1998 Ganga White, Santa Barbara All Rights Reserved
– Written at the Rainforest Benefit, NYC April 1998
I read this poem on the internet and I quickly looked for his author. I found who was about to guide my training as a yoga instructor. Since 2005, my personal practice was part of my daily life. I was looking for getting deeper and deeper in yoga without finding the right place for me. The right place for my way of learning and my way of practicing yoga.
Along the years, I was naturally introducing little things in my dance classes. One day I found myself giving only yoga classes. I needed some push because I thought what I was doing was not yoga. A personal mix coming from my teachers, my culture and my understanding. Alpena was the place where I did my first yoga class. My friends Maureen and Sarah told me that my dance classes were yoga in movement. Maggie put me in front of one of her classes at Duffy´s Studio.
Later few classes, I found myself in a new life project and working in the Dominican Republic. Soon after, my boss Luis Fernando Tirado, made me the resident yoga teacher of three of the resorts in the area. The yoga I learned and practiced unfold naturally in my daily classes. Soon after, this poem crossed my internet feed. I made everything happen to go to Santa Barbara and certify myself.
White Lotus Foundation
Ganga White and Tracy Rich, create an atmosphere that invites to go within and relate from there. They offer you the freedom to inquire what you think yoga is and your way to experience it. That was one of the best places to make this journey. Ganga and Tracy give you the opportunity to contemplate and reflect on those things. Offering resources and ways to use your inner inquiry with compassion and humor.
They guide you through this emotional journey. Looking at yourself with this amazing technology that yoga is. They always had the right timing in helping you to open your heart and mind.
I highly recommend this place for any of its retreats and workshops. Along with his book´Yoga beyond belief´, an honest, personal and inspiring approach to yoga.
My yoga, my dance, and my life changed after that. For good.
