You don’t me to tell you that the world as we know it is burning to the ground. This makes teaching yoga hard, important and strange. A few episodes back I answered the question, “Should we talk about current events in our yoga classes?” By essentially saying, “maybe… but most likely YES.” In that episode I talked about how important it was to have an understanding and point of view about what the yoga teachings would say about current events. I received a ton of great feedback about that episode, and also a lot of questions.

So we are diving deeper into those questions with my friend Hari-Kirtana Das. 

Hari-kirtana das (he/him)  is a yoga teacher, spiritual mentor, and the author of two books on yoga philosophy: Journey Into the Bhagavad Gita: A Guide to Exploring Timeless Principles of Transcendental Knowledge and Integrating Them Into Your Life and In Search of the Highest Truth: Adventures in Yoga Philosophy. 

Hari has been practicing devotional and other yogic disciplines for over 40 years, has lived in yoga ashrams and intentional spiritual communities, worked for Fortune 500 companies and Silicon Valley start-ups, and brings a wide range of spiritual knowledge and life experience to his classes, workshops, and presentations.

He's on the faculty of numerous Yoga Teacher Training programs, offers live online workshops and courses throughout the year, and his mission is to illuminate the many ways in which the yoga wisdom tradition can guide us toward meaningfully transformative spiritual experiences.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• why it makes sense for yoga teachers to talk about current events and politics in class

• how  teachers can start to make the connections between current events and yoga philosophy

• Hari’s formula for delivering a great dharma talk

• ideas to help teachers integrate philosophy into asana class

And stay tuned for Part 2 of this conversation coming soon!

Learn More From Hari-kirtana Das:

• Hari-kirtana das’ website

• Hari-kirtana das on Facebook and Instagram

• Hari-kirtana das’ book Journey Into the Bhagavad Gita

• Free Dharma Talk EBook

• Free Community Conversations

• On-Demand Workshops and Other Free Resources

This episode is brought to you by OfferingTree, an easy-to-use, all-in-one online platform for yoga teachers that provides a personal website, booking, payment, blogging, and many other great features. If you sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor, you’ll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan)!  OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up. I’m proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.