“Practice and all is coming” is a saying attributed to Pattabhi Jois, the founder of Ashtanga Yoga and an abuser of many of his students. Recently, my teacher, Christina Sell, invoked this phrase during a class, casually shifting the emphasis of the phrase onto the “and” in a way that piqued my curiosity. Later, when my mom read the initial draft of this article, she was reminded of a quote she had written in some notes from a class years ago with Srivatsa Ramaswami: “Do your practice. All is coming.” I told her that message felt incredibly different from the Jois quote. She told me that, at the time, she felt that the “All” in that statement meant Truth — a knowing that is experienced, rather than a belief that is held.
Truth seems like a precarious word to sling around at this moment in time, so I’d like to unpack its nuanced meaning at different scales. Truth, as my mom describes it, feels more on the level of the Universe, and of spirit — something outside the realm of proof, untraceable to a particular culture or belief system. On the other end of the spectrum, there are fact-checkable truths and lies encountered every day, such as if I told you that trees photosynthesize, or when the President of the United States denies saying something that can be played back to him on film. Somewhere in the middle, there is a kind of personal truth that comes about when a person’s thoughts, speech, and action are in alignment with one another and in alignment with that individual’s values.
Along those same lines, there must also be some collective truths for humanity at large, and some that exist within societies. One of these collective truths is culture, which is conditioned into our lives much like the air we breathe is drawn into our lungs. Culture reflects and is reflected in all our institutions, in the framing of our history, and is the filter through which we share and receive lessons, mythology, and traditions.
I was raised and live in the United States, whose culture and society are founded on “white ideals,” and in that context, “Practice and all is coming,” as spoken by Jois, has always felt a little bit like the promise of Santa Claus. If I’m good enough, sufficiently devoted to my teacher and my lineage, follow instructions, and practice in the “right” way, I will receive the gifts of the practice. Those gifts may include things like physical beauty, strength, flexibility, the possession of a perpetually calm and pleasant mind, constant happiness, pristine health, comfort, praise, a community of like-minded people, and whatever else I thought were the aims of yoga in my culturally-conditioned mind.
It occurs to me now that this belief in Yoga Santa is very much a result of the co-opting of yogic teachings by whiteness. Whiteness tells us that if we are “good” enough, obedient enough, kind enough, patient enough, pretty enough, healthy enough, hard-working enough, and many other “enoughs,” then we receive access to resources, power, and happiness (it’s the American dream, y’all!).
It isn’t hard to see the ways in which yoga has been whitewashed in order to become commoditized. After all, in order for yoga philosophy to be sold to white people, it had to enmesh with the culture and values of whiteness. For a long time, my relationship with yoga was quite transactional and achievement-oriented. I laughed along with the class when teachers joked that holding a handstand in the middle of the room doesn’t make you a better person, but those that could do it sure got a lot of attention and applause, and whiteness says that those are things for which we should strive. Plus, it was very clear from messaging in the yoga industry that one must achieve certain hallmarks of practice to be a “good’ yogi, and must then signal those markers to others, thereby receiving the acceptance and praise sought. These markers, for example, might include performing poses with “correct” form, meditating for a certain amount of time each day, or regularly demonstration one’s possession of items like malas, singing bowls, yoga props, statues of Hindu gods, or essential oils for every occasion.
Additionally, many of the “good yogi points” these days go for engaging in trendy “health-related” practices as a result of diet culture rooting its way into yoga industry culture disguised as “wellness principles” and “lifestyle changes.” For instance, in order to be serious about yoga, maybe you can’t eat meat, or sugar, or non-organic vegetables, or use a plastic straw. Perhaps you have to try all the “cleanses,” have a collection of favorite supplements, and use no products containing “toxins.” I’ve even witnessed yoga teachers offering unfounded nutritional and behavioral advice under the guise of Ayurveda, when they in fact know nothing more about Ayurveda than the names, general characteristics, and (terribly misguided) “rules” associated with each of the three doshas.
Even more disturbing is the assumption that “good yogis” are always positive, peaceful, restrained, kind, and calm. The “good yogi” is a construct filtered through the lens of whiteness.
And here’s the thing: whiteness will now want me to believe that if I have fallen for or replicated (honestly, it’s always both) the whitewashing/cultural appropriate/co-optation of yoga, that I am “bad” and wrong, and that Yoga Santa will no longer come bearing gifts for my life. The real gift, though, lies in widening my view and realizing that Yoga Santa is not real. The practice of yoga does not guarantee beauty, flexibility, perfect health, persistent positivity, wealth, status, freedom from anger, fear, and sadness, or whatever other status and resources I consciously or subconsciously thought were coming. “Practice and all is coming” is misleading, as was the man who coined the phrase.
Perhaps we can reimagine this concept through rewording — “Practice, because all is coming.”
In truth, practicing yoga is not a transaction where I put forth some amount of “right effort” and receive benefits in return. It is a relationship that persists through times of ease and times of struggle, through periods of enthrallment and periods of apathy. A relationship with yoga over time reveals truths not previously seen or comprehended, builds emotional flexibility, and facilitates an ability to hold contradiction. The practice tends to illuminate, again and again, the need for more practice. In fact, practicing yoga for over half my life is what has allowed me to see the harm in a yoga shrouded in whiteness, while holding the cognitive dissonance that were it not for whitewashed yoga, I would likely not have accessed a yoga practice.
Essentially, it is in the humility of coming to practice again and again, without promise of reward, that I can cultivate the skills and resilience needed to stand squarely in the face of the challenges, heartbreaks, and injustices at hand, and to meet them with presence, wisdom, and action. It is practice that builds capacity to simultaneously hold despair and joy, anger and love. Yoga is not something to be checked off a list of things to do in order to be “good” and achieve perfection. Yoga asks that I meet discomfort with curiosity, over and over again, so that when the shit hits the fan, I can be there for it with faculties intact, and with a heart filled with love and compassion even as it breaks into a million pieces.
Yoga is what reminds me that I belong to all of life, and that all of life belongs to me, so that when I meet others across lines of difference to speak and receive truths about harm and pain, I can remain present, amidst my own discomfort, and claim accountability for my role in the brokenness and also in mending the brokenness through a collective reimagining of ourselves and of our systems.
So…
Practice, because all is coming.
*p.s. if you were hoping for a “Winter is coming” reference, I feel you. Here it is.