Radhika practices and teaches yoga for therapy and optimal health, having studied with Saraswathi Vasudevan at YogaVahini, Chennai, India. She is a co-founder of the reStore organic shop in Chennai and has a deep understanding of the issues in modern food production and consumption.

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Radhika Rammohan

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 id="h-radhika-rammohan-is-a-yoga-practitioner-and-therapist-with-yogavahini-a-school-in-the-tradition-of-krishnamacharya-during-the-yoga4unity-program-2022-she-shared-her-experiences-of-how-yoga-has-helped-her-to-refine-her-inner-and-outer-environments-she-also-offered-us-some-tips-on-how-to-deepen-our-own-holistic-well-being">
 RADHIKA
 RAMMOHAN
 is a yoga practitioner and therapist with Yogavahini, a
 school in the tradition of Krishnamacharya. During the
 Yoga4Unity Program 2022, she shared her experiences of how yoga has
 helped her to refine her inner and outer environments. She also
 offered us some tips on how to deepen our own holistic
 well-being.
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 I have always been involved with the idea of holistic health. My first
 concern was environment and health, then I came to yoga three decades
 after that. And when I did, I realized that holistic health goes far
 beyond food.



 I was always drawn to the idea of being able to connect directly with
 the food I ate with as few intermediary steps as possible. When I lived
 in the USA in the mid-1990s, I saw packaged, mass-produced, and
 processed foods. I felt uncomfortable about using chemicals for
 increasing yield or quality without reverence for the land. It felt
 intuitively wrong.



 So I sought out and started buying organic foods from smaller retailers,
 who were not selling popular or branded items. This was also the time
 when genetically modified crops (GMOs) were being introduced in the USA.
 For instance, dairy cows were given rBGH (recombinant bovine growth
 hormones) to increase milk production, and in Wisconsin, where I lived,
 there was activism against this. I always bought milk from dairy farmers
 who did not use rBGH.



 At that time, food production and policy were skewed toward corporate
 interests, at least in the West. I started volunteering at an organic
 farm and doing some gardening, and I was shopping at cooperative natural
 food stores. Eventually my interest in food and food systems led me to
 care for a broader set of issues: land energy, regeneration of the
 environment, and human rights. I started reading books like
 Small Is Beautiful by F. Schumacher, and a few by the Indian
 environmentalist Vandana Shiva, and they helped me envision solutions. I
 also became associated with an NGO in the USA called Association for
 India’s Development.



 Once back in India, a friend and I started a community-based organic
 store, called reStore in Chennai in 2008. To this day, it remains an
 active place, a center for direct farmer support, local and traditional
 foods, zero waste, etc.



 I was very busy and was running into difficulties in my ability to work
 with people. I realized I didn’t understand my mental patterns very
 well, or what was leading to the difficulties I had dealing with the
 world. I wanted to find a quieter space for myself from where I could
 understand myself better and the world better. This brought me to
 studying yoga. I did not want to only be a practitioner, but also
 understand the philosophy behind it and understand the yoga sutras. So I
 joined a yoga teachers training program.



 The program led me to the affirmation that the Hindu tradition is really
 a holistic view of the universe, which is made up of the 5 elements or
 bhutas – akasha (space), vayu (air), agni
 (fire), apas (water), prithvi (earth).Everything is
 essentially made up of these basic elements.



 In the last few generations, we have been leaning toward a reductionist
 view of life. We break down everything to its atomic or molecular
 structure, which is very practical, but in doing so we miss the
 interconnectedness between things. It’s not so evocative to say that you
 and I are made of the same elements, so we reduce it to a very atomic
 level, rather the level of the pancha bhutas.


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 In yoga, it is about
 leading to a quieter mind that is able to
 witness itself a and see from where these actions arise. a Yoga
 is for everyone, including people a with busy lives, with a
 family, etc.
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 We are not so very distinct from each other when we look at it this way.
 Any sense of competitiveness is reduced when we lose this sense of
 individual distinction. This is how I’ve seen yoga and sadhana bringing
 our minds to a quieter location that increases our sensitivity and lets
 us reflect. That’s also how I feel yoga helps us develop environmental
 sensitivity.



 Yoga influences the way I handle relationships, which includes with
 other beings and the environment, and, of course, my work. Earlier, I
 thought of health in a very physical sense, and I related it mostly to
 food and exercise. But mental, emotional and spiritual well-being is
 actually the space we act from, and where our deepest aspirations come
 from. Very often we don’t get in touch with that core.


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 My way of thinking has shifted to inside-out. Our ways of relating to
 ourselves and to the world are mostly programmed or habituated. In yoga,
 it is about leading to a quieter mind that is able to witness itself and
 see from where these actions arise. Yoga is for everyone, including
 people with busy lives, with a family, etc. Yoga isn’t about the asanas
 or pranayama alone. It doesn’t have anything to do with a mat. It is
 about principles like satya (truth) and ahimsa (non-violence).
 So, while having a regular life with children, pets, and other people
 around me, if I can make sure that my interactions have the qualities of
 the yamas and niyamas, then the residue I leave behind in each of these
 interactions will be minimal. That is the practice of yoga.



 So, even if you come to yoga for physical exercise, you will naturally
 gain more sensitivity. Hopefully, after finishing your practice, you
 will reach work and be able to see the behavior you are upholding in
 your workplace. Or coming home to your kitchen, maybe the way you are
 interacting with your house help, or someone else. Hopefully some of
 that stays with you, and you are able to say, “What am I doing here?”



 Adding yoga to ecological campaigns is a wonderful idea. When we see
 environmental injustice, damage, or inequality, and we are not able to
 do very much about it, it can lead to a lot of anger. Being stuck in
 that anger is not very conducive for good activism. We might turn into
 angry activists who people love to hate. It’s not very efficacious.


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 When what we are
 practicing 
 is contributing to some kind of quietness, and we’re able to see
 everything around us with a little more compassion, then
 we are definitely in a good place.&nbsp;
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 When what we are practicing is contributing to some kind of quietness,
 and we’re able to see everything around us with a little more
 compassion, then we are definitely in a good place. It gives us a
 happier way to wake up in the morning, compared to saying, “Oh, the
 climate has not changed, abuse has not changed, and injustice has not
 changed.” Then it’s not a happy way to wake up.



 I hope that yoga teachers impart to their students not only the
 knowledge of the asanas, but also the deep, transformative potential of
 the practice. Krishnamacharya once said, “The location for a yogi ought
 to be shantam.” That is equanimity – not in the sense of being unable to
 respond appropriately to different situations, but to respond from the
 space of shantam. To bring out whatever is appropriate – anger, courage,
 wonderment, love, compassion – but not to get carried away with it. To
 come back to the equanimous&nbsp;location.


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 It is difficult to practice yoga for a short time and expect your
 problems to be solved. You need to dive deeper. As a teacher, that’s my
 aspiration – to help my students take their practice deeper, to
 understand their minds and their yoga, to study some texts, to
 understand the underlying foundations behind what we are teaching them.



 For others, I would say get involved with a community or sangha. Study
 together. It could be a formal teacher training course. We can create
 communities of practitioners who learn from each other and take their
 practice deeper.


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 I think it’s important that we have some way of knowing if what we are
 practicing is transformative. If we can sense that we are more sensitive
 today than yesterday, we can say we are progressing. It’s a sense of
 refinement. If we are not feeling that, it’s okay, but we have to keep
 trying and learning.