Can Yogis Save the World?

By Chelsea Roff

This month at Intent Blog we are featuring interviews with yoga practitioners on how the practice of yoga has transformed their lives. The series is sponsored by Manduka, and this week’s interview features Waylon Lewis, founder of Elephant Journal.

Chelsea Roff: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me Waylon. Many people know you as the founder of Elephant Journal, one of the most well-known publications out there covering yoga, mindfulness, eco-living, and conscious consumerism. I wanted to start by asking you a little bit about your personal journey… how did you come to yoga and meditation to begin with?

Waylon Lewis: Well, Elephant just turned 10. So my direct relationship with yoga dates back exactly 10 years, I guess. I was dragged into it, rather unwillingly, by the strange fact that (due to my writerly and business and Buddhist background) I wound up partnering in a little regional yoga publication called Yoga in the Rockies.

I think my first ever yoga class was at Corepower — hot yoga. I literally, literally crawled outta there. Then I did Bikram, then Richard Freeman’s Yoga Workshop, where I stayed and continued to practice forever.

As part of my work I was traveling around the Rockies, doing yoga at various studios… it was an amazingly diverse, both-feet-in introduction to yoga. Something I’d always viewed at arm’s distance as a sort of weird, love n’ lightey, airy-fairy kinda spiritual-lite community. But in Richard I found someone who cared about breath, meditation, lineage—he was humble, literally bored by any sort of special attention, and funny as f*ck.

CR: Haha. I can totally see a very hot, sweaty, and shirtless Waylon Lewis crawling hands and knees out of Corepower.

WL: Yah. I sweat buckets. Being reborn as my yoga mat would be pretty much the worst punishment known to humankind.

CR: (laughs) Do you remember what thoughts were going through your mind during that first hot yoga class?

WL: ”This is so hard.”

It felt like staying in a sauna too long—way too long. It wasn’t fun, particularly. I’ve always been somewhat athletic—basketball, baseball, swimming, now cycling, climbing—those are all fun. Yoga was hard. Humbling.

I still rarely enjoy it. One of the things I love about doing yoga with real pros like Richard or Billy or Seane Corn… with the best teachers…is that yoga is tolerable. And, of course, post-yoga is heaven.

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Read more: Inspiration, Spirit, Yoga

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

aj E.

2:50PM PDT on Aug 6, 2012

interesting.

August 6
send a green star

irene f.

2:40PM PDT on Aug 6, 2012

Yoga, budhism and other practices that let you go within and experience community in it´s true meaning are at the core of saving the world.

geraldine o.

12:04PM PDT on Jul 23, 2012

Namaste,
I have been practicing yoga for over 43 years. I am currently practicing Ashtanga. I have always met the most wonderful, conscious people at the ashrams where I have practiced. If everyone followed a yogic lifestyle, there would be less violence in the world, more fit people and less pollution on the planet. Please visit me on my Escape to Sleep website and FB for tips on sleep and yogic info. Escape To Sleep is based in organic aloe vera water and it is infused w time-honored & tested herbs used for insomnia, anxiety and nervousness. Practice Well, Live Longer!

July 23
send a green star

Juliet D.

3:36PM PDT on Jul 22, 2012

Can yogis save the world? Not unless they can sequester CO2.

July 22
send a green star

Hanna S.

3:16AM PDT on Jul 22, 2012

Thank you!
Yes it is a very special quality being developed with all kinds of yoga.
I also enjoy Mindfulness a lot.

Julie D.

3:25PM PDT on Jul 21, 2012

It would be nice if these types of articles would add that this is about "Hatha Yoga". Hatha is but one branch of yoga and not the end all and be all of yogic philosophy. It is s tool to gain mastery of the body so it's wants do not interfere with the pusuit of the other types of yoga, which are mental emotional and psychic endeavors. In the West "Hatha" seems to be the only recognized form of yoga, which is lovely and keeps our bodies healthy and under control, but it is not Yoga completely, it is the lowest rung on the ladder. One can be a super mystical yogi and never have done one asana.