These days, many yoga classes can feel transactional and impersonal. Practitioners rush in to claim their favorite spot, practice without acknowledging anyone else in the room, and within seconds of coming out of savasana, dart toward the door — after all, who wants to get caught up in a crowd? However, yoga can offer so much more connection than that, and I often wonder if this is the missing piece of our practice.
I remember one time I was teaching at a local studio and one of my regular students, Carol, wasn’t in attendance. The other students remarked that it was unusual not to see her there, and they asked me where she was. I said I didn’t know, and that as her teacher, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to reach out. So at that moment, one of the other students pulled out her phone and called Carol to ask her why she wasn’t in class today. It was amazing that she had Carol’s number and that she cared enough to call her. It struck me how much sangha, spiritual community, can enrich our lives and expand the benefits of our practice beyond asana.
In this moment, when the world feels particularly chaotic, community is more important than ever. Those of us with marginalized identities are literally relying on it. But what does community really mean? Is it enough to like someone’s social media post, or to say hello to them in a yoga class? How can we explore the fullness of sangha? How can we build or support a sangha?
As a teacher, it can be challenging to cultivate sangha for our students, and it can be even harder to find a supportive community of peers for ourselves. This may be the result of teaching yoga within the confines of capitalism, which encourages us to compete with each other, and that it’s every “man” for themselves. It takes a strong commitment to supporting other teachers to overcome this constant focus on individuality. In fact, an effective practice can help to keep the ego in check and naturally guide us to focus on building community rather than constantly toot our own horn.
Community & The Yoga Teachings
In many ways, community-building is an outcome of humility because it shifts power from the individual teacher to the group. It’s an acknowledgment of the healing power of the collective and the recognition that a yoga community is more than its lead teacher or teachers. The community itself is key. It reminds me of monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh’s famous saying, “The next Buddha will be a sangha.”
Building community can feel like an uphill battle because of the focus on individualism that contemporary practice seems to amplify. For example, the image of a lone yogi sitting in meditation in a cave is more mythology than reality. Community is itself a yoga practice because it’s about learning to see yourself in others — which can be hard to do.
This idea of transcending our individualism is a thread woven throughout the history of yoga. You can find it in the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna explains the ultimate goal of our practice as seeing yourself in others. “As your mind becomes harmonized through yoga practices, you begin to see the Atman [spirit] in all beings and all beings in your Self; you see the same Self everywhere and in everything.”
You can also see this theme in one of our oldest scriptures, the Chandogya Upanishad, which is about 2,800 years old. “The Self is one, though it appears to be many. Those who meditate upon the Self and realize the Self go beyond decay and death, beyond separateness and sorrow. They see the Self in everyone and obtain all things.”
These reflections demonstrate the longstanding focus on compassion and empathy found in the yoga tradition. We have a long history of ashram life and service, which is where community shines. But these communities are harder to come by these days. You can also see this emphasis in the three jewels of Buddhism: Buddha (the teacher), Dharma (the teachings), and Sangha (the community).
Benefits of Community
A supportive community is an essential element of an effective and long-term practice. For example, sangha can be a container for your suffering. When you need support, your friends will be there to lean on, and sharing your suffering can make it more bearable. Just as you might call a friend when you’re feeling down, being available to answer the call when someone needs to talk is a great service you can offer to your yoga friends.
Practicing in community amplifies the benefits of your practice and can renew your commitment. Sangha is an inspiration, and can keep you coming back to practice when you lose interest or when your commitment wanes. Getting a call from a friend asking why you didn’t come to class, or just saying hello, can remind you of the power of sangha and the power of your practice. Your yoga friends can also inspire you to keep practicing when you see their commitment to come to class even when they struggle with life’s challenges.
Sangha can be a mirror to reflect some of the more challenging aspects of yourself that you would rather ignore. Sitting alone, you might be able to find peace, but the real challenge is taking that peace into the world and treating others as you want to be treated. In this way, sangha holds you accountable. A supportive, spiritual community will hold you to the highest standards and (with compassion) let you know when you slip. You can make excuses for yourself, but it’s much harder to do in a community where people actually see you.
Sangha also amplifies your spiritual practice. Community allows your practice to expand like ripples in the water into ever-widening circles. When you see yourself in others, you can’t help but love them and care for them, and in turn, they pass that love on. Practicing yoga in a group can be a transformative experience that keeps you focused and takes you deep. There’s magic that happens in group spiritual practice, a shared goal, a feeling of camaraderie, or some unknown quality that can be hard to pinpoint. I know that my most powerful meditation experiences have happened in group practice, and I can use all the help I can get!
How to Build Community
Ironically, to facilitate the inward journey of the yoga path, we need outer support. Support in the form of a loving community. Sangha is helpful in inspiring practice as well as keeping us on the path when we’re struggling. This can be a lot simpler than it sounds. It could just be a group of students who become yoga friends, brought together by a welcoming teacher. Or a few yoga teachers who get together on occasion to talk about how they’re doing and how their teaching and practicing is going.
While we all benefit from community, Accessible Yoga classes offer a space that welcomes students who are particularly isolated, which can be unhealthy mentally and physically. That’s why creating opportunities for community-building is not only a nice idea, but a very effective technique for supporting students.
If you’re a yoga teacher, you may want to consider ways to support connection and community amongst your students. This could include:
- Asking students to introduce themselves at the beginning of class or leading a quick icebreaker.
- Learning your regular students’ names.
- Creating space before or after class for conversation.
- Encouraging students to support each other. They can connect and form friendships outside of class in a way that may not be appropriate for you as the teacher.
- Thinking of activities for the students to do together, such as forming a book group or creating a fundraiser for a cause they are interested in supporting.
The importance of community in yoga really can’t be overestimated. When we come together in peace and care, we become living examples of the essence of yoga — union. We remember that yoga makes us compassionate and empathetic, and in turn, that encourages us to see ourselves in others. To put it simply: When I turn within, I find you there.
