In this deeply inspiring and wide ranging conversation Scott talks to Waylon Lewis on his life as a buddhist and the growth of the world renowned yoga and wellness magazine, Elephant Journal. If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also enjoy Scott’s conversations with Danny Paradise, John Scott and Prem & Radha Carlisi. I had ended up on the course because I needed a break. I had decided to look upon it as a retreat and form of healing because after many years of troubles with food and alcohol and almost a decade of working as a news journalist, I was exhausted. I needed a rest but was also searching for some serious discipline in what had otherwise been a chaotic life for too long. I really wanted to speak to Waylon about Elephant and how he grew a small local magazine to a worldwide publication that we all recognise. His story of growing up in a spiritual school and being a Buddhist is fascinating. And his sharing of the power of the big social media companies is food for us all. This is a fascinating insight into someone who has shaped part of our modern yoga and wellness culture" Set the container for yourself. Meditate, pray, set your intention. In your way, ground yourself in the widened awareness of the present moment and a sense of unity and connection that yoga offers us. 2. Prepare the Space

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The solution to bringing about real change must include everyone. If we’re in the business of yoga and get paid for selling it in some form, it’s our duty to ensure we’re doing it with respect and integrity. Those changes alone could revolutionise the way yoga exists in the western world. Above all, we all have a responsibility to make sure that yoga is available to anyone who wants to practise it. In late 2022 Peter released his latest book of translations, Yin Mountain: The Immortal Poetry of Three Daoist Women, co-translated with Rebecca Nie. You can find links to these books in the show notes. Peter Levitt on How Mindfulness Is Creativity Scott and Peter talk openly about his life as a writer and a Zen practitioner. Peter shares:How he grew up in a catholic upbringing. How he had a mystical experience aged 6. How his parents saw something deep in him from an early age. How he read mystical books from a very young age. How he took psychedelics in his late teens but the integration as a spiritual experience didn’t work. How in his twenties he did the guru trail in India. How he decided to spend his life doing personal sadhana. Why mystical experiences are not spontaneous. Why you should work with hypotheses rather than belief. Why the mystical state is your birth right. How in his forties he developed a relationship with Jesus. How the ego gets in the way of the mystical experience and is known in many traditions with different names. How we need to be in the service of all beings. Why yoga is the most powerful tool for transformation. What the inspiration is that he uses to write his books. How we can all find our life’s purpose. How we can stay connected to nature. What the most important thing is that he has discovered through his practice. ___ About Gregor Maehle Gregor Maehle began his yogic practices 45 years ago. In the mid-1980s he commenced annual travels to India, where he studied with various yogic and tantric masters, traditional Indian sadhus and ascetics. He spent fourteen months in Mysore, and in 1997 was authorised to teach Ashtanga Yoga by K. Pattabhi Jois. Since then he has branched out into researching the anatomical alignment of postures and the higher limbs of yoga. The Highland Yoga Collective is a yoga studio and social enterprise," she said. "We offer wellbeing with a social impact, in a warm, accessible and inclusive space that is welcoming to all." Yoga has been a friend to Nadia Gilani through both the highs and lows of her life, and she believes wholeheartedly in its power to benefit and nourish our bodies and minds. I’ve tried to write a book that no one else has, a book that would have been handy to have when I first started teaching yoga. But this book isn’t only for teachers or those working within the yoga industry, it’s also for yoga practitioners (or students really), especially beginners – so if that’s you, welcome, you’re in the right place. This is why I’ll be balancing an examination of what I’ve seen happen to yoga over the years by sharing my changing experiences of the practice with you as I’ve never seen my own story reflected anywhere else. In this deeply inspiring and wide ranging conversation Scott talks to David Swenson, one of the worlds foremost and well loved teachers and practitioners of Ashtanga yoga.

Nadia Gilani

But there’s hope, because this book is also about the ways I learnt even more about what yoga could mean for me by helping others apply it to their own lives. I hope I can help you in some way with this book too. I care deeply about doing this because yoga has a special place in my heart. I was introduced to the practice early in life and I’d like to help more people find it too. It might seem like that job’s already been done because yoga appears to be everywhere and everyone seems to be doing it. Even if you’ve never set foot in a class, I’m guessing that you’ve seen someone hugging a mat on their way to one. Nadia holds up a mirror to the culture of yoga in the west, which is often far from compassionate or healing, and tells us her story beautifully, mirrored through the rhythmic and disciplined lens of Ashtanga yoga, of practise and transformation.”If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also enjoy Scott’s conversations with Pamela Weiss, Sarah Powers and Frank Jude Boccio. As we moved through the class, I started thinking here was a room of teenagers who are at the bottom of the barrel in terms of who the yoga and so-called wellness industry is interested in targeting with its airy studios in affluent postcodes. In a way, capitalist wellness as it stands seems to serve those who are already reasonably ‘well’, or at least well off enough to access wellness tools and pay for the privilege. And yet this practice may have actually been designed all along for young people like the teenagers I was meeting this evening. Indian guru Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, widely dubbed ‘the father of modern yoga’, devised Ashtanga Vinyasa – a vigorous method of postural yoga to build strength and stamina among his students who were, according to some historians, mostly young boys. Several years into my own relationship with yoga and when I was hooked on Ashtanga, I was distraught to read an article by the controversial cult leader Osho who went as far as to say women shouldn’t practise Ashtanga because it would shrink their breasts and damage their wombs. I was so disturbed by what I read that I asked my Ashtanga teacher at the time what to do. Would I have to stop? I asked him. I didn’t want to stop. Thankfully he suggested I ignore Osho and carry on as I was. Ashtanga was further popularized in the West in the 1940s by Pattabhi Jois – one of Krishnamacharya’s students. Decades later it was the approach to yoga everyone seemed to be practising – including the likes of Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow (and me).