Yoga Teacher Training Journeys

Forget the science, save the planet!

Like you, I like to live a life which shows my passion about the environment. Like you, I recycle paper and glass waste at home. I try and buy locally produced food and goods from my neighbourhood greengrocer or weekly market, rather than those shipped half way round the world at the town’s corporate supermarket. When I visit an ATM I select view on screen rather than print a receipt. I try and cycle whenever I can. I even tear off the plastic window from bills envelopes (I’m told it’s the Virgo in me) when disposing off mail. And I practice yoga because of a sense of stillness and harmony a regular practice offers me. So when people more learned than me urge we tread lightly on the planet, I want to follow their lead because it sits comfortably with those values. Why then is there such a fuss over whether our response to climate change is right?

Recently, there’s been a spate of stories casting a cloud of doubt over what to do in response to climate change. Is the globe really warming? After all, parts of Europe and North America have just experienced one of their coldest winters on record. Some scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are now being discredited because statistics on melting Himalayan glaciers have been off the mark. Climate skeptics are on world tours while sections of the mainstream media are accused of falling short of rigorous scrutiny of the best available facts.

What we’re told and what we believe is dividing public opinion. Some think it’s a case of what you want to believe while others are happy with what science is able to tell us. Sound familiar? Have you ever felt a test of faith when it comes to understanding or accepting something you know little about? Some times there are no answers for why things are the way they are. Yoga practice and yoga retreats serve to instil a sense of inner calm to help us deal with the frenetic pace of life. The experience can help bring life into balance by taking a step back for contemplation. They also serve to bring clarity to understanding those things in life which require belief and trust alone.

When I hear of the dissenters of climate change theory, I try to empathize in case they have a point. Then I get stuck. But does it matter if I don’t fully understand? Is it really such a bad idea to try and take lighter footsteps for the good of the planet?

The easy thing to do would be to pretend the science is a fiction and we have nothing to worry about. Perhaps it IS a part of the planet’s natural cycle and that world governments and most of the science community are over-reacting. Then I remind myself that few things in life are free (or easy), and that I’ve inherited the world left my by my ancestors. Remaining true to my yoga practice is sometimes a challenge, but I know time on the mat leaves me feeling nurtured and still, just as I like my life to be. I enter a place of calm particularly with morning practice, which stays with me as I undergo my daily routine. I undertake yoga retreats to further my understanding and acceptance of the blessing offered by my yoga. When I’m compelled to engage with others in business or pleasure, I hope they acknowledge and appreciate the sense of stillness and harmony my practice brings to me. I want others to share in those gifts. If I can live more in harmony with the environment by minimizing my impact on it, then it seems I’m showing and sharing the benefits of my yoga in the world at large too.

A yoga practice helps develop that sense of harmony which science is urging us to honour. Does it matter if the extent of the challenge is uncertain? If much of the world’s most respected scientific opinion asks us to conserve, recycle, reuse and offset where we can, why not simply ‘do it’? Doesn’t such a path reflect what we as yogis aspire towards? If the truth is hard to bear, can we afford to close our eyes and leave it to others to act on our collective behalf?

To me, the aims of action on climate change sit comfortably with my desire to live a life of balance and harmony. That’s why I practice yoga. Denying this opportunity to restore balance is like giving up on the blessing of our yoga practice. We’re being shown the opportunity to take a new approach to interacting with our natural environment. As yogis, we already understand and respect the value in such an approach in our daily life. Isn’t this chance to change the way we interact with nature worth trying, regardless of the science and the skeptics who choose to question such a path?

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