Happy 12th Birthday Anusara! Blessings of divine light and love to everyone on this auspicious day, August 15th.

One of the most common questions that I get in interviews is, “John, when you founded Anusara yoga in 1997, did you ever expect it to grow so abundantly in such a short time?” Looking back at the beginning of Anusara, I was very confident that the method would be highly effective and so the style could become popular, but I never envisioned it spreading around the world into over 70 countries with 200,000 students by the end of its 12th year. On August 15, 1997, the day that I wrote the vision statement of Anusara yoga, I put all of my future ideas of Anusara into present tense as if we were already manifesting the vision. I focused on embodying the quality of the ideals and the intention at the essence of Anusara. Number of students was never a relevant factor. I knew that if I clearly presented the radiant Anusara method, then the right students would start to naturally form the Merry Band—my ideal of a harmoniously creative community of like-hearted students. I knew deep inside that the power of the Anusara principles were infused with Shakti and Grace, so it never entered my mind that it won’t be a successful hatha yoga style. From the beginning, the destiny of Anusara seemed much bigger than me, so I just took a ride with the powerful flow of Shakti and never worried about the size of the school.

The birth of Anusara 12 years ago on this auspicious day was the culmination of an evolution within my yoga studies and practice that was many years in the making. It was through my Iyengar yoga studies in the 1980’s that led me to my first visit to India in October of 1989. In turn, it was during that journey to India in ’89 that I met Gurumayi at her ashram in Ganeshpuri. That encounter radically shifted the emphasis of my yoga practice from intense individual willpower to opening to Grace. I continued to teach Iyengar yoga until 1995, but all the while I was evolving from a classical yoga view to a Tantric philosophy. Finally, I realized that I was not fully aligned with Mr. Iyengar philosophy and method, so it was not dharmic of me to continue to use his name to describe my teaching style. So, for 2 years from 1995 - 1997 I simply taught “yoga” with no affiliation to any style. This only created mass confusion among the students since many thought I was still teaching Iyengar yoga while the others didn’t know how to classify my style to be able to properly describe it to someone else. So, it became evident to me that I must name and clearly define my yoga style for it to be understandable and honest with everyone.

For months I contemplated the name of the style and its foundational differentiating elements. In early August 1997, while during my annual summer sojourn in Shree Muktananda Ashram in upstate New York, my friend and Tantric scholar, Douglas Brooks, suggested the name, “Anusara, for my style. As soon as I heard Douglas say the word I knew that it was the name for the new yoga school. When he told me that it meant, “flowing with Grace”, I was assured that it was the right name. The 3 a’s in the word, Anusara, also further confirmed that it was meant to be!

Then on August 15th, I wrote the Anusara vision statement at my desk in the ashram. It was a grand holiday in the ashram that day since it was the 50th year anniversary of India’s independence from the British Empire. Also on that same day in 1947, Baba Muktananda received a life-changing spiritual initiation from his guru, Bhagawan Nityananda. So, in Siddha Yoga, August 15th is celebrated as Baba’s Divya Diksha Day, the day of his divine initiation. It was truly a perfectly auspicious day to formally birth the vision that I had been formulating in my head for so many years prior.

Now on Anusara’s 12th birthday one key reason why we continue to grow more harmonious and brighter every year is that the members of the Merry Band continue to become more sensitive to seeing and perceiving the Universal Shakti in each other and in everything. Typically, as organizations grow larger, increasing dysfunction tends to occur because the members lose their connection to the foundational ideals that serve to sustain the integrity of the organization. However, with Anusara the first principle of opening to the Universal is constantly referenced and returned to in our teachings. By everyone aligning to the Universal first and foremost the community has less of a chance of breaking up into disparate individual intentions. With the regular emphasis on the first principle, Anusara has continued to become more harmonious and more Shri even as the numbers of the Merry Band have grown exponentially over our first 12 years.

Within the first principle there is the implicit reminder to primarily look for the divine auspiciousness (Shri) in each other and all things. This was a key part of my vision for Anusara, and it is evident in the opening paragraph of the vision statement. “Anusara Yoga is a hatha yoga system that unifies Universal Principles of Alignment with a philosophy that is epitomized by what I call “celebration of the heart”. In this philosophy we take the premise that each of us is essentially good, so there is a lot of acceptance and allowance in this system for difference and deviation. We practice looking for the good in things, especially in ourselves and our students. As Anusara Yoga teachers we are not trying to fix or correct the students, we are trying to help enhance and reveal the beauty and divine qualities that are already present in the students’ poses.One of the other key aspects of this attitude or philosophy is that we are all co-creators with Nature or the Supreme in this life, and this creative freedom makes life fun, exciting and inspiring. Life is seen not as a hard labor assignment without chance of parole, but as a fun game that can be celebrated each day. “

Then in the last paragraph of my 2-page vision statement I presented the key for Anusara to be sustainable and have a bright longevity over many years. “The system is held together by everyone’s implicit agreement to the principles, particularly spiritual precepts such as celebrating Beauty in all Its diversity, Truthfulness, and honoring the Divine in all Beings. Without a rigid dogma, the system is open to continual change and restructuring. Self-examination, scrutiny, discovery, and openness to new ideas are foundational to this dynamic system. Anusara grows with harmony and integrity through the combined vision of the Merry Band.”

All that is born will die, so there will be a day when Anusara is no more. Yet, until that day we will rock out every day in the celebration of the unbounded creative delight-filled Shiva-Shakti at the essence of our hearts!

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