By SUZANNE MOORE
Features Editor
PLATTSBURGH — It was a time of desperate fear, deepest uncertainty and all-encompassing grief.
At the International Yoga Institute, teachers and students came not for the regular classes, but to find solace, refuge. Neighbors of the Manhattan institute wandered in who'd never practiced yoga there; the 9-11 terrorist attacks made them all a kind of family.
"We ended up having these group meetings where we simply got together and prayed together," said institute president Swami Ramananda.
The center was so close to the World Trade Center that, from some windows, there was a view of figures on the rooftops. Ramananda witnessed the implosion of one tower.
"It was such a shocking thing to watch, it was almost impossible to grasp," he said in a phone interview from the 13th Street institute.
"Probably like everyone, I felt a tremendous range of emotion during that time, from anger to shock and tremendous grief."
And yet he could still center himself through Hatha yoga.
"I did find my practice helped me feel present for what was happening, conscious for what I was experiencing and make choices about how to best take care of myself and how to best serve in my role," he said. "Rather than being lost and swept away by emotion, I felt I was more conscious of those feelings and was able to make conscious choices."
FINDING JOY
Yoga is so much more than physical exercise.
The swami comes to Plattsburgh to present two workshops next week; one on Sept. 11 will address "finding solid ground in the midst of life's challenges, in the context of individual, couple, family or work."
That workshop will involve some simple yoga practice, Ramananda said, some breathing exercises and quiet meditation. Mostly, he will talk about the dynamics of "how we relate to the world, how to find joy."
It's a good session for those who want to learn what yoga is, he said.
"There's very little training in our culture on how to relate to our mind and thoughts in a healthy way," he said. "When the mind is stressed, it tends to race and be scattered over a range of feelings and thoughts that make it difficult to focus and think creatively to solve problems, to make skillful choices," he said.
Yoga practice, itself, can provide tools for coping, Ramananda said, "to help steady and balance the mind, to slow down the process that might normally occur, which is to kind of react in a compulsive way."
ESSENTIAL TRUTH
Ramananda, 57, discovered yoga as a young man entering university.
"I think I was looking for some source of truth, something that would help me have an experience of spirituality rather than accepting a belief system on faith.
There's an essential truth common to all faiths, he learned. Eventually, he took monastic vows in the tradition of yoga.
"While yoga is not really a religion per se, there is a monastic lineage," he said.
Ramananda's first workshop, set for Thursday, Sept. 9, is for those who wish to explore how yoga can "lead them into more subtle experiences, help them relate to their minds in a healthier way," he said.
"Yoga was meant to be practiced for the health of the body and also the health of the mind," he said. "You could say our emotional well-being and our social well-being. And along with those benefits, to experience a spiritual aspect of ourselves and then to see that in each other."
The swami comes to Plattsburgh at the behest of Luis Sierra and Libby Yokum of ADK Yoga, who will assist him at the workshops; before relocating to the area, Sierra had taught at the institute.
"Luis was one of the most beloved of our teachers," Ramananda said.
ON THE JOB
In recent years, yoga has moved more into the mainstream. The institute offers classes in workplace settings, attended by people who recognize the practice helps them to de-stress and, in fact, be more productive on the job.
A local high school sends at-risk teens to the institute for yoga classes, and results have proved a great success.
"The students are more focused, relate to each other in a more healthy way," Ramananda said. "We're seeing a greater sense of self esteem in those students and a sense of being able to control their anger."
To learn how to relate to the mind in a healthier way has an impact on everything a person does, the swami said, "relationships in particular — one of the most challenging aspects of human life.
"Yoga practice is a beautiful way to find more joy and meaning by understanding our connectedness with all of life," he said, "and certainly with each other."
E-mail Suzanne Moore at: smoore@pressrepublican.com
