5 Reasons Why You Should Learn Yoga in India:

I practiced yoga for five years before I ever considered a yoga teaching training. For many years, I actually had no idea how yoga teachers came to be. I thought the magic guru in the air just dropped them off to my local studio all-yogi-like; I had no idea they were imperfect humans just like me!

And then about a year ago, when I was still working in sunny Santa Barbara, and awaiting my law school replies—a time of great stress and tension—I slowly became obsessed with the idea of deepening my yogic practice. I thought if I were to practice yoga as well as my teachers, I could be as composed as them. Further, I could learn to relax on my own time and in my own space rather than depending on a trip to a studio every day, which would be especially helpful in law school. I had no intention of actually teaching yoga after my teacher training. (Funny how life works out.)

Between living in Santa Barbara, and having the ability to go home to LA on the weekends, I had a plethora of modern yoga studios to train from. However, I wanted a fuller experience, challenging not only my body, but also my mind and spirituality. I wanted to dig deep into the roots of this deeply therapeutic and silencing activity, and dig deeper into myself. And that is exactly what I got in India.

These are five reasons you should learn yoga in India:

#1 It’s Authentic

India gave birth to yoga. You can’t get more of an authentic yogic experience, than living in the birthplace of yoga, studying yoga from gurus who spent months starving in the forest alone, meditating and transcending all the desires and attachments of this world.

I know, I know, I know. It sounds like that Eat Pray Love BS. But, there’s a reason the Beatles, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and countless others have made the journey to India for inspiration, and came out on the other side a stronger person (/band) with a rejuvenated vision and passion for their creations of the future.

India is still pretty far from being a cookie cutter vacation spot, which means the mountains, and beaches, and rivers still remains, for the most part, to be trampled by tourists and ruined by human waste. So much of India and her history were carved by religion and spirituality, and whether or not you are a believer, you can’t help but feel something in the air, something shiny and warm and beautiful. It permeates the attitude of the cities and peoples, especially the travelers. It feels like everyone who surrounds you came to look deeper, too: to find something within. You can just feel it.

Yoga is not just the physical; yoga is the balance of the mind, body, and soul. If you want to learn the holistic approach of yoga, I believe it’s best to learn from teachers who practice this on the daily. Yoga is based on living a nonviolent, non-attached, truthful, self-disciplined, righteous, and ego-less life. To take this sort of lifestyle home and apply it to your everyday, I think the complete detachment from our ritualized lives and shedding our old skins is so healthy and necessary to grow.

#2. It’s NOT Easy

I know. I’m supposed to be talking you into jumping on the crazy train to rural India, and my second reason is that it’s not easy?! But, it makes complete sense, if you think about it. Just ask yourself, what do you want from a yoga teaching training? Do you want to learn how to sell and furnish a yoga routine in a neat little 50-minute stretch, abs, and 5 minute Savasana mix? Or do you want to deepen your personal practice, and be deeply challenged on the physical, emotional, and spiritual level, and distanced from your everyday to be immersed in a completely new external world?

Living in Santa Barbara, it would have been way too easy. I would have went to work all week and then to yoga class five to seven hours on Saturdays and Sundays for two months, grabbing chipotle or In-N-Out on the way home, and probably end up partying at the end of the night.

In India, life was completely backwards. There was no meat and no alcohol and spotty Wifi at best and no paved roads nor streetlights and, most importantly, no clean water! Your only supporters were the connections you created, which happened so quickly and deeply in a place lacking distractions.

Within the first two weeks, everyone got sick—everyone. And almost overnight, a family was built on this idea of yoga and love and respect, as people delivered leftovers to the sick member’s doors, offering extra electrolytes and vitamins and more bottles of water and whatever else they could go without. It was like the end result of hazing in fraternities and sororities building brotherhoods and sisterhoods, except completely naturally formed. India is simply hard to assimilate to, and yoga in 100°F (or ~37°C) heat with Delhi belly is even harder. And everyone gets it, because everyone is going through it together. So after four weeks, you don’t only get a certificate to teach, you’ve created something much more beautiful: a family.

It’s not easy, but it’s so good and important that it’s not easy. Would it be worth it if it were easy?

#3. It’s basic. (IN THE BEST WAY)

It’s basic, but not like LA basic. It strips life to the bare bone. It strips life, yoga, and you to the bare essence.

The city I stayed in, itself, was underdeveloped. Sure, bridges, and cars existed, but the city lacked traffic lights—which meant CONSTANT honking and motorbikes, automobiles, and vans veering and zooming past pedestrians, cows, and monkeys alike.

For my living quarters, I received a single bare room, consisting of a clean double bed, a running fan, and a window (a godsend!) with an attached bathroom, which entailed a toilet, a showerhead, whose icy cold water flowed straight into the drain in the floor, and a bucket, acting as the washing machine for the month. WiFi was found when you stood on your tippy-toes on top of the right corner of your bed with one finger splayed straight up like an antennae. It wasn’t much, but by the end of the month, it was more than enough.

Food was provided thrice daily: consisting of rice, curried vegetables, tofu, and beans, some fresh vegetables, fruit, and nuts. There were no processed foods, no chocolate, no meat or dairy, no In-N-Out, and no chipotle.

And most importantly, the whole city of Rishikesh, yoga’s birthplace, follows a strict prohibition of alcohol and other drugs.

So simply put, I was forced into a social media hiatus, and I went vegan and sober. In a moments notice, I was stripped of all of my immediate bodily pleasures, and at times like the dead of the night, I was left to deal with the gaping black hole—swirling with thoughts, worries, emotions, and memories of the past, present, and future—within my mind, which I often try to ignore exists.

In a space like this, there is nothing and I mean NOTHIN, NADA, ZILCH to do except to connect with other beautiful beings, expand your yoga practice, and find acceptance, self love, and forgiveness for yourself (though of course, once found, its an ongoing process). And in a space like this, its impossible not to notice how silly humans tend to be in all the things we like to complain about on the day-to-day—like figuring out what to eat for dinner, washing the dishes, driving through traffic jams on the way to work—and replace such complaints with complete gratitude for every moment.

#4 It’s adventurous

Are you ever bored with your life? The hums and white noise of your every day life, the tapping and clacking away at the keyboard at work, the same old routine of binge watching Netflix with a quick meal, night after night after night. Do you ever simply get bored? India is an adventure, to say the least. India is one great gigantic leap from your comfort zone, which all adventurers know is when life really begins.

Say you’ve never really had any interest in living in a rural, underdeveloped country, albeit it’s only for a short month, or you’ve never found any interest in Indian food; well don’t you see your own biases and judgments? Don’t you see how this is all just a massive opportunity for growth? To find new taste buds light up as the various spiced curries dance on your tongue. To find a newfound love and appreciation for all of the blessings in your life, like all the little comforts within your own home (or perhaps notice how much consumption has taken over your life). To meet locals and travelers of all ages, all walks of life, from all around the world and make long-lasting relationships, in which strangers somehow know more of your life story than some of your childhood best friends.

All this adventure really means one thing: you spend this time meeting yourself again, without the roles you play every day, without the fancy clothes and gadgets and gizmos you own, without the people around you reminding you who you are. Do you know who you are without your job, your paycheck, your friends, your family, and especially without your society norms?

#5 Best of All: It’s cheap

My home studio offered me a scholarship as I was working for the studio as a front desk yogi. (I would have definitely taken the offer and been completely satisfied with it, had it not been run out of business…) The total would have been $1,800. CorePower offered one for $3000, like a majority of other studios, ranging from $2,500-$5,000. My 200 Hour YTT, yoga alliance certified and all, cost me a whopping—drumroll, please—$1,600! Oh, and that INCLUDED costs for the reading and course material, food thrice daily, room and board for a full 30 days.

If I had been in Santa Barbara, rent would have been $700-800 with a $100 budget for meals and $50 for gas, plus the $3,000 bill for the training… It simply doesn’t compare, nor make sense to compare in the sake of staying home versus having an experience of a lifetime.

Speaking of cheap, and this is just a bonus, but have you ever had a REAL CHAI TEA? I never liked the taste, when Starbucks made it—but it is actually godly after an exhausting 90-minute session of Ashtanga, and it is about $.15… IT DOES NOT COMPARE TO YOUR FAKE FRUIT SMOOTHIES.

I get it, though. Not everyone can simply skip his or her responsibilities, work, families for a month. But on my journey, I met professionals, mothers and fathers, recent graduates, and, of course, soon to be grad students. It’s difficult to find the time, but it’s definitely not an impossible feat.

Personally, I completed my training in Rishikesh, (the birthplace and heart of yoga, right next to the holy Ganja {which is a holy river}), but I’ve also heard wonderful things about Goa, which is based on the sandy beaches in the South. The main problem with Rishikesh is that locals have noticed how profitable yoga training has become, and there is a bit of a capitalist version of spirituality being sold within the competition created by the heavy demand of traveling yogis who can afford to pay, which to the locals is an extremely hefty price. I recommend completing a lot of research, and even reaching out to people who have went to the specific school, via FB (I feel that most yogis don’t mind sharing their experience) before choosing the perfect school.

After all is said and done, if you are planning to deepen your yoga practice or planning to teach yoga or simply want to LEARN the basics of yoga, I can’t recommend taking the leap of faith and booking a flight to India (TODAY g’damn it!).

(Disclaimer: India is a risk. The culture is still predominantly strongly controlled by the patriarchy, and as a woman, you are subject to the male glare, and sometimes worse, at all times. Of course, there are risks traveling to India on your own, and I would carefully weigh the pros and cons based on your own gut instincts. Take my words with a grain of salt.)

Thank you beautiful souls for reading. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for future posts in the comments below.

Namaste <3