Many people ask me if I can recommend where they should study yoga on their travels to the birthplace of this ancient Indian philosophy. I humbly admit to them that I have never been to India. My gurus are in New York—and they are American.

Most people are surprised at this admission. They question me regarding this. After all, if I am a yogi, shouldn’t my guru be an Indian man? Well, the gurus of my gurus are Indian men, but in my case, I look into the soft brown eyes and pale skin of my gurus when I bow before them.

It’s funny. yoga has taken such a hold in America, yet some misconceptions are still etched in the practice. For example, we think yoga is practiced in hot rooms just because it is hot in India; we have this image in our minds of ancient yogis practicing warrior two and sun salutations, and we think that in order to be a true guru, your nationality matters.

In this day and age of yoga, its evolution has taken a major turn, one towards the west. More westerners are doing yoga today, at least the practice we define as yoga, than Indians. There is a saying now that there is more yoga on the lower east side of Manhattan than there is in all of India. Westerners have taken yoga to the next level—a level of fitness, industry, and fashion—yet many yogis still try to remain close to the roots of yoga.

One of the ways that yogis strive to remain closely tied to the true purpose of the practice is by tightening their grip on what they think is most “classical,” the finding of a guru. This is, in my opinion, the most important piece of yogic philosophical principles. While the west has shaped yoga and turned it into an amazing practice that many people need right now, the one thing that hasn’t seemed to catch up with this tidal wave is the idea of a guru.

Many practitioners think that it’s not important. In truth, some think that guru is a bad word, and those who get over the stigma of what a guru tends to represent think a practitioner has to go to India to find one. This is simply not true. Yoga, as we know it, is largely a western phenomenon, and it is western yogis who have created it and helped it to evolve into the practice we know today. It is they who have crafted the practical application of yoga for modern day living, so why should we not turn to them to learn all we can of their designs? Whether it is Ashtanga, Iyengar, Kripalu, Jivamukti, Viniyoga, Power yoga, or any of the other multitudinous options, all these practices have very strong roots in the west and truly adroit western yogis at their respective helms.

Yoga came into my life in a fairly traditional (American) way. I started going to classes during college simply for health reasons, which is the way most people enter into a yoga practice. Something very strong took hold, and I’ve been an avid practitioner since. A nagging desire sent me to study with Sharon Gannon and David Life, and my whole world turned upside down. In their presence, I learned what the term “guru” meant. In short, I learned to surrender to another being who could show me my true Light.

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