Blaze It And Bend It.
{AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File}
A long time ago, during the Age of Flower Children, when Yoga was gaining traction in the United States, an Indian guru with a bushy beard, Sri Swami Satchidananda, was invited by the avant-garde psychedelic artist Peter Max to visit the country.
Three years later, accompanied by 24 young yogis, he was the opening speaker at Woodstock, the 1969 music arts and peace festival.
Drug use ran rampant among the estimated half million in attendance. “There were a lot of good trips at Woodstock,” said co-promoter Artie Kornfeld, “but, there were some bad ones, too.”
The festival’s P. A. system kept up a running commentary: “The brown acid that is circulating around, please be advised there is a warning on that.” Freak-out tents dotted the muddy pastureland in upstate New York.
Although not a user himself, Sri Swami Satchidananda was tolerant of the hippie generation, and didn’t condemn their search for a higher consciousness. He did, however, offer Yoga as an alternative to drugs. “My teacher always said, if you get high, you have to get low. He suggested getting off the pendulum, and living in balance. That’s Yoga.”
Most of the old-school Yoga masters were like that.
“If you have to be addicted to something, be addicted to doing sadhana daily,” said Yogi Bhajan, who introduced Kundalini Yoga in 1968. “You are not free by taking drugs. You’ll always be dragging your life.”
“Yoga is a light, which once lit, will never dim,” said B. K. S. Iyengar. “The better your practice, the brighter the flame. When you inhale, you are taking the strength from God. When you exhale, it represents the service you are giving to the world.” He didn’t mean flaming up the bone, nor did he mean inhaling a puff of bhang. He meant a different kind of magic dragon.
But, that was then, and this is now.
When Yoga Journal moved to Boulder, Colorado, almost two years ago, and nearly 45 years after Woodstock, it was probably inevitable they would sooner or later conflate Goddess Pose with ganja. That’s exactly what happened.
Colorado criminalized marijuana use in 1917. It decriminalized it in 2012. In 2014, Colorado’s marijuana market reached total sales of $700 million.
Yoga Journal jumped on the $700 million bandwagon with a market–friendly article by Mike Kessler about getting ready for Yoga class by getting stoned, even though it involved some anxiety. “I’m way too stoned for Yoga,” he wrote, “I mill among the strangers and try to figure out what to do first — take off my shoes or sign in.”
Like Cheech and Chong said, “Hey, things are tough all over.”
Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life. When one is wasted — “It creates awareness, reveals the truth,” said Mr. Kessler, shifting gears — making decisions can become easier, or not. Mr. Kessler eventually took his shoes off and signed in.
“Class has only just begun and my weed-addled monkey-mind is swinging from tree to tree.” The class was 420 Remedy at Atwater Yoga in L. A., a class for yogis under the influence. Stephani Manger, the class teacher — “Warm and lovely,” said Mr. Kessler — came to the rescue, calming him down, reminding him to not try too hard.
420 Remedy is the brainchild of Liz McDonald, the Yoga studio owner, who had an epiphany on a sunny beach in Brazil. “It was otherworldly. Mixing Yoga and pot took me into the next dimension.”
“It can help break down inhibitions,” said John Friend, the former Anusara Yoga kingpin.
Before the Age of Flower Children, some of India’s sadhus, or holy men, smoked chillum pipes packed with ganja, hash, and tobacco. The purpose was to keep their minds focused, and strengthen their energy for penance and meditation.
“The purpose has never been intoxication,” explained a contemporary sadhu, Sri Saraswati, “it is supposed to reduce sexual desire.”
Sadhus have been known to go naked in the dead of winter, which might explain things.
Bhang and ganja have long been smoked in India. It is associated with immortality. 4000 years ago, in the Atharva Veda, which is known as the Veda of magical formulas, it was celebrated as a sacred grass. Fakirs, renowned for being able to tie themselves up into knots, and even survive being buried alive, have for centuries fortified themselves with it. They believe it is a gift from God.
Like Willie Nelson said, “God put it here. What gives anyone the right to say God is wrong?”
The unholy crusade against drugs began in 1914 after the United States Opium Commissioner revealed Americans were consuming more habit-forming drugs per person than anywhere else in the world. Marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, among others, were legal then as long as they were accurately labeled with their contents and dosage.
After alcohol became a good thing again in 1933, President Roosevelt made it a point to praise the International Opium Convention, and the race to criminalize drugs was on. In 1971, as he was winding down the War in Vietnam, President Nixon declared a new War on Drugs.
From 2001 to 2010, more than 8 million marijuana arrests were made nationwide. 90 percent of those arrests were for possession. More people were arrested for possession of marijuana in 2011 than for all violent crimes combined.
Drug offenders locked up in federal and state prisons have increased 13-fold since First Lady Nancy Reagan said Just Say NO in 1982. Today the War on Drugs, all the criminalized drugs, costs about $51 billion a year, according to the Drug Policy Alliance.
The only people winning the War on Drugs are the drug gangs. If it weren’t so horrible, it would be horrible.
Using drugs is a personal choice, not a crime. No one of legal age should have to live up to the fears and expectations of self-appointed drug czars. The War on Drugs is a War on Personal Choice.
In 2001, Portugal decriminalized all drugs within its borders. Since then, drug use of all kinds, from marijuana to heroin, has fallen. “There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in Portugal,” said Joao Goulao of the Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction.
In October 2015, more than 130 American police chiefs and prosecutors called for less incarceration. “You can’t arrest your way out of the problem,” said William Bratton, the police chief of NYC.
Decriminalizing all drugs may not be a cure, but it isn’t the disaster that the War on Drugs has been. At least, if and when Walgreens was doing the pushing, the drug gangs would end up on the losing side.
Wrapping up his 420 Remedy class, Mr. Kessler summed up saying “my stoned-yoga experience turned out positive.” At Ganja Yoga in San Francisco, instructor Dee Dussault describes the benefits of Pot Yoga as trippy relaxation, pain relief, sensuality, and the cultivation of inner peace.
“Class went by in a snap,” said Jessica Misener of Ms. Dussault’s class, “I tend to get bored during Yoga classes that are longer than an hour, but the second half of this one felt like it was only five minutes long. Thanks, cannabis!”
“I go more deeply into the asanas,” said Mark Smith, a novelist who has practiced Yoga for more than 20 years, sometimes under the influence. “Part of the point of yoga is to relax the body. Marijuana helps a lot of people to do that.”
However, all the point of Yoga, not just part of the point, aims at realizing who you are, not who you are on drugs. Who you are isn’t what kind of a house you live in, or what kind of a car you drive, or whether you prefer Golden Goat to Ghost Train Haze.
If those things are who you are, you don’t need Yoga. You’ve already got everything you want. Your house, your car, and your Ghost Train are doing it for you. Yoga is different. You have to do it for yourself. It’s not about the gravy train. Yoga is about effort and self-awareness.
It isn’t about anyone’s hobbies or politics, whether they teach high school science or thrive on tech in San Francisco. It’s about the inner being beyond the externals. It’s about practicing with dedication, whether it’s asana or meditation or any of Yoga’s other aspects, and cultivating detachment.
It’s not about cultivating the back forty with bhang.
“The real value of Yoga is the opportunity it offers to know yourself,” said Kaitlin Quistgaard, former editor of Yoga Journal. “Alone on your mat, with your breath and a few poses, you get to see.”
Intense breathing with a bong at hand is one thing. Intense Yoga breathing, which also triggers endorphins, is another thing. They are two different ways of breathing, of seeing. “I’m going to teach you how to get high on your breath,” said Yogi Bhajan.
Although using drugs is a personal choice and should not, for many reasons, be criminalized, there are consequences. Many studies, from the National Institutes of Health to the Journal of Psychiatry, have demonstrated that marijuana, depending on the dose, has a negative impact on cognition.
Using radioactive markers researchers at the University of Texas have shown that cocaine decreases blood flow to the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, mimicking what happens to people who suffer a stroke.
The less said about heroin and methamphetamine, the better.
Just like drugs do, Yoga changes the brain, but in a different way. Over time, the brain learns to pay attention to the present moment and calm down.
Cognitive research at the University of Illinois has found that test scores improve after practicing Yoga. A 12-week study by the National Institutes of Health demonstrated that Iyengar Yoga alters brain function, increasing cerebral blood flow.
“Yoga thickens the layers of the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain associated with higher learning, and increases neuroplasticity, which helps us learn new things and change the way we do things,” explained Dr. Loren Fishman of the Columbia Medical School.
One of the legacies of the Age of Flower Children is the idea of looking beyond established thought, of pushing boundaries, and thinking for yourself. Widespread drug use and Yoga both went mainstream with the advance of the counterculture, although one practice went to Ecstasy and the other practice on the path to a different kind of consciousness.
Knowledge is recognizing ripe tomatoes are a fruit. Wisdom is not putting one into a fruit salad. “The attaining of higher consciousness cannot simply be gained by the use of a drug,” says David Frawley of the American Institute of Vedic Studies.
Like Yogi Bhajan said, “Your brain will become feeble.”
Even though it’s often been pointed out you can’t fix stupid, a good place to start might be to not blaze it at snack time, and just go cold turkey when going to Yoga class.
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