Yoga? Yes! More, please, especially after Bhakti Fest
It was supposed to be a girlfriend getaway, but a weekend trip to a desert yoga festival transformed my mind, body and skepticism about the benefits of the ancient practice, of which I knew virtually nothing.
Naive but limber, I joined two yoga teacher college friends at last September’s Bhakti Fest, a unique yoga and music festival at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center. Amid the otherworldly Joshua trees, open skies and buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the festival was a spiritual Woodstock for the super-fit.
The festival traces its origins to 1969’s Woodstock, where Sridhar Steven Silberfein brought Sri Swami Satchidananda onstage to lead a mass chant. Forty years later, he founded Bhakti Fest, billed as a celebration of compassion and devotion. Coachella it’s not.
An extensive variety of yoga classes packed with all ages and abilities helped erase the trendy trappings I’d found in Los Angeles studios and instead presented yoga as a holistic physical, mental and spiritual experience. Through workshops with noted authors and experts, sessions with yoga masters and kirtan concerts by world-famous chanters of the ancient mantras, I was beginning to understand yoga’s history and wider purpose, beyond its popularity as a way to keep trim.
Bhakti Fest prohibits drugs, alcohol and smoking, and all food is vegetarian. When more than 3,000 people gather to focus on health and wellness, gratitude and peace, the result is mass serenity, joy and a welcoming vibe that let a cynic like me look past my misconceptions. (Isn’t yoga something those robed guys in the airport do?)
Though I’m every bit a practical, feet-on-the-ground mom, the event flipped a switch.
Buoyed by the festival’s energy, I began taking beginner yoga classes at neighborhood studios and put kirtan on my playlists. A CD with the deeply resonant voice of kirtan master Krishna Das, “Greatest Hits of the Kali Yuga,” became a permanent fixture in my car and an elixir to tame traffic tension. The muscle-stretching, joint-strengthening and stress-releasing yoga poses not only toned my physique but also alleviated my chronic lower back and neck pain.
Now lighter in body and spirit, I returned earlier this month to Bhakti Fest, more college roommates in tow. The tough part was choosing among the options, which included nearly nonstop live music on three stages. Ninety-minute yoga classes stretched from sunup to sundown with notables such as Shiva Rea, Saul David Raye or Santa Monica’s Govind Das and Radha, often accompanied by live music in breezy, scenic, outdoor settings.
I could also attend a taped interview with spiritual teacher and “Be Here Now” author Ram Dass or workshops with Google executive Gopi Kallayil, who incorporates yoga practices and principles into a challenging work life (start with one minute of yoga or mindfulness a day — and that minute will likely stretch to 30). I heard the former Richard Slavin of suburban Chicago, now Radhanath Swami and the author of “The Journey Home,” tell stories that illustrated how the simple act of showing appreciation can save relationships.
This I never got from step aerobics or the sanitized yoga at the gym.
Though I wasn’t searching for a spiritual path, I gathered bits of wisdom to help maintain my inner and outer peace, delivering on yoga’s promise to connect the intellectual, physical and emotional.
While a baby wailed during an otherwise silent portion of his yoga class, San Francisco instructor Brad Brockbank guided students to find peace and quiet “even when there isn’t peace and quiet.” It’s a focus thing.
A funny thing happened on the way to my yoga mat: I learned that this ancient practice can really deliver on its promise to get your issues out of your tissues. But it’s not automatic, it takes practice, as the endearingly real Krishna Das told the packed audience for his workshop.
“A little bit every day is the thing that works,” he said. “The thing with practice is you have to do it when you want to do it — and when you don’t want to. Five minutes a day, do something — sitting quietly, watch your breath, do some mantra or just sit there and be stupid.
“It makes no difference, but every day do something. You’ll see it’s very important.”
My neck, shoulders, heart and mind agree. Why don’t you join me and take a moment to relax? Close your eyes and repeat after me: Om.
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Bhakti Fest, a yoga and kirtan gathering, aims to open spirits
The annual Bhakti Fest, known as the Woodstock of the kirtan movement, began in 2009 in Joshua Tree — a spiritual extravaganza of song and dance, yoga, chanting and meditation supplemented with green juices and vegan food.
“I wanted to create a place where we could rejuvenate, come back to the heart and get into the compassion and love that we forget so easily,” said the founder, Sridhar Steven Silberfein.
Kirtan (pronounced keer-tan) means “to praise” and is a form of call and response devotional singing that is as old as time. It’s a cross between an old-fashioned singalong and an ecstatic meditation using ancient Sanskrit chants and mantras said to recalibrate a person’s vibrational field, lower blood pressure, relieve stress and ease anxiety and depression.
Amy V. Dewhurst, actress, writer and a consulting producer for the festival, has been coming to it since the beginning.
“It is four days of pure spiritual practice, or sadhana,” she said, “and I see more and more people’s lives totally transformed by it. As they leave Monday morning, they are ear-to-ear smiling with glowing, radiant hearts and totally trusting in all that has been and all that is to come. And that feeling stays with you. I can’t think of any other weekend that does that.”
The 2015 festival is scheduled Sept. 10-13. Passes for the full festival are $175 until the end of this month, rising gradually to the full price of $400. For more information, go to www.bhaktifest.com. There are camping passes, dorm beds, yurts and hotels for accommodation.
—Nicola Graydon Harris
