Omega: Dharma Mittra, how has yoga changed since you started teaching in 1967?

Sri Dharma Mittra began teaching yoga in 1967 and founded the Dharma Yoga Center in 1975.

Sri Dharma Mittra: The change is amazing. Most of my students today are completely different from the 1960s. They are more active, more restless. Technology makes it easier to practice yoga, but at the same time, we have lots of temptations that prevent us from concentrating. So the teacher has to adjust the yoga, the eight limbs of yoga, a little bit, according to the condition of the student.

In the 1960s, the yoga teachers were really serious, and they found serious students who were spiritually inclined. Today the crowds are different. They are interested in mental powers and good health so that they can cope with life. It's not wrong, but today the students are at all levels. So a good yoga teacher will be able to make a nice program for them.

Omega: Tao, to what do you attribute your youthful energy as you approach your 100th year? Is it your yoga practice or is it something else?

Tao Porchon-Lynch, the world's oldest yoga teacher, has had a varied career as a screenwriter, actor, activist, and ballroom dancer. She continues to teach and dance at various venues.

Tao Porchon-Lynch: When I wake up every morning I say, "This is going to be the best day of my life." And it usually is. I never start my day thinking of all the things that can go wrong. I start my day knowing that I'm in this world for a reason.

Know that as you get up in the morning it's going to be good. If you put that in your mind and just look out and see what nature has done to the sky and around you, you realize that you also can radiate that same wonder of life to other people.

I won't say that I know everything, but I have lived a long time. People are saying to me, "Aren't you scared?" No, I'm not scared. Why should I be? There's so much to do in this world, and so little time to do it. So let's all get together and with that force behind us there's nothing we can't do. That's my theory in life. Everyone in this room has something special to give.

Omega: Beryl, you started studying in 1971. Can you tell us about your yoga practice?

Beryl Bender Birch, founder of The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute for teacher training and Give Back Yoga Foundation, began studying yoga in 1971.

Beryl Bender Birch: The Sanskrit word for practice is abhayasa. Abhayasa has different translations in the Sutra, but basically it means making an effort to keep your mind steady. One translation I like a lot is “the constant struggle,” because it is a constant struggle to stay firmly rooted in the stable state of the true self. So whether you're doing asana or pranayama or meditation, it's about learning to pay attention.

I used to tell my students when I taught classes in New York City from 1980 to 2002, "This isn't a stretch class. If you want a stretch class, go to the gym. Yoga is about learning to pay attention, and to get your attention in present time."

Your practice isn't just what you do on your mat or on your cushion; it's how you move through the world. How you move through your day, whether you're chopping carrots, or changing diapers, or scooping dog poop, which is what I happened to be doing before I left for Omega. It's all practice, every day, 24/7.

Why do we want to be present? I mean it's not all one big, happy party. There are a lot of times it's not so great to be here, and we want to run away from the moment. But those are the moments that are most profound, those are our biggest teachings. So what is my practice? Life.

Omega: Can yoga be considered yoga if it's only an asana practice?

Dharma Mittra: I believe that all yoga practice is a preparation for the essence, the yoga union. Some asanas bring some mental powers, too, some self-control and discipline. If you do it without expectation, for the sake of helping others and improving your health and concentration, gradually you'll be able to become self-disciplined and develop a strong desire for liberation. If you do the asana just expecting good health and some mental powers, then it can help you a little bit.

The meaning of life is to experience everything, to assume all forms. Nowadays, compared with even 100 years ago, we have souls getting older, passing through different forms. The asanas we are seeing now are in a physical form, but according to other things, there are asana in the astral form, in the mental form, in the spiritual form.

As we go from life to life, we reach a plane where we are using very subtle bodies. Did you ever see the movie Casper The Ghost? His asana is different. All of creation, all forms, all vibrations, represents asana.

Beryl: Yoga to me is an experience. I think what Patanjali, who brought together all the information in the Yoga Sutra, was saying, was that yoga is what happens when you're able to quiet your mind. He tells us how to go about that through practice and through nonattachment, which basically means not grasping, not clinging, not reaching out and trying to bring things to you.

Mindfulness means learning to be in relationship with what is. Accepting this moment. That doesn't mean you lie down and let the world run over you, it simply means that in this moment if you're stuck in the mud, the first thing you need ask is, "I'm stuck in the mud here. All right, what's next?"

That practice of focusing is what begins to quiet the neuronal activity of the brain. Our objective, when we're sitting or when we're practicing, is to learn to tell the difference between when we're here, when we're awake, and when we're lost in thought.

Omega: What do you think about the various gimmicks that people use now to attract students to yoga classes? Like yoga with horses, or yoga on the surfboard, or yoga with wine and beer and pot?

Dharma Mittra: The yoga now is amazing. Yoga for runners, yoga for this, yoga for that, yoga for people who want just to heal themselves. Infinite numbers and ways to do yoga.

So where does this multitude of yoga come from? The multitude of yoga teachers. There is an army of yoga teachers. Some yoga teachers just want your money. Some yoga teachers are so busy with alignment and hatha yoga, but they forget self-realization.

Today, many people are not seeking self-realization. Maybe they seek self-knowledge, but they don't want to go through the rest. They’re not wrong. According to the age of your soul and your conditions right now, you will automatically attract the teacher just to fit your condition. If you love to criticize other teachers, if you are full of doubt, you will find the teacher at that level for you. If you are really reverent, have all the good qualities, are ethically civilized, you will find what you need.

Tao: I do yoga with people and without people. When I can't figure out what I'm going to do next, then I tune into my inner self, and I listen to my own breath inside of me, and what I must do to switch it around so that I understand why am I here on this earth. I don't just think that everything here is cut and dry. Know that within you is the possibility to open the door to what you need to know for your own self, and you find that a lot of wonderful things come about.

Beryl: I'm just so taken with what Dharma had to say about this topic. It's all perfect. It just meshes so well with the way I look at things. I just see our journey as this evolutionary process. Not everyone is in the same place, you know? Wherever you are, you're going to attract an energy that sort of matches what you're looking for.

Think of all the places yoga is popping up—in hospitals and corporations and schools and prisons, and for veterans. I wrote a book a couple of years ago, Yoga for Warriors, for the military. So things are changing and I think it's all good.