karma yoga

The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 9: The Teacher Role Isn't My Essence

In ninth and final installment of our interview, yoga teacher Charu Rachlis discusses her deep alignment with and lack of attachment to her role as a yoga teacher, and explores what might be next for her.

Sarah: What is the best part of teaching yoga?

Charu: Oh my gosh, the joy, love, and friendship I receive––this beautiful heart exchange that happens effortlessly. As I said earlier, I’m a shy person. I choose to spend a lot of my time quiet and alone. But when I step into that arena of teaching, I’m not focusing on myself. I feel natural in that role.

Sarah: It seems like you already feel deeply fulfilled. What are you curious to experience in the next phase of your life?

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Charu: That’s my question for myself right now. I’m 62. Since I turned 60, I’ve been noticing subtle changes in my body, manifestations of the aging process. I feel the changes and I see them too. I’m not in a fight with this process. It’s nature. I love nature, and I learn from it.

I’ll see what resonates. I don’t have a lot of clues yet, but I trust that my next steps will make themselves known when the time is right. One idea is to offer yoga classes for people ages 50 and over, so I can share this exploration of the aging process with others. I also imagine living closer to nature and having a dog or two.

Sarah: What do you wish most for yourself?

Charu: I am so honored to have been given the opportunity to teach for the past 25 years and I hope to continue this amazing journey. But if my path changes and at some point I stop teaching yoga, that’s OK, because I know the teacher role isn’t my essence. Ultimately what I wish is that no matter how my life transforms, I continue to open to clarity, love, and truth, more and more over time. That’s my wish for myself.

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The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 8: Machines Spilling Out Teachers

In Part 8 of my interview with yoga teacher Charu Rachlis , she discussed her concerns about the trend toward commercialization in yoga training and shared advice for entering the field.

Sarah: How does the need to earn a living interact with the spiritual approach you take to yoga?

Charu: Right now, that is a bit of a conflict for me. I’m not someone who says people don’t need money. Money is energy; money is love; I welcome money. But I don’t like the commercialization and corporatization of yoga.

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Sarah: What is your impression of yoga teacher training? If you could ask for any changes to the teacher training programs you’re familiar with, what would they be? 

Charu: I’ve been invited to be a trainer in some of those programs and my answer has been no. There are many fabulous trainers, but I’m bothered by the machine of teacher-training programs spilling people out after two or three months and giving them the message that they are prepared to go and teach. It takes a lot more than that to form a true teacher. There’s intense marketing to get people to sign up for these training programs. I don’t want to participate in that. People have encouraged me to start my own training program, but I don’t feel called to do that.

Sarah: What advice do you have for people who want to be yoga teachers or who are beginning to teach?

Charu: Being a yoga teacher is so personal. Maybe I’m old school, but I went through a lot of deep searching to be the teacher that I am. Maybe that isn’t the only way. I don’t know exactly. I encourage people who want to become teachers to understand that they are entering a space of great honor. I encourage new teachers to speak from a place of unity, peace, harmony, and truth––not just repeat someone else’s ideas. I encourage them to be true to their own journey.

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The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 7: A Waterfall of Inspiration

In Part 7 of my interview with yoga teacher Charu Rachlis , she shared how her own pyscho-spiritual practices keep her grounded and inspired as a teacher.

Sarah: Your classes are often packed. Why do you think that is?

Charu: I feel that people are looking for something more than just the physical practice. They want the same thing I always looked for in a teacher: someone who doesn’t mechanically repeat sequences. I only say things in class that I feel in my heart and that I’ve studied, experienced, and practiced. I’m humbled that this approach resonates for my students.

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Sarah: It must be intense to be the recipient of students’ love and devotion. How do you keep from letting that go to your head?

Charu: I have a very intense meditation practice. I have groups I meditate with and process with. I don’t see myself as a guru or spiritual leader. Teaching is a role, an opportunity, and a responsibility that was given to me. I’m humbled by that.

Sarah: You give the most amazing talks at the beginning of each yoga class, a combination of guided meditation and philosophical reflection. I’m curious if you prepare in advance a theme or topic you want to address.

Charu: No, I’m not in the shower planning what to say. It comes very naturally each time. My teaching is an extension of my personal journey. I’m committed to being consciously aware and to processing what I learn and experience. So when I open my mouth to speak to my students, I’m embodying and expressing whatever it is that I’m reflecting on at that time. What comes out of me when I talk is a flow, a waterfall of inspiration. I’m not interested in holding back or holding on. I think that’s why I’m a teacher. I’m constantly feeding myself and then in turn feeding others.

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Sarah: What do you wish most for your students?

Charu: I want them to understand that this is a lifelong practice. I want them to develop inner strength for whatever comes their way, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I want them to experience the miracle of embodiment. I hope that when they come to class, they can feel more connected with their own hearts. When I teach, the heart is the major target.

Next: The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 8: Machines Spilling Out Teachers

The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 6: Grab the Right Computer File

In Part 6 of my interview with yoga teacher Charu Rachlis , she discussed her approach to teaching yoga.

Sarah: What form of yoga do you teach and why?

Charu: I don’t have a specific style that I follow. I’ve studied Iyangar, Ashtanga, and Shadow yoga. I have found what really resonates with me from each of these schools. I always practice,so I feel like I have a body intelligence that naturally filters everything I’ve learned to create my own teaching style. 

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I don’t consciously program my classes ahead of time. I never repeat a class. Obviously I repeat yoga poses—that’s just the nature of yoga—but the way I put them together is always different. What I do in any given class is both in-the-moment and based on my 25 years of experience. And my teaching continues to evolve.

Sarah: How so?

Charu: I’m more and more interested in creating a healing circle, an energy field where others can come to recharge. It’s like a meditation practice for me; my intention is to hold the field without manipulating it. I’m not in charge. Maybe I can explain it by comparing it to a download. Imagine that I have a computer inside me. When I enter the class I feel in my body what pose to guide the class through next, and because I’ve been doing this for so long, I can just reach in and grab the right computer file. “OK, from this pose we’ll move to this pose.” But that computer metaphor is way too mechanistic and linear to describe this creative process, which is magic. My teaching happens at the soul level.

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Sarah: Do you still seek out yoga training?

Charu: Yes. I attend Shadow yoga classes. Shadow yoga is a beautiful and strenuous practice, an inwardly centered experience that really called my name.

Next: The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 7: A Waterfall of Inspiration

The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 5: Yoga Is My Second Child

The fifth part of my interview with yoga teacher Charu Rachlis picks up with her move away from Berkeley’s Nyingma Institute. She describes falling in love, giving birth to her daughter, and meeting key mentors on her path to becoming a yoga teacher.

Sarah: Tell me about moving on from the institute. Where did you go?

Charu: I felt I needed to be out in the world, but I didn’t want to go back to Brazil. I told my friend Sue, another student at the institute, that I was ready to move out and get a job. She said, Look no further; my mother needs someone to take care of her. We can pay you in cash. So I moved out, into the basement of a house on Harmon Street in Berkeley with two Polish friends who left the institute at the same time as I did. I worked Thursday nights through Monday mornings taking care of this wealthy 94-year-old woman. Her name was Mrs. Medway. She was a lovely, funny lady from Chicago, who was losing her short-term memory. She’d ask, What is it that you do for a living? I’d say, I take care of old people. She’d say, Oh, they must love you. She would tell me the same stories over and over.

At some point I started feeling very tired of that. I told my housemates I needed to be with people my age and have some fun. One of them said, Why don’t you come with us to this group that meets in Tiburon on Thursday nights? They explained to me that the group focused each week on an aspect of relationships. The attendees broke into little groups, shared with one another, and then meditated. Then a therapist who led the group would play wonderful music and everyone would dance together. I said, sure, I’ll go. My friend Sue, Mrs. Medway’s daughter, said she would stay with her mom while I went and that I could even borrow her car. Later on, I found out that it was an Osho Rajneesh group, but at the time I had no idea.

So anyway, I go with my friend to this beautiful house in Tiburon. When I walk in I see this really cute guy. I mean, there were lots of beautiful young people there, but I saw him. He invited me out. That was my future husband, Sahajo. We’ve been together from that moment to this day—almost 25 years.

With mentor Thomas Michael Fortel.

With mentor Thomas Michael Fortel.

Sarah: You’ve written about your relationships with yoga teacher Thomas Michael Fortel and meditation teacher Leslie Temple Thurston. Tell me about these relationships and how they helped you further develop your practice.

Charu: I went with my roommate from the Nyingma Institute to her friend’s birthday party. The friend turned out to be Thomas, and from that point forward we developed our own friendship based on a mutual passion for self-inquiry. I started taking taking yoga classes from him and he mentored me. Later on, when he moved to Big Sur, he invited me to take over all his classes at Mindful Body. That was the beginning of my career. From then on he continued to open doors for me, inviting me to teach with him at Esalen, as well as in Europe, Alaska, and Mexico. So I have eternal gratitude for him.

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I met Leslie later, in 1994, after I’d left the institute. I attended a darshan that she offered. A darshan is an ancient Indian practice in which a teacher transmits love and peace to their students. I felt an instant connection with Leslie. In 1996 I enrolled in her four-year teacher training program, which focused on non-duality. At that time I was just starting out as a yoga teacher. Like Thomas’s mentorship, Leslie’s training opened my heart. and deepened my studies and practices.

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Sarah: Can you briefly explain non-duality for people not familiar with that concept?

Charu: We live in a dual world in which everything is characterized by binaries: good/bad, right/wrong. To study non-duality is to investigate the aspects of life that are not at the extremes and not rigidified. It’s to see the grey shades between the black and white.

Sarah: Thanks. So you started this training in 1996.

Charu: Yes. I was pregnant at the time. I have always loved the fact that in the same period in which I gave birth to my daughter, I also gave birth to my vocation as a yoga teacher.

In fact, I wanted to have another kid but I didn’t get pregnant again. I came to see this as a divine plan. Yoga is my second child.

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Getting started as a teacher wasn’t easy, though. I was very timid in the beginning. And it was difficult financially because we had no money for nannies. But Sahajo supported my decision to teach. Little by little, it all worked out..

If you had told me when I was 20, during my dark night of the soul in Brazil, that I would become a yoga teacher later in life, I would have said, I think you’re crazy! It took a long time to find who I was. But at one point an astrologer read my chart and said, Everything will come later for you than for everyone else; don’t compare yourself. I was 39 when I started teaching.

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Next: The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 6: Grab the Right Computer File

The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 4: Wow, This Is Me

In the fourth part of my interview with yoga teacher Charu Rachlis, we discussed her years living, working, and engaging in intensive Buddhist practice at the Nyingma Institute in Berkeley, punctuated by a return to Brazil.

Sarah: What was life like at the Nyingma Institute?

Charu: Karma yoga, which is what they practice there, is about hard work and working through your resistence to work. You watch yourself, your mind, your emotions. You watch time. Everything you do all day long is considered an opportunity for practice. I started each day with prostrations.

Charu at Nyingma Institute.

Charu at Nyingma Institute.

Sarah: Can you briefly explain prostrations—their purpose and how they are done?

Charu: A prostration is a devotional ritual that engages the body, mind, and spirit. You chant a mantra such as om mani padme hum, and hold an intention while you physically prostrate yourself. You can go all the way down so you’re lying face down on the floor and then come all the way back up to standing, or you can go halfway, or whatever is right for your body. I stopped doing them daily after I left the institute because sun salutations became my form of prostration—although lately I’ve been doing traditional prostrations for a few minutes at the end of my yoga practice on behalf of my mom, who’s been sick, and on behalf of the world.

But while I lived at the institute I did 108 prostrations each morning, focusing on body, breath, and spirit. During the day I worked for the institute’s printing press, Dharma Enterprises in Oakland. The press had a commercial branch and a sacred-books branch. The commercial branch, which had a regular paid staff, generated the funds that allowed the press to publish sacred books, which were labor intensive but not a money maker. After I’d been there a short time they put me in charge of the sacred books and gave me a staff of several people. I worked 13– to 14–hour days, inhaled toxic fumes from the printing press, lifted heavy boxes, got so many paper cuts. I gave my soul, and literally, my blood! Then I’d come home, have dinner—I always looked forward to the delicious vegetarian meals that were served—and then go to class. The instruction was focused on helping us deal with our relationship to work and all the emotional patterns that working such long hours can trigger. We’d study a particular topic—for example, time, space, and knowledge, or skillful means—for a week or so, and we’d apply the insights from the instruction to how we were doing our jobs. We also met individually with the teachers. They wanted to check in with us, see how we were developing, how we were dealing with the inevitable challenges of working that hard. In our studies we were dealing with a lot of big words and concepts in English, which was a language I was still learning. So in my limited time off, I focused with great intention on learning English, always paying attention to new words and looking them up in the dictionary, and asking my American friends to correct my speech. I was really hungry to learn this new language. It was like I turned off my Portuguese. I wanted to embrace my new life in the States, and English was the doorway.

Sarah: It sounds like the institute was getting a damn good deal.

Charu: They were.

Sarah: Is there anything about the experience that, looking back, you wish had been different?

Charu: No. I’d do it all again. I felt the whole experience was meant to strengthen me, and it did. It was too much for some people, and they left quickly. But it was one of the most powerful, transformative times of my life. I was depressed and insecure when I arrived, and I grew so much in my time there. And I got incredible feedback from my teachers. I thought, Wow, this is me, I’ve never seen myself like they’re describing me. I learned that I have an incredibly strong capacity to focus and deliver more than what is asked of me.

Don’t get me wrong—it was a very challenging experience for me on every level. I had to go through a lot of resistance—self-doubt, self-pity. One project at the institute involved building 108,000 padmasambava statues that were going to be placed at stuppas on a farm in Odiyan—a retreat center in Sonoma County that is not open to the general public. Sometimes after a long day at the printing press we’d be invited to help out with making the statues. In addition, I found a lot of the people in the community to be very shut down, compared to Brazilians, who are so expressive. I felt isolated and cried a lot. There were moments when I was on the verge of breakdown. Yet at the same time, I made wonderful friends. The Laotian immigrants who worked for the commercial side of the press were very warm. They laughed a lot  and brought delicious food to share with one another at lunchtime, and they would invite me to join in. They were a very loving community. I felt nourished by them; they reminded me of Brazilian culture in a way. I also learned that I could be myself when I met with the teachers one-on-one; I could share with them how challenging the experience was for me.

Charu with one of her teachers at Nyingma Institute.

Charu with one of her teachers at Nyingma Institute.

Overall, my time at the institute taught me how to express myself honestly and speak up for myself. After leaving Brazilian culture, where I had felt so stifled, coming to the States was a chance to discover myself fully.

And I thought Berkeley was the most beautiful, magical place. The institute is right next to the Greek Theater and the university campus. It was a totally different world than anything I’d ever experienced. In my time off from work, I would go to a café and have a cup of coffee and a pastry and then walk miles through campus and down the streets with their beautiful old houses. I knew where every public bathroom was because I would walk all day long. Brazilians will know exactly what I mean when I say I wasn’t used to this life at all.

Sarah: How long did you stay at the institute?

Charu: The first time I was there, I stayed for a year and a half, fulfilling the commitment I’d made. They wanted me to stay but I needed to be with my family again for a while, and I needed a break from the hard work, the loneliness, and the language barrier. It felt like I had been on a sabbatical and I needed to get back to the “real world.”

Sarah: Did you return to the secretarial job?

Charu: No. My family and friends thought I was crazy because most Brazilians would kill for that job. But I was not the same person I had been and I was not about to compromise the new discoveries I was making about myself. So I had no intention of going back to that job. I really needed time for integration.

Returning to Brazil was quite difficult. After that first period at the institute, during which I had worked so hard, I had held the illusion that in Brazil I would have more fun, have boyfriends, go out dancing, all of which I craved at that point. But those three years back in Brazil did not turn out like I had pictured. I was very depressed. I felt I did not belong there any longer. I was a fish out of water. Quite a strange time.

Then, after three years or so, the institute invited me back. I saw that things weren’t working out for me in Brazil, and I knew that if I went back to the institute I could make it work for myself. So I said yes. This time I structured it differently—I made it clear that I wanted to focus on making sacred books and on my studies, and not on commercial printing, although I did still help out with that sometimes.

Sarah: How long did you stay that second time?

Charu: I stayed almost two years. Then I decided it was time for me to move on. I felt that if I didn’t leave at that point, I never would.

Sarah: Why do you say that?

Charu: Because you have all your needs met there—room, board, education, friends, community, and a tiny stipend. But that’s not the life I wanted for myself. I was appreciative and grateful but I needed to venture out. The institute staff were very upset when I announced my plans—they really appreciated my skills and my devotion. But I stuck to my decision.

Next: The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 5: Yoga Is My Second Child