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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

The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 1: Let's Move Around; We'll Feel Better

Once it’s safe to nix the social distancing, I can’t wait to return to Charu Rachlis’s yoga class at Yoga Tree on Stanyan Street, where she’s taught for upward of 15 years. Charu’s teaching always works its magic on me, from her warm, lilting voice as she bathes us in healing words during the guided meditations with which she starts each session, to the clear, kind, and often humorous instruction she provides as we move through each pose.

My fellow practitioners are people of all ages and skill levels. Yet the varying capacities of her students seem to pose the slightest challenge to Charu, who somehow helps each of us work our own edge, always encouraging us to infuse focused effort with mindfulness and self-compassion.

One morning, leaving class, another student glowingly commented, “I feel like I’ve just been to church—a really good kind of church.” I knew exactly what he meant. As we spill onto Stanyan, we collectively exude a sense of grounded joy palpably different from the jittery, fried vibe we entered with 90 minutes earlier. What happens in Charu’s class is way more than a good workout.

So I was happy when Charu agreed to talk with me about the path she has traveled to becoming the extraordinarily gifted teacher that she is. I hope our conversation compels and sustains you while we all wait for the day when we can gather in person.

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Let’s Move Around; We’ll Feel Better

Sarah: How long have you been teaching?

Charu: I started teaching in 1996, a little bit before I gave birth. I had a very intense personal yoga practice. I was in a home birth group with some friends—we’d all gotten pregnant together—and they invited me to teach them. I started to teach formally in 1997.

S: Let’s talk about what led you onto this path. I know you grew up in Brazil—where exactly?

C: I was born in Rio de Janeiro. When I was less than a year old, we moved to Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil, to be close to my mother’s family. Then in 1964, when I was 7 years old, there was a coup d’etat. A military dictatorship was installed and it lasted for the next 21 years.

When you live in a dictatorship, all the freedoms are taken away. You can only imagine how this affects a population. The government censored art, books, music. I loved the music of the singer Caetano Veloso; his music was about integrating yourself spiritually, emotionally, and every way possible. He was exiled in London and could not come back to Brazil for many years. That was a huge blow for me. The dictatorship created so much fear. People were tortured and murdered.

I was still living there as a young woman when democracy returned, and it was beautiful—everyone was in the streets. This moment of great joy and people returning from exile and things opening up again. But my feelings about Brazil were deeply affected by all those years of dictatorship. It was like the dictatorship imprinted itself on me psychologically. Everything that I did there was in some way difficult. When I came to the States, every door opened up in a magical way.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. When the coup d’etat happened in 1964, my father (who worked as a piloto de navio, a cargo ship pilot, for the oil and gas company Petrobras) decided we should move back to Rio de Janeiro. That was where his family lived.

S: Why did he decide that?

C:. My guess is that, seeing how the dictatorship was limiting access to opportunities, he felt that returning to Rio and working hard there to advance his career would allow him to make our life as good as possible given the tough circumstances. So we moved back to Rio de Janeiro and he studied in his spare time and eventually became a captain.

S: What was it like for you to move back to Rio de Janeiro?

C: I was extremely close to my mother’s mother, Mercedes. Leaving her was terrible. And life in Rio de Janeiro was completely different. Rio Grande was a tiny, peaceful town and Rio de Janeiro was a big, bustling city, but it was still a nice place to be—not as hectic as it is now.

S: Were you able to maintain your connection with your maternal grandmother after your family moved away from her?

C: Yes, very much so. Our family would visit her every school holiday. Later on, when my brother and sister and I were teenagers, we began to go see her by ourselves.

S: I know from reading your website bio that even as a child, you felt a lot of joy in movement and you developed an understanding of the healing properties of somatic awareness.

C: From the beginning, I felt the need to do some kind of movement. I seem to have come into this world knowing that the body in motion releases mental and emotional tension and balances us, and that we feel better as a result. My mom told me that when I was five or six years old, I’d be on the floor with my legs forward, or out, or all the way over my head. I had a few ways of stretching. She’d ask, What are you doing? I would tell her, I’m calming myself, I’m being with myself. From the time I was 13, even younger, I would walk on the beaches in Rio de Janeiro. I would feel the strength in my legs, and the energy I was receiving from the sand and the sun. I’d breathe in the prajna from the ocean very consciously, even though I didn’t call it prajna. Then I’d jump into the water to cool off and I’d feel a sense of oneness. I would describe what I was feeling to my brother, sister, and friends. I’d encourage them to join me—especially my brother and a good friend, who were a little bit overweight. I’d say, That’s OK, let’s move around, we’ll feel better. When I became a yoga teacher much later, my siblings and my friends from that time said, We’re not surprised one bit.

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S: Who most supported your way of being when you were a kid?

C: My parents encouraged me to be a good student, but the physical training I had to find on my own. My parents didn’t exercise. My brother is a runner now, and my sister likes going to the gym, but no one in my family shared my interest in yoga and meditation. When I was 14–15 years old, I went looking for a stretching class. At that time, I did not find any yoga classes. They were all about stretching. I wanted to find a teacher I’d resonate with, someone who loved what they were doing. I’d visit a class and say, No, not this one. Eventually I found a teacher, a young mother with kids. I saw that she struggled to earn enough money through her teaching, but her class was so filled with love and truth. She didn’t speak about spirit but it was there in her presentation and in her way of caring for her students. I told my mom about it, but it went in one ear and out the other. She said, As long as you like it, I’m glad you found it. She was busy raising my younger siblings.

Next: The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 2: Openness to the Unseen

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