May 2026: What It’s Like To Be A Student
गुरुर्ब्रह्मा गुरुर्विष्णुः गुरुर्देवो महेश्वरः । गुरुः साक्षात् परब्रह्म तस्मै श्रीगुरवे नमः ॥
Guru Brahma Guru Vishnu Guru Devo Maheshwara
Guru Sakshat Param Brahma Tasmai Shri Gurave Namaha -EXCERPT FROM GURU STOTRAM
Our creation is that Guru, the duration of our lives is that Guru, our trials, illnesses, calamities, and the
death of our body is that Guru. There is a Guru that is near by, and a Guru that is beyond the beyond.
I offer all my efforts to the Guru, the remover of darkness
I only want to see the light that shines behind your eyes.
Noel Gallagher, Aquiesce
I was going to call this month’s Pushti, “What it’s like to be a Teacher.” Because being a yoga teacher is one of the greatest joys and privileges of my life. I literally cannot fathom being anything else—and I easily could have, and I tried—but once my practice became consistent, there was no looking back. It’s yoga or bust (and I’ve busted a bunch, too). I also thought it would be a nice prelude to our upcoming teacher training in June. Really just a way to say: I love what I do. A love letter of sorts.
I love you for reading this. I love the way you show up to practice everyday. I love to witness you light up. Your trust is a privilege. I was taught by my teachers, the students who show up to your classes are really just enlighten beings “in drag” there to be in service to your own evolution. It’s a teaching on humility. It prioritizes yoga over ego and erases the notion that there are those who know and those who do not. Satsang is simply a gathering where we remind each other of what’s indelibly written on the pages of our heart.
But when I started trying to get my creative juices flowing on this, I realized something—it’s not actually the teaching that’s so exciting. Or maybe better said, when the teaching is exciting, it’s because I’ve come into contact with something so alive, so exhilarating, that I can’t contain it and I have to share it. Studying and practicing yoga still blows my mind. It’s a rabbit hole of discovery. A gift that keeps giving. An endless dialogue of love. Living in yoga feels like an abundance I can’t quite articulate, so I figure I’ll just spend the rest of my days trying to communicate it as best as I can. What better thing is there to do?
To facilitate a teacher training doesn’t mean I get to teach it—it means I get to be an earnest student again. And I love being a student. Some of the most enthusiastic, electric times in my life were learning this material for the first time (in this lifetime), with teachers I have the greatest affection for. Every day of my residential training felt more exciting than the next. I hadn’t felt that kind of excitement for anything before. I just wanted to learn, to share, to do anything to remain immersed in how yoga was stimulating my mind, recovering my body, and opening me to an existence that didn’t feel like settling for being a cog in the societal wheel—a kind of cultural sleepwalk where you just age out.
In being a student and a teacher, life is actually lived and a trust in the goodness of life is established. There is no retirement. Nothing to retire to.
I was a yoga poster child. I sat in the front row until they told me to give someone else a chance. My enthusiasm was probably annoying. I asked A LOT of questions because I was thirsty for depth, and there wasn’t a question that yoga didn’t answer.
And it felt good to be that committed. More accurately, it felt good because the information was stimulating my mind, yes—but the practice was allowing for increasingly deeper moments of stillness. Real stillness. Something that reorganizes you. Oh this stillness.
Perhaps that’s where this all points. Because whether I am or not a great teacher, I have willingness to remain a student.
A student shows up—consistently, not just when it’s convenient. Willing to listen, to not know, to be wrong without shutting down. To be critiqued. Curious and engaged, asking because they care. They practice when it feels good and when it doesn’t—through boredom, frustration, exposure—understanding the practice reveals. They take responsibility and participate fully.
And most importantly, they’re teachable—an empty cup to be filled—to soften, to become undone, and to see more clearly.
That’s when everything shifts.
In Yoga we dwell,
Jeffrey
May 2026