By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Your relationships are pivotal to your life. You may see them as the purpose of your life or you may have a more solitary lifestyle. The reality is that others have a powerful effect on you.

When I was seeking to escape that effect, I pursued solitude. I lived in a small place in several acres of woods, so I saw more deer than people. Yet relationships were still the crux of my life. My work revolved around other people. Even driving to the grocery store showed me there were people all around.

One day I realized I wouldn’t have food without other people. While I never actually meet the people who grow the food, pack it up and ship it to the market, I buy and eat it. I am in relationship with them. At the store, I smile and chat with the cashier, another relationship. I abandoned the idea I was a hermit.

It challenged my idealism. Yoga’s history highlights many sages doing intense practices in solitude. I had unknowingly picked that up as an ideal to live by. Now I see that the stories of such iconic yogis always included other people.

One modern-day story described a Himalayan yogi who was immersed in meditation all through the day. When he opened his eyes and stepped outside his cave, he found a plate of food waiting for him. The dal (bean soup) and rice were frozen, but they warmed up in his belly.

The food had been dropped off by a yogi from a nearby cave. He’d picked it up just down the hill, at the Ashram which served free meals every day. Similarly, last time I was in India, I was honored to serve food to over 100 yogis and pilgrims.

The yogi should practice hatha yoga in a small room, situated in a solitary place, being four cubits square and free from stones, fire, water, disturbances of all kinds, and in a country where justice is properly administered, where good people live and food can be obtained easily and plentifully. — Hatha Yoga Pradipika 1.12

While this yogi lived alone, he relied on others to feed him. In this way, my Baba did 34 years of sadhana (spiritual practice), being housed and fed by others. He dedicated his spiritual autobiography to his “many mothers.”

You are always in relationship. Your body needs food and water. You bathe and need clothing. If you’re not growing the cotton, where would you get clothing without other people involved? For that matter, how would you have taken birth if others weren’t involved?

I have devoted myself to doing and sharing yoga practices for decades. Yet it is your interest in the teachings that makes me able to continue to offer them. It’s another reason that I…