The Yoga of Myth and Storytelling

It is wonderful when you can work with friends on something vital that meets both your visions! 

This weekend I am delighted to have been invited to run a workshop for Bija Yoga, a local studio run by the deeply insightful and warmly welcoming yogi, school friend Keith Kempis. I have practised yoga continuously for over twenty years thanks to the fundamentals of my performing arts training, and been blessed to have attended Keith’s classes for over ten years, benefitting wholly from the practice in my daily life.

2021 saw the inaugural teacher training program for Bija Yoga, in which I was honoured to be invited through Role Play Experience to run a workshop, “The Yoga of Myth and Story-telling”. This module was to be a vital part of Bija Yoga’s practice and intrinsically linked to the teachings within the Bhagavad Gita. 

The module revolves around an understanding of The Hero’s Journey, initially pulled together by the anthropologist Joseph Campbell through his famous work, The Hero With A Thousand Faces.

To summarise: Mr Campbell studied the stories of cultures from all across the world over many years, and in his findings came to the conclusion that there were many common elements of stories, or archetypal characters and themes, that were common across all stories from all cultures. In other words: no matter where you came from and how your culture looked at the world, we communicated ways of how we make sense of the world and how life unfolds for us that were *very* similar to every other human culture around the world. In short, we all share the same stories. 

I won’t go into it all here, but would instead recommend this wonderful entertaining and informative video… Crash Course Mythology: The Hero’s Journey  …for the basics on what makes up the Hero’s Journey - and you may be surprised just how familiar its elements are to the stories in your own life. 

Keith noted how the influence of the Bhagavad Gita’s story has had on yoga practice for thousands of years and how valuable it is as a story in teaching the fundamentals of yoga. The Bhagavad Gita is taken from a much larger source, the legendary Indian epic known as the Mahabharata, considered by many to be one of the most influential stories ever written. 

“When I read the Bhagavad-gita and reflect about how God created this universe, everything else seems so superfluous…I have made the Bhagavad-gita as the main source of my inspiration and guide for the purpose of scientific investigations and formation of my theories." 

- Albert Einstein.

The Hero’s Journey is also, put simply, about us. We are the Hero of our own journey through life. We all have dreams, we are all challenged in finding ways to achieve them, we go through trials and tribulations along the way and in some cases, we find the way to realise our dreams. 

The aim of the Storytelling workshop was to help new teachers begin to understand the basics story elements of The Hero’s Journey within the Bhagavad Gita, but also how to recognise that they - and their students - are Heroes of their own journey, how we can recognise where on the path we are, and what common milestones they as teachers can provide to guide students along their path. 

It was overwhelming to share my understanding of story and the value it has for us in making sense of the world around us, and how teaching through stories - through people’s experiences and the very act of listening to a story being told - is far more memorable and effective a teaching tool than simply learning from a textbook! 

I’ve now been invited back for 2022’s program after last year’s program’s success. At that time I was blessed to share in the joy of seeing the first teachers graduating from the Bija program to begin their path as yogis in their own right. I am blessed to have this opportunity again and thank Keith for finding a link between the values and practises of yoga with that of storytelling. It’s a wonderful resonance that I hope  is of just as much value, if not more, to the new team of teachers on their Bija Yoga path. 

You can learn more about Bija Yoga and join one of their classes in Penrith here: https://bijayoga.com.au/

Wishing you continued creativity and connection,

Ian Zammit