I studied Sanskrit for many years, and I've got all the coursework for my Ph.D. And a lot of what's going on in American Yoga is just made-up stuff. Smart people, even good people, Western therapists, Yoga therapists and other things, Western healthcare practitioners who love Asana and say, "Let's make up yoga therapy."

There must be something here for me to get or to share or to do. So I have the duty that I do, the dharma that I do - which I love - with my teaching, with my family, my son, my students, my girlfriend.

Yoga teaching is that you're not your dark side or your woo-woo, you're pure awareness. Our job is to begin to gain that discrimination and insight so we can separate from our identification.

Your experience is nutrition. You digest your experience and you grow from it.

Our job with our digestion is to absorb nutrients and eliminate waste, and to not dwell on the waste - which is my issue with some of the pop American psychology masquerading as Yoga, by the way.

I like waking up in the morning when I don't have to get up and think about the next thing, and I can just be present with the feeling of being alive, I guess.

I know what the teaching is, but to realize the teaching in a life experience, the sh*t really is an opportunity to find out who we truly are. To really learn and to awaken to our potential.