The mysterious, pulsating sound of a building breathing as I walked up to the doors in Lakshmipuram the first day I arrived in Mysore, was enough to stun the mind and draw me in. I felt a huge sense of relief that day at being told to “Take rest” part way through the standing postures. And later when Guruji asked me, “But why is it so stiff?” a seed of curiosity and the bait for exploration was laid. Now more than 20 years later, I find myself, mat under arm, walking alone down a deserted street in New York City at 5:30 in the morning, or stepping off a chaotic road in Istanbul in search of the calm surroundings of a Mysore class; drawn to the same rhythm of the breath like a moth is pulled to light.

Have I become some kind of yoga zombie wandering through life so attached to the sense of integration that lies in the residue of the practice that I will have to do yoga forever? Probably, but it feels OK, so why worry about it?

Since we’ve been traveling a fair amount recently; adjusting to new foods, new time zones, new weather patterns, the one thing that is ever consistent for both of us is the practice. Not only do we take it with us, but we’re greeted by others steeped in the practice wherever we wind up. Granted, we do have a skewed perspective on this, given that we’re usually traveling to places that have invited Richard to teach yoga–good thing they’re doing yoga before he gets there. But the fact is that he’s being invited because inquiry into Ashtanga yoga is already deeply rooted and alive. It’s amazing to watch as every year more and more people are being introduced to this interesting form of the practice, and that people from all walks of life are shifting their routines, Googling Mysore classes, planning trips around where they might practice, then getting up early every day without any fanfare and heading into class to start off their day.

When Karen Stephan, who was the first American student to study with Pattabhi Jois, invited Guruji to the States in 1968, who would have guessed this form of the practice would become so well established worldwide? Given that Ashtanga yoga isn’t easy, that it’s only glamorous if you find the sweat-drenched look appealing, and worst of all that it requires consistency and work–given all that–taking over 40 years to take root doesn’t actually seem all that long.

Since Guruji’s death in May, the strength of the practice has been underscored for many of us. Knowing that he may have been the inspiration that got us going, but also that the practice itself is the jewel. And remembering, as he so famously said, “Practice and all is coming!” That is how we carry on his teaching; by practicing.

It is in the echo of his words that we find ourselves in today’s climate of modern yoga, which can often be educational, perhaps entertaining and sometimes even a distraction. Where the PR representatives among us may wonder if Ashtanga yoga might catch on better if we’d only find the right music to play, or the best chocolate to serve afterwards, or if we’d just take out those postures we’re tortured by in order to feel good about ourselves all the way through every class.

But, for the actually, finding a yoga that’s going to take over the world isn’t why most of us started the practice in the first place. Like me, it’s usually that we got hooked by the intensity, the effect of the prana on the citta, and most of all the feeling of a deep connection to life that we’re left with after working the body to the core; that’s what keeps us coming back. The practice is always the same, but never the same. And know it or not, each of us is contributing our own small strand to the thread of awareness and self study that is being woven around the world as day after day people roll out their mats, take samasthitih to wind up some time later in savasana. This interpenetrating web of internal awareness through external forms that is being quietly, diligently, woven by so many practitioners is remarkable.

We find ourselves morphing as a studio here at the Yoga Workshop, trying to figure out exactly how the next phase will manifest and we are clear that the Mysore practice continues to be at the core of our teaching. We are eternally grateful to our teacher, to the lineage and the system of Ashtanga yoga itself, and most of all to our fellow practitioners who we sometimes bump in to, bleary eyed and with a smile, in the back streets of a foreign city at 5:30 am.