Gabriel Hall
Spiritual Or Secular? Or Both?
It was winter, and the darkness was urban – moonlight trumped by streetlamps and cars. I made way to the studio. When I entered Yoga World in Long Beach, a bust of Buddha met me at the bottom of the stairwell. I climbed to the second floor in time for Gabriel Hall’s Basic Level class.
“You’ll need two blankets, a strap, and a ball…maybe a block,” he announced. We made our way to the wall, emptied the shelves of their contents and returned to our mats; our arms were loaded with props.
Gabriel stood at the front of the class and demonstrated blanket folding. It was Mexican origami. One folded twice like a sheet of puff pastry. The other rolled into a cinnamon bun. We rested our bodies on our life-sized lengths of dough – a room full of the living now acting as if we were dead. He turned the lights off. The space was coolly contemplative.
Gabriel chanted in Sanskrit. (Later he told me it was the invocation of Patanjali.) His words were paced evenly, a bass line encouraging our egos to listen rather than blather on about the day’s events, life after class and other off-key melodies of the monkey mind.
Then we all lay still. “This teacher isn’t afraid of silence,” I thought to myself. I was a year into Yoga, and I had my share of various instructors. Based on the steady flow of their voices that filled the room, it seemed like most were as uncomfortable with silence as I. But for Gabriel, it was clear that the space between words was just as important as whatever was said.
We remained in savasana (relaxation pose) for longer than I had yet experienced in a class. I was so relaxed that I felt as if I could have maintained my dead state for the next hour. But the lights turned up and it was time to practice. At the end of the sequence of postures, the final savasana inspired equal amounts of contemplation. If there were one word I’d use to describe Gabriel’s class it would be spiritual. If I were allowed two, I’d say, really spiritual.
“A secular humanist…you mean you’re an atheist?” I ask. Gabriel and I are chatting one day after his Basic Class.
“Yes,” he says.
Wikipedia defines cognitive dissonance as an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding contradictory ideas simultaneously. I am uncomfortable. Everything about his class screams spiritual. Not in an ostentatious, pop-culture sorta way but with low-key earnestness. The Buddha that greets me at the entrance, the invocation of Patanjali, the darkness and the extended savasana all convince me that Gabriel is unrelentingly spiritual. How can someone who seems to embrace a higher power be an atheist?
When I disclose my cognitive dissonance, Gabriel quotes from evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins: “We are all atheists about most gods…Some of us just go one god further.” Gabriel adds that the sciences and many modern philosophies agree that there is no separate, immaterial soul. “We can safely say that concept is dead,” he says. And this runs counter to the reigning belief of classical Yoga, which teaches that the body needs to be animated by a spirit, or prana. For Gabriel what remains are soul and spirit as metaphor. We can be connected to goodness, compassion, morality, and appreciation of the universe; this is the kind of soul that he accepts. His scientific approach extends into his asana as well.
“The guru may say, “You must do chair pose like this!” But if exercise physiologists agree that there is a better way to elicit a muscular response that’s also safer, then I’ll have to go with science,” Gabriel says.
Before founding Yoga World Studios in 1994, Gabriel’s initial practice was rooted deeply in the Iyengar tradition. He eventually began integrating other Yoga schools as well. For instance, he was drawn to Gary Kraftsow’s Viniyoga, appreciating how it adapted to the needs of the person. In certain traditions of Yoga, the asana is set. Kraftsow, however, emphasizes the functionality of the posture and not just the form. “I remember watching heated debates between Kraftsow and YogaWorks former co-owner Chuck Miller about the correct way to do forward fold,” he recalls.
How does Gabriel’s style play out in his class? We regularly practice chair pose holding medicine balls. The static state may have the appearance of calm, but the sweat trickling down our faces reveals otherwise. Or sometimes we jump rope before plunging into asana.
“Now grab your ball, balance it under your foot like this, and roll it around,” I recall him saying one evening. The fist-sized rubber ball aches under me. I look forward to moving it to another area, only to realize that its new location hurts just as much. “That probably means that you need to do this more often,” he tells me.
He maintains that he is a Hatha Yoga instructor. At the same time, he asks himself questions such as, “Am I a teacher of classically named asanas, or an integrator of relaxation, meditation and movement for my students?” and “If there’s a productive and sound movement pattern that hasn’t made its way into the classic lexicon of Yoga, does that still make it Yoga?” He answers that question with an emphatic, “Yes.”
I ask him how he reconciles his atheism with his deep respect of the interior practice of Yoga. For him it’s a non-issue. He’s done silent retreats with Jack Kornfield and Krishna Das. “My good friend, Saul David Raye, regularly hosts workshops at our studio where he leads kirtan, meditation and teacher training,” he says.
Gabriel acknowledges that being a secular humanist may put him in the minority in the world of Yoga teachers, let alone Yoga studio founders. But he believes that he represents a growing number of people who are atheists, but are also drawn to the practice. “To get beneficial movement, effective meditative techniques, and inner peace doesn’t require bringing anything supernatural into the picture,” he says.
I see Gabriel’s instruction as one of the trained artist; Yoga rooted in tradition yet unrestrained by dogma. It’s a practice that balances movement and stillness and encourages me to embrace the present moment as it unfolds within.
Gabriel Hall can be found at Yoga World Studios in Long Beach: yogaworldstudio.com
Lawrence Ineno is a Los Angeles-based freelance ghostwriter who isn’t used to seeing his name appear as a byline: mightyprose.com.
By Lawrence Ineno
