Parampara, Paper, and Power: The Politics of Ashtanga Certification After Sharath

Finding Harmony Podcast

In this deeply reflective solo episode, host Harmony Slater addresses a heated debate currently circling the global Ashtanga yoga community: certifications and their legitimacy. Drawing from her own decades of practice and personal memories of studying with Sharath Jois, Harmony offers her perspective on what certification really means — and what it doesn’t.

She invites us to step back from the noise of division and instead consider the larger crises happening across our world: climate disasters, hunger, war, and the erosion of human connection. With tenderness, honesty, and wisdom, Harmony explores grief, impermanence, and the essence of yoga as union—not fracture.

Through stories, reflections, and quotes from Sharath, she reminds us that yoga is not a piece of paper, nor is it found in hierarchy, but in how we live, love, and treat one another.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why certification has never truly defined a yoga teacher
  
• How grief and loss are showing up in the yoga community
  
• The role of impermanence in practice and in life
  
• Stories and teachings from Sharath Jois that reveal his heart
  
• The importance of Yamas and Niyamas—especially Ahimsa—in today’s world
  
• How division distracts us from the crises that actually need our energy
  
• A call to action: turning practice into presence, compassion, and service
  

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