Interview with Joan Hanley AKA Hari Kirin Kaur
Yogi, Teacher, Artist, Art Therapist
Reprinted from Aquarian Times
Wilton, New Hampshire
Length of time practicing Kundalini Yoga — 20 years
My first yoga lessons came at 15 in an all girls Catholic highschool in Queens, NY. The teacher was a catholic monk who had transferred east from a midwestern monastery to study from the Yogis who were arriving in New York City at that time (1970). We took all the desks out of our classroom and sat in a circle on the floor chanting, meditating, and doing pranayama. Looking back, it seems a radical thing to do in a Catholic school, but that never occurred to us. It seemed natural and I easily assimilated these practices.
Later in my twenties when I took my first Kundalini class, I loved the postures and felt the power of the Kryias. That summer I went to New Mexico to study with Yogi Bhajan. Those two weeks at Woman's Camp were a holy occasion in my life. Meditating with my teacher, I remembered my connection to God. I experienced myself as one with the source of love. I wasn't afraid. I didn't need anything. For the first time in years, I felt fine just the way I was.
Although those feelings under the cottonwoods were real, I did not have a clue how to begin living them. As I returned home to New England, I swung between new sensitivities and old habits of fear. I sometimes forgot completely and grasped for something that I needed to do, be, or possess to earn that love — the right husband, the right turban, the right Sadhana, the right diet….
I took Kundalini teacher Training in Millis (1985) and began teaching in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Those early years of teaching were wonderful but they were also difficult. I thought I had to be perfect and the fall from the pedestal I put myself on was painful. Throughout this time I was blessed to have a very wise teacher. For several years Yogi Bhajan had suggested that I do 62 minutes of silent mantra meditation alone each day. So when my marriage, my teaching, and my community life crumbled — something remained. Something that wasn't dependent on anyone but included everyone. Something I could trust.
That "Failure" was a blessing. I could not sustain being who I thought I should be, so I was left with being who I was. The family, relationships, and work that grew from that shattered life are not perfect. But they reflect the unique contribution I can make, as each of us is perfectly suited to the life only we can lead, the way we can love, the way we can contribute.
* Because of this introduction to yoga, I have never felt a conflict between my Catholic tradition and my practice of an eastern spiritual discipline. In fact, I wonder, without yoga if I would have remained Catholic. Yoga has helped me to be more compassionate and less judgmental. Kundalini Yoga has given me an experience of the divine, which is not dependent on anyone else but includes everyone else.
Elaborate on your service work.
Today, it is essential that we sense the interconnectedness of our world. Whatever happens to any one of us — human, animal, plant, or ecosystem — happens to all of us. This requires a departure from the individualistic, introverted; human centered approach which art and yoga practice have exemplified in America in past years.
Kundalini yoga gives me an experience of my connection to all. Yogi Bhajan has told us this in so many ways, "Recognize that the other person is you." he has said, or "See God in all or you don't see God at all." In our yoga we know this through experience. This is a very beautiful spiritual reality. Then the question is — how do we live from that? As my husband, Thomas Moore, likes to point out, "if we have Spirit without Soul, we're in trouble." Soul is the living of that connection in our families, our communities and our work. Soul is the individual expression of our collective spirit. One way I bring soul to my spiritual practice and to my community is through art.
My public art works are an example that the power and pleasures of cultural production can be shared among a diverse many rather than an elite few. We need models of collaboration that honor diversity and individual expression and foster living publicly and privately with the images that give life meaning.
Sometimes this takes a simple form. At the first yoga class of a session I ask each student to write their name and what they desire on a river stone (responses were peace, love, faith, knowledge, health). Each week the students take their stones from the basket and place them in front of their yoga mats. If a student is absent her stone remains in the basket with a lit candle so symbolically she and her intention is still held in the center of the class.
Sometimes the form is more complex. The Flag Project began as a response to the overwhelming appearance of American Flags last fall in the New England town where live. I knew people were trying to express something with the flags and desired a more articulate dialogue. So friends and I invited people to make their own flags. Red fabric was provided for angry feelings, blue for sad expressions and white for hope. There was no editing, and we witnessed how diverse views could hang together. I was joined by a talented team of artists and educators and throughout the fall, we brought our table with art Supplies and fabric to Farmer's markets, Town Meetings, schools and parks. Hundreds of New Hampshire residents, age 2 through 82, made flags. The flags were hung on Town Halls , Police Departments, Town Greens and then, and finally, all the flags were brought to our state capital and hung on the around the State House. The following spring I sewed the flags together and they have hung in two galleries and a Museum. Other recent works include a glass chapel of 184 paintings of the Irish Sky in the Immigration Office Garda Headquarters in Dublin Ireland, a forty day meditation at a toxic waste site in New Hampshire, and an 8 foot Puzzle constructed with the Center for Peace and Social Justice at Rivier College.
How do you incorporate Kundalini Yoga into your service work?
The mix of Yoga and art varies. For instance next month I am an artist in residence at the American Art Therapist Association's annual meeting where I will be presenting on Public Art, but while I'm there I will teach a yoga class each morning which appears on the daily conference schedule. Yoga is a big part of what sustains me, so whenever I can I share that.
What allows you to do the work that you do, to keep up?
My practice, my family and my friends.
Based on the work that you're doing, do you think it is possible for our society to be healed, happy, and holy?
These are very challenging times — we are each needed to do what we can today. There is no need to wait till you are perfect or the world is right. I don't know if we will be healed or happy but I know we are holy and that is reason enough to start loving.
Joan Hanley (Hari Kirin Kaur): MA Expressive Arts Therapy, MFA fine art, certified Kundalini yoga teacher since 1985. Practicing Artist and Expressive Arts Therapist. Will be teaching this year at the Tree of Life (Milford NH), Schumacher College (England), Kripalu (MA), Omega (NY) and in Dublin, Ireland. Previous lectures and shows have included The Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), The Open Center (NY), and the Attleboro Museum (MA).