Escaping Prison: Freedom Through Yoga at San Quentin

Eric Paskel teaches yoga to inmates at San Quentin, creating a “prison break” without ever leaving the prison.

It was not a hard sell when my teacher, Swami Parthasarathy, told me during one of our first meetings, “The whole world is a prison, and your only job in life is to get the hell out.” I did not even have to ask what he meant or where he got that information, because I knew I have always been in some kind of cell or another. According to Vedantic philosophy, freedom is defined by one’s happiness not being connected to any external agencies, i.e., people, places, and things (the world). Bondage (prison) is defined by one’s happiness being dependent on people, places, and things.

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