A guide to peace of heart: Taos yoga teacher offers instruction for mind-body health

New World Library (2025, 279 pp.)

The central question to the ancient seminal poem Bhagavad Gita, according to the lively verse translation by Stephen Mitchell, is: How should we live? Pausing on the battlefield in the middle of a titan clash between clans, the warrior Arjuna and his charioteer, Krishna — actually God incarnate — discuss the urgent existential question of soul and purpose. Arjuna, despairing to think of the imminent senseless slaughter of his kinsman, refuses to fight, imploring his charioteer what his duty should be. What ensues is Krishna’s seemingly contradictory lesson: Act with no attachment to results. This is the yoga of action.

As defined by Taos-based author and instructor Reema Datta in her new guide, enlisting the Bhagavad Gita as well as other ancient sources such as the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Yoga Sutras, yoga means “union with the true self.” It is a lifelong body/mind practice Datta has learned intimately growing up in Maryland in a family of yogis. Her incremental approach over 12 lessons is nondidactic, holistic and geared toward women, unlike traditional yoga practices.

“The Yogi’s Way addresses the human condition, how thoughts and actions impact our health and reality,” Datta asserts. “It reveals the profound peace and possibility we can experience when we align with our purpose and potential and live in integrity.”

We, like the beleaguered warrior Arjuna, wonder: how to attain this wondrous state of being? The answer: practice, practice, practice.

In the quest to become that enlightened human being, Krishna elaborates on how to reckon with self-possession — by letting go. Datta builds her yogic process incrementally, recognizing “the most important battles we will face in our lives are within ourselves,” as well as how to tackle what she calls “kleshas” — mind poisons or destructive thoughts. If we can yoke this part of ourselves and harness that potential, extraordinary things can happen.

Over the 12 weeks, the reader undergoes a range of essential, repetitive practices that keep us aware of sticking to our healthy journey, such as choosing a “mitra,” or a kind of guardian spirit and friend to check in with weekly; an awareness of breathing through the nose during the day; sun salutations, a series of poses and stretches daily; and journaling, mantras and meditation.

By week seven, in a chapter she calls “Choices,” Datta introduces the central theme of becoming the driver of one’s own destiny. She illustrates this notion (as do the Katha Upanishad and the Gita) via the analogy of the chariot and the driver: the chariot is the body, the charioteer the intellect or higher mind, the reins the lower mind and the horses are the senses.

“Either the horses send us into a ditch or they carry us forward on a meaningful path of ‘svadharma’” — the right path for each of us. And while finding one’s true purpose, of course, takes training, Datta brilliantly reminds us once we take steps to “honor” our svadharma, “the Universe moves mountains to support you, bringing the right people and opportunities into your life.”

By week 10, the medical side of yoga, Ayurveda, is introduced — how physical imbalances occur in our bodies and how to rectify those imbalances. Datta defines Ayurveda as “the art of living in harmony with the laws of nature.” It is an intricate program, yet she introduces it simply and hands-on: learning about three main Ayurvedic “doshas,” or constitutions (vata, pitta, kapha), and how to treat them, all in the spirit of self-healing.

With each chapter, Datta reviews the practices introduced before, and reminds the reader of her commitment to this journey: “As you evolve,” she writes, “peace becomes more of a possibility — one thought and one choice at a time.”

Ultimately, as Bhagavad Gita translator Mitchell points out, the practice of yoga has nothing to teach us. Through diligent meditation we see “layer after layer of the inauthentic fall away” and we come to a realization: “Everything essential that [yoga] points to — what we call wisdom or radiance or peace — is already present inside us.”

FYI

"The Yogi's Way"

Reema Datta discusses her new yoga guide and practices

Sunday (March 2) from 4–6 p.m.

SOMOS, 108 Civic Plaza Drive, Taos.

For more information, visit somostaos.org.