Our Q&A with Seane Corn About Yoga and Global Change

There are countless reasons why people start a yoga practice.  For some, it’s about health, stress reduction or spirituality. For those who make yoga their lifestyle, their practice is all that plus an opportunity to serve the world from a place of unity, compassion and clarity. For Seane Corn, yoga instructor and founder of Off The Mat, Into The World (OTM) yoga is all about service because of its power to create great change. OTM uses the power of yoga to inspire conscious, sustainable activism and ignite grassroots social change by facilitating personal empowerment through leadership trainings, community collaboration, and initiating local and global service projects.  We spoke with Seane about how her practice evolved to become a global platform for service.

EMC: Tell me how yoga became about service for you.

S: There was a period in my practice where yoga was really all about my body and health, my growth and insights and my own particular transcendence. You’ll notice the word I keep using is my.  But there was this gradual understanding, a shift and it wasn’t so much about “how can yoga change me,” but how can I, through my practice, bring change to the world? I felt more grounded and connected. I had better tools to deal with some of my life challenges. These tools made my experience more sustainable and made me appreciate the interdependency of my relationship with the earth, animals and other human beings. I understood it was up to me to show up more generously with more awareness. It all starts with what I bring to the table, how much love, compassion and sensitivity. 

EMC:  Is it about changing the world?

S:  I can’t ask the world to change. I can’t ask people to change. I have to be that change that allows me to be more present and available in conflict and crisis, less reactive and more loving. It was inevitable that service came to be in my life because of the circumstances in the world where people were in pain and struggling. To turn my back on them felt like I was turning my back on myself and all that yoga has given me. Through yoga you are taught empathy, how to feel and connect to your vulnerability and the vulnerability that exists in the world. Being apathetic would mean that I didn’t care about people in need or about my own humanity. That just doesn’t work for me any more. Yoga has given me the tools to release tension and connect to my vulnerability and have a greater relationship with God, the earth and other people. It is all connected and interdependent.

EMC: How did Off the Mat come about? 

S: I got involved working with adolescent prostitutes in 2005. I’d always been interested in HIV/AIDS issues and became a global yoga ambassador for a program called Youth AIDS. I started a campaign in the yoga community to raise money and awareness around the international HIV epidemic and how it relates to children. I decided to hit the yoga community up for money to raise awareness. I’d never done anything like that on a large scale, but I thought, “Well, I have a platform.  People pay attention to me. Maybe I can use that platform and raise a little money. So I created and sold a t-shirt that said Off The Mat and Into The World and raised $35,000 in a few weeks.

It seemed like people had a genuine interest in being involved so I organized workshops called “Spiritual Activism” around the country talking about the intersection of spirituality and activism and how we could get organized as a community regardless of what the issues were. It’s a matter of finding your own passion and getting out of your own way to understand your purpose.

The workshops did really well except I always felt depressed afterward because there was no way to harness the momentum. People were enthusiastic but I knew that by Wednesday…you know? It didn’t last.

That’s when we organized OTM. An organization called the Engage Network helped us organize the infrastructure, get training and begin to access small circles around the US and globally. We began training people to take leadership roles back in their communities and get people to do projects. We now have thousands of circles that have implemented thousands of projects from domestic violence, animal rights, political projects. We are in the business of helping create leaders. 

EMC: How has OTM evolved?

S:  We started leadership training then created Yoga in Action, which provides curriculum to the leaders we train. They go back to their community and hold a workshop for 8-10 people and teach the curriculum and choose a project that fits the their community’s needs and interests. Next we created the Global Seva Challenge, which is a challenge to the yoga community to raise 20,000 dollars through community outreach. If they raise the funds they come with me for two weeks to whatever community we’re focusing on. We’ve raised over 2.5 million dollars in the last two years. The first year we focused on Cambodia, the second year, Uganda, the third year, South Africa and last year Haiti. This year we raised a million dollars and we’re going to India with the theme of sex trafficking. Our next challenge will be Ecuador, where we will focus on sustainability, the rainforest and the impact oil has had on indigenous people.

EMC: How is OTM focused here in the US?

S: We do a lot of grassroots projects to alleviate suffering and raise money.  We do a project called the Empowered Youth Initiative, which focuses on marginalized youths. We called one project Off the Mat and Into New Jersey for hurricane relief and raised 35,000 dollars in one 3-hour class.  We also did a campaign called Yoga Votes, focused on the intersection between Yoga and Politics. We went to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions where we got people talking about issues like, do you have to be a liberal to practice or can you be conservative and practice yoga. We’ve trained thousands of leaders all over the US who are spreading out and doing their own great work.  It’s amazing how far it all spreads.

For Seane, yoga is the drop in the pond that continues to expand its reach beyond borders and boundaries.  To find out more about Seane’s work and how you can get involved, visit Off The Mat, Into the World.