Hridaya Yoga — Attraction in Oaxaca

• update: I did receive a refund promptly from Hridaya after sharing my experience. This made me improve my rating.

I had an unfortunate experience here.

Some background from me: I am of North Indian descent, grew up with my spiritual and ancestral teachings of yoga and meditation.

Some history that is relevant:

During the British occupation of India, yoga and temple dancing was banned for Indian people- it was seen as barbaric and deviant. The British also stole 45 trillion dollars of resources and commited many atrocities against Indian people including ignorantly drawing a line through the most heterogenous part of the country in 1947. That line caused "Partition" and a genocide of the Indian people.

I have been connected to and learning yoga through my family since I was a child. I have been teaching, sharing, and participating in yoga internationally since 2012.

I have encountered many yoga teachers who are not Indian that teach in a grounded, culturally sensitive, mature, integrated, trauma informed way. I have enjoyed many yoga workshops from a variety of centers and places. Sadly, Hridaya is not a center I would ever return to.

I signed up for a workshop called Flowering of Love. It sounded nice.

The first question we were asked after sharing our name was how we heard about the workshop. Then the teacher proceeded to ask which poster was more effective in marketing the workshop. We werent asked why we wanted to learn or our intention.

At one point during the day, the teacher made a generalization of men in South India and Myanmar - saying that their second chakras were all out of balance and he witnessed bizarre things in the "East" such as desperate men declaring their love for married women by knocking on their door. I know a lot of Indian men who don't do that. This was an example of subconscious racism.

The day was long with 1-2 hour breaks after each session which involved sitting, talking, listening, dyadic work, and group work. None of it was trauma-informed, at no point did the teacher share his educational background, his life experience or his qualifications relating to the content of the workshop, or cite any sources besides Ramana Maharshi's practice of feeling into the right side of your heart- none of it was justice oriented and none of it was very grounded.

I felt ill by the end of the day. I had travelled a long way, I was pre-menstrual and I could sense my female ancestors were yelling at me to leave. Why was I paying $350 to listen to yet another European man dressed in white talk about relationships and diluted spiritual teachings to a group of mostly women? It felt so wrong. I had a huge migraine.

The cherry on top to this ridiculous day was after dinner (we started at 8:15 and I left sometime around 6:30pm) I told the teacher and his assistant I had to leave because I had a bad headache. The teacher's response was "Ooohh that is too bad, I had a great ritual planned for tonight, we were going to talk about love, can't you join on zoom?" And then his assistant tried to tell me that maybe my headache was a symptom of something.

The appropriate answer for any teacher or any person when someone is not feeling well or healthy is: "oh I hope you feel better soon. Is there anything you need? Have a good rest." Instead, this teacher was all about himself and his spiritual pedestal.

Look back and you will see other reviews where Hridaya has been insensitive to people's physical health. Spiritual bypassing, passive aggression and cultural insensitivity was my experience here.

If you are a South Asian woman, I strongly recommend avoiding this place - they have not done the research and work to know that they are continuing the colonial mentality towards our cultural and ancestral teachings. A lack of ethics and sensitivity is clear. I recommend all the teachers read Susana Barkataki's work or better yet hire someone to audit their diversity and inclusion practices regarding yoga.

I feel like I wasted my money. There is a no refund policy, but to pay for this...

LEAVING THE 10 DAY SILENT RETREAT EARLY (BEST DECISION) It feels important to say I left this retreat early and it’s one of the best decisions of my life. I was very curious about a 10-day silent retreat, and while there were some good moments, the majority of the experience left me rather shaken.

During the teachings, I felt like I was being told some questionable "facts," and since we weren’t allowed to talk (only write questions once a day), I had no way to question or process them with others. We kept being told that this was a “purification process,” but I didn’t understand, purification for what? That phrasing made me feel like they were trying to convince us there’s something wrong with each person that needs purifying. Honestly, it felt a little culty at times.

In the end, I left because I didn’t agree with the teachings. I was being told a lot of things that felt like make-believe. Sometimes the teachers would describe what I could experience during meditation, and I know my mind is clever enough to then just create those things. I would have preferred to simply experience whatever came up, without suggestion.

I also felt the teachers gave input on things they weren’t qualified to speak on. In a Q&A session where participants wrote questions, someone asked if they could listen to a downloaded meditation to help with insomnia. The teacher told them not to , because of the “purification” process. Insomnia is a legitimate mental health disorder, and advice like that could genuinely harm someone. That moment really made me question why I should trust these “leaders” on any topic.

I also got quite sick during the retreat — and of course, this was explained as my body “purifying itself.” I slept a lot the first two days and then couldn’t sleep at all, which is very unusual for me. I just didn’t feel well there. While I’m sure part of that was due to the intensity of the experience, I think the bigger issue was that I didn’t trust the teachings or the teachers. Everyone was perfectly nice, but something felt off.

I truly hope this course works for others, but for me, leaving was absolutely the right decision. Compared to other silent retreats, this one is expensive. I heard that in most other retreats, if you leave early you’re not expected to donate. Here, I had to choose to forfeit the money I paid. They say it’s a cheaper option, which I guess it is depnding on which others you compare it too, but there are other donation-based retreats that seem better to me. This felt a bit like a money grab. Also, throughout the retreat, they kept mentioning (promoting) other courses like, “If you want to learn more, we discuss this in our 17-day retreat…” I found that very annoying.

Again, the staff were perfectly nice. The facilities are well located. The...

I am in complete shock at the passive-aggressive treatment I recieved from this center. I was so so excited to come to mazunte for moudle 1 especially to get back into active yoga practice after a complicated foot fracture, which happened 4 months ago. As the schedual of the course seemed to offer 2 hatha yoga classes a day + lecture and is advertised as a mix of philosophy and physical practice, I thought this would be perfect. Still I was hasitant because I sent a messege to the center prior about my fracture and recieved no reply regarding my condition. On my arrival to mazunte I even went to talk to one of their teachers and the woman who works in reception to validate that the course would be a good idea for my foot, because I'm careful since the injury. Not only I was recieved in a very aggressive way from reception, which made me doubt if this was in fact a yoga retreat center, I was not told by either of the personal that the hatha classes are in fact at least 80% philosophy, with very little movement, and what little movement there was, was mostly standing on the feet the whole time. Needless to say I asked to cancel the course the very next day, realizing this was in fact very bad for my foot and defeated the whole idea of healthy & guided yoga and movement. I felt deceived. By the website, by the teachers, by the receptionist. Especially since I tried to check this very carefully before signing up. As I signed up to the course 4 days in, I know I didn't take anyone else's spot and therefore thought it would be easy to receive my 50$ deposit back, considering my unique condition. But hridaya seems to have no one in charge when it comes to a complaint, except the annoyed receptionist who makes it look like a favor she actually bothers to talk to you, and is no way in charge of the decisions made. When I emailed her the second time asking to pass me to a manager I recieved the delighted declined response "thank you for your continued emails and requests.." I had also asked a teacher to let me send an email to someone incharge. She just replied "I don't know who is incharge" which was getting strange. Eventually she took my email and promised to pass an email of the responsible person, but he seems not to exist since I never heard back from her. I am beyond humiliated and ashamed for the treatment and lack of accountability I recieved at a place that preeches for humility, compassion, patience, personal responsibility...