Relaxation techniques at a maximum-security prison
2000
Though the rain was coming down in sheets, the two yogis and the yogini who were standing outside the Dunkin' Donuts at the Queensboro Plaza in Queens were not deterred. When the nonstop bus to Rikers Island Penitentiary pulled up, the three metaphysical missionaries hoisted their bags of candles and incense and hopped aboard.
"Even if you killed people it doesn't matter. If you ask for forgiveness, I'll forgive you," says Anna Mancini, an actress who has been teaching Sahaji Yoga to some of Rikers' 11,382 inmates since April 1999. Rikers is the country's largest holding pen for inmates awaiting trial. "Most people are in prison for drugs. Laws for drugs are so outdated. They are not to rehabilitate, but to punish," says Mancini who believes anyone can rid themselves of maladies -- guilt, addiction, even irritable bowels and high blood pressure -- by meditating. Apparently this transformation can happen overnight and en masse. Once a woman was even cured of semi-paralysis after an octopus bit her.
That's why every Wednesday night, Mancini teaches yoga at Rikers. Here she tells inmates how to use their primordial inner energy, commonly called the kundalini in yoga parlance, to cleanse their seven inner chakras of negative thoughts.
Mancini is 5'2" and has shoulder-length hair the color of squid ink and a straight nose that comes to a sharp point. She has a faint Italian accent and is soft-spoken and calm. When she smiles and lifts her sculpted eyebrows her face radiates a warm glow. Aside from yoga, Mancini's passion is for acting. She once had a bit part speaking Sicilian in an H.B.O. movie called Vendetta. "I want to experience what's not normal," she enthuses, waving a near-empty bottle of spring water. "I've got this incredible curiosity."
Transforming grizzled inmates into "compassionate, peaceful, and joyous human beings" often gets the attention of the prison staff, who, when they aren't meditating with the prisoners, sometimes playfully heckle the yogis. There was the C.O. who said in a thick Bronx drawl: Hey yogi, you gonna limber these guys up so they can squeeze through the bars? Then there was the hot summer night when Mancini absent-mindedly asked a guard to open a window.
"Lady! This is a prison!" she was told.
After going through a series of check points, the yogis reach the George Motchan Detention Center dormitory. Signs at G.M.D.C. read: No loaded weapons beyond this point. Notice all counterfeit currency will be seized. While the desk guard scrutinizes their passports and driver's licenses, Anna smiles and whispers, "The vibrations are being cleared for us. We are always protected when we come here. There's no fear because we're yogis and we have a great guru."
Mancini's guru is a 77-year-old grandmother who grew up in the ashram of Mahatma Ghandi. Mancini calls her Mother, but the guru's real name is Shri Mataji. Mother's plump smiling face is on a necklace that Mancini wears every day for inspiration.
Mancini is quick to point out that Shri Mataji's work aiding the poor twice earned her a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize; that Mother recently delivered an impassioned speech on alternative medicine to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
Of course, prison is a revolving door of healers of every ilk. This evening, three Pentecostal missionaries from the "Way Out Church Ministries," Inc. in the Bronx dedicated to helping the poor, alcoholics, and drug addicts, walk through the G.M.D.C. metal detectors clutching well-worn Bibles. Mancini and her traveling ashram soon follows. A double thick electronic door slams shut behind them as the yogis are escorted to Dorm 16B.
"Have you heard of the kundalini?" Mancini cheerfully asks Carol, the supervisor of 16B.
"Is that like the center? Finding your center?" Carol ventures a guess and adds with a Caribbean accent, "There's something about this I'm starting to like."
At 7:45 Carol brings the yogis to a classroom in 16B. But first they must walk through the dorm itself, a large fluorescent-lit barracks filled with 50 basic cots and 50 small lockers. A row of urinals is partially in view and the small Plexiglas windows are barred. Near the guard station is a small poster of Mother.
The inmates, who are mostly Hispanic and black, are awaiting trial for drug-related crimes. They socialize in civilian garb, basketball shorts and muscle T-shirts, loose jeans and stocking hats.
"It's the kundalini people!" bellows an inmate.
"Time for us to do the kundalini!" chimes another.
"What's yoga?" asks Lewis, a 21 year old in prison for violation of parole. He is wearing white tube socks that reach his knees with flip flops. "It's supposed to make you feel free?" he asks while Anna lights a candle and positions a large gilt-framed photo of Mother on a table.
"That's the yoga God? asks Lewis with a puzzled expression. "What's gonna happen?" Soon plumes of incense and candle wax fill the classroom which is draped with the inmates hand-washed clothes and smells strongly of industrial-grade disinfectant.
"When you get your kundalini awakened you will feel vibrations. You will be realized souls," explains Mancini to the eight inmates who have decided to meditate. "You all become realized souls. Do you know what that means?"
Eight heads shake no. Suspicious looks abound. Everyone smirks and critical eyebrows turn inward. "Whatever problem you might be in jail for forget about," she says with a grin. She continues, "When you balance the chakras you expedite your problems. When you meditate your mind cools down. Sahaji Yoga saved me from liver disease. I would be dead today."
Gregory, a 20 year old in a white muscle T-shirt and a handmade tattoo that sells "Shorty" on his forearm is in jail for "fighting." He sits in the second row looking at Mancini quizzically. "What's the foot-soak?" he asks, referring to a yoga relaxation technique.
"Helps purify the three lower chakras." Anna says, explaining that they are the centers for love, knowledge, and evolution.
Kevin, a light-skinned man with rheumy eyes and a soft mustache, mentions that he is here today because there wasn't anything better to do. Still, he is curious and asks, "How do we forget the past?"
"Your super ego will be cleansed. You won't even remember the past, " says Anna pointing to a wall chart of a figure in the Lotus position.
The inmates are willing participants, eager to glean something from the experience, if only a reprieve from boredom. So when a toothless inmate with a shaven head shuffles over to the classroom, trying to distract the group by grabbing his crotch, he is ignored.
Finally the moment has arrived. Anna faces her pupils and says, "Now we're going to raise the kundalini." One inmate stands up and leaves the room, but the others silently remove their shoes. Sitting in plastic chairs, the inmates straighten their posture and rest their open palm on their thighs. Eyes are closed and chests slowly rise and fall as Anna leads them in this metaphysical calisthenics. Right hand on heart, left hand open for desire.
Anna asks the inmates to repeat after her: Mother am I the spirit? Mother I am my own master. Mother give me pure knowledge. Mother I am not guilty. The inmates do not cheat; not a single person peeks.
As the inmates meditate the yogis transfer their own energy to the inmates by rapidly moving their hands in a motion that resembles reeling in a kite and frenetically tying bows. With a fire-and-brimstone intensity, the yogis arc their hands over the inmates heads, searching for a cool breeze to be released -- a warning sign of some sort. Heat, on the other hand, means the kundalini is removing imbalances.
"What do you feel?" Anna asks.
"Heat," says Michael, 34, a crack and heroin addict whose been in jail for 2 years on a murder charge.
"Coolness," says Gregory.
"I don't know," says Kevin.
"Do you smoke?" asks Anna. Kevin nods.
"I feel all right. A little tingly," says Reyes, 31, in jail for 2nd degree burglary.
"Calm," says Napoleon, from the back.
A C.O. walks in for a head count: "5, 6, 7." Kevin appears calm and relaxed and remarks," I'm ready to go home now."
"You will go home," Anna reassures him. "You will."
Later, Kevin explains how he is in jail because he hurt his girlfriend's wrist. She called the cops and now he's locked up in the slammer. "Give your girlfriend a bondon, suggests a yogi, arcing his hand over Gregory's wrist to demonstrate how the so-called bondon gesture will protect her from all negative vibrations.
"Yeah," Kevin tells him. "Maybe she'll drop the charges."
© 2000 Melissa Milgrom
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