Margabandhu Martarano ~ Swami Satchidananda's Disciple: Insights into a Yogi's Lifelong Practice

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Margabandhu Martarano is an esteemed yoga teacher with over 50 years of experience. He has been at the helm of the Integral Yoga Institute in New Jersey, where he has dedicated his life to spreading the teachings of Integral Yoga. As a direct disciple of Swami Satchidananda, Margabandhu has been influential in teaching yoga and pranayama across diverse environments, including prisons, psychiatric wards, and schools for children with autism. He is also an herbalist, a massage therapist, and has provided guidance in acupressure and reflexology. His holistic approach integrates multiple facets of Eastern wellness and healing practices.

Visit Margabandhu on his website: https://iyinj.org/

Key Takeaways:

• Margabandhu emphasizes the powerful healing effects of pranayama, sharing personal stories of recovery and resilience.
• His teachings are rooted in a comprehensive approach to yoga that embraces postures, breathing, meditation, and diet.
• He highlights the importance of holistic health, having effectively taught diverse groups, including inmates and autistic children through yoga and pranayama.
• Margabandhu shares insights into the life and philosophy of Swami Satchidananda and his influence on yoga in the West, particularly during the 1960s.

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Episode Transcript

(00:33):
Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast,so happy you are here. My goal
with this channel is to bringinspirational speakers to the
mic in the field of yoga,massage, body work and beyond.
Follow us at @nativeyoga andcheck us out at
nativeyogacenter.com. All right,let's begin.

(01:04):
Todd, welcome to Native YogaToddcast, and my name is Todd
McLaughlin, and today I'mbringing a special guest,
Margabandhu Martarano, andMargabandhu has been running the
New Jersey Integral YogaInstitute for 54 years. Now,
think about that, running a yogacenter for 54 years, huh? I
mean, come on, what a legend,right? I mean, I and he's so

(01:28):
full of life and energy, adirect student and disciple of
Swami Satchidananda. He startedpracticing with him back in the
late 60s, and he's stillteaching yoga and pranayama and
bhakti and Raja yoga and holdingit down for such a long time.
Wait till you hear all thedifferent things that

(01:48):
Margabandhu has been up to inthe last 50 plus years. I mean,
it's really impressive, and Ifeel his passion. And the way
he's talking, he seems so lit upabout yoga and so inspired and
motivated and so and you'll hearhim say even more motivated now
than he was 50 years ago, whichyou know that says a lot. Please

(02:10):
go follow him on his website.
iyinj.org, which stands forIntegral Yoga Institute New
jersey.org, and you know, Ithink you're gonna enjoy this,
and I have a special treat andsurprise for you, because next
week, podcast is gonna be withReverend Jaganath, who also is a
direct student disciple of SwamiSadchidananda. And then the

(02:31):
following week, I have thisopportunity to interview both of
them together. So you get achance to meet Margabandhu on
his own. Get a chance to meetReverend Jaganath, and then wait
till you hear these twotogether. I mean, they are like
so special. So, you know, thankyou so much to everybody behind

(02:52):
the scenes that have beenhelping to organize this series,
this podcast series,Premajyothi, thank you so much.
And Barbara, you're the youknow, you're the one who got
this whole fire lit. So thankyou. Thank you. Thank you. All
right, on that note, let's goahead and begin. I feel so lucky

(03:13):
to have this opportunity to meetand speak with Margabandhu.
Margabandhu, thank you so muchfor joining me today. How are
you doing?
Good! Thank you so much. Thisreally, really is a tell me,
I'm sorry. No, it's a real honorto be here, and I heard so much

(03:36):
about you, so there's a mutualrespect here. So whatever you
want me to say, and whatever youwant me to cover, I'll be okay.
Oh, well, I really appreciatethat. I mean, I I see that you
have been running the integralYoga Institute New Jersey for 50
plus years, and that isabsolutely amazing.
Congratulations on finding yogaand spreading it for that long

(04:01):
and holding down a center. Whatis it? How do we encapsulate 50
years of teaching into a onehour yoga podcast? It's gonna be
challenging. I think we can doit, though. I think we can do
it.
I'm up for it, all right. Well,I appreciate that, just so our
listeners are hip to yourhistory, and the way that I

(04:24):
found you is because I love theYoga Sutras of Patanjali by
Swami Satchidananda. And I had astudent come in and she told me
that she she knew you and thatyou have are a student, a direct
student, of Satan Ananda. And Iguess I'm just so curious to

(04:46):
hear about how you met SachinAnanda.
Well, you know, in the 60s, whenthat revolution was going
around, and I. Uh, we were alllooking for, there was the
Vietnam War, there was drugs allover the place, and everybody's

(05:08):
looking to find their place insociety. And I was in school at
the time, in college at thetime, and and I, in a way, I
was, I wasn't really happy beingin school, but I was just
looking for some type ofdirection that would make me
focus on something that I wantto do for the rest of my life.
And I met Swami Satchidanandathrough the rascals they were on

(05:31):
tour, and they took me to seehim and and at that time, my
health wasn't that great. Iwasn't feeling well. I was doing
a lot of things I was supposedto be doing. And And Swami said
to none right away, got into thewhole energy field of like what
I really needed. And he says,the first thing you have to do

(05:52):
is, you know, he says, I'm notgoing to tell you not to do
anything. I'm just going to giveyou an alternative the way I
think might be better. So I gotinto the yoga postures,
breathing the meditation andwatching my diet, watching my
eating habits. And like I said,he never said, to become a
vegetarian. What he did first,he taught me the mechanics of

(06:13):
everything, even with diet. Hedidn't say, become a vegetarian.
He taught me the mechanics ofeating, no all the all the
pluses that I should be doing,as eating and appreciating
everything else around me. So Ilearned to focus on what was
really necessary for me to,like, maintain my health and and
follow find out what direction Ireally wanted to go in, you

(06:35):
know? Oh, that's amazing, yeah.
And the first thing he did, youknow, in the beginning, because
everybody did yoga. He was doingyoga. He gave me a book called
All life is sacred. And it wasabout, you know, animals and
human beings and how sacred lifeis and and he, and it was like,
almost like my introduction tobecoming a vegetarian. You know,

(06:56):
I read the book and I'm saying,Well, it sounds logical. And so
I tried becoming vegetarian, andI was working at an Italian deli
at the time, so I was like, Iwas eating coca every day, and
so, but yeah, I became verynatural to me. I became a
vegetarian, and as I got moreinvolved with him, and I was

(07:18):
concerned about my not onlyphysical health, but my
emotional and mental well being.
He gave me a book called TheScience of pranayama by his
teacher, Swami Shivananda. Andthey read the book, and it was a
very small book, but it showedme the different aspects of the
different types of pranayamathat you could do for certain
conditions, like physical,mental, emotional health. And so

(07:43):
I really got into it in thebeginning, pranayama. And it
was, it's kind of for me, it'slike the best way to go. I mean,
I do the postures every day, Ido the meditation, but every
morning I do at least 25 minutesof pranayama before I even
meditate. Nice. And I do, he hasa Swami Sivananda, had a
particular healing meditationcalled the Shivananda breath,

(08:05):
and I do that three times a day.
Can you explain what themechanics of that breathing is
like?
Well, it's basically done likethe basic three part deep
breathing and yoga, where youinhale and you know, and then
exhale, you know, like, but whathappens when he says you would
inhale, counting to three, holdthe breath, counting to six, and

(08:26):
then the exhalation, the amountof time on the exhalation didn't
matter. But during theretention, you focus on that
particular the body that youfeel needs that extra energy,
that extra prana, nice. Andthat's what I did. And he said
that by doing this particularbreathing technique called the
Shivananda healing breath, andfocusing on that particular body

(08:47):
that needs that extra prana isyou could heal us anything in
about two or three weeks. Wow. Iwas in a car accident a few
years ago, and the ventricles tomy heart were damaged. That was
in the hospital, they thought Ihad a heart attack and, and I
just started doing thesebreathing techniques and, you
know, and the venue, becausethey were going to, they had me

(09:08):
on operating table, they put astent in, yeah, and then the the
cardiologist, he says, No, it'snot his heart. He said, The the
airbag, when the bear bag hitme, it damaged the ventricles to
my heart, so he didn't need astent, so they didn't do the
surgery. Then my niece'shusband, who was a doctor, he

(09:29):
says, You know what margamando?
He says, You know what to do. SoI went into the Sivananda
healing breath, and then webuild up those vents, because I
was getting shortness of breath,and I was, I was in the hospital
for a while. Yes,wow. You said three second
inhale, six second hold, andthen the duration of the exhale,
as long as you want. Yeah. Anddo you retention? In yoga, they

(09:50):
call it kumbhaka, yes. Andthat's when the body heals the
retention of the prana. So whenyou inhale, it. In counting or
three, whatever you want tocount into, yeah, and you hold
the practical the retention isactually when the body rebuilds
itself. So that's what I did. Istill do it every day, three
times a day. Doyou do you add in some sort of

(10:11):
visualization at that point? Ifyou are, you had indication that
there was something wrong withyour heart? Did you bring it? I
imagine,I imagine the part of the body
that needed extra healing. Iimagined it in a healthy state.
Wow. There was the ventriclesthat were damaged. The
capillaries were broken. Yeah,imagine capillaries in a
perfect, healthy state. Imaginethe blood supply going through
the capillaries. See,how long did it take for the

(10:35):
doctor to notice that what youwere doing was showing some
positive results. Yeah, we doreally
well, because he was my niece'smy husband, you know. So he was
very cooperative, you know, goodrelationship today and, and he
says, you know, because he toldme, so, you know, Mark man. He
says, You know what, you knowwhat to do. He says, you know,

(10:55):
he just had, I was released, andhe said, go home, take care of
yourself. And that's what Ibecause what happened during the
hospitals in the hospital wascalled, I got COVID Because they
had me in the COVID ward. So Igot really sick. Oh my god. So I
would walk for a while. Icouldn't stand up. I was really
in bad shape. Pranayama reallyhelped out tremendously. I mean,
it's like, for me, it's alifesaver. That's

(11:17):
incredible. That's incredible.
Raghavandu, I love hearing thissort of stories. Now you've been
able to teach pranayama for somany years. Have you had any
students come up to you and say,I can attest Margot bondu to the
power of this?
Yeah, there's a few. There'sSee, we're doing a pranayama
training program. So one of thepeople that leading the training
program, and this few peoplethat are taking the training

(11:39):
program, really feel thatpranayama has really saved them.
On the physical level, anemotional level, we're doing a
pranayama training programstarting next month, and it's on
all the different, the prana,the mujahs, the bonders, all the
hidden, all the differentconditions. You know, because
I've taught pranayama indifferent like, I taught in
prisons for a while, Psych. Itook in psychiatric wards, I

(12:01):
taught autistic kids, you know,so breathing seems the best way
to go, amazing postures, youknow. You know that I taught
Christmas for like, five years.
Wow,I'm so curious about that too. I
What was that experience like?
It was, it was really when Ifirst went I was approached by a
psychologist. This was about 19seven. We were living in common

(12:25):
station, New Jersey, andconversation was a there was a
prison, there was a jail there.
That was where all the trialswent. So you had all the, you
know, psychologists and all thewardens. They were all there at
this in this particular prison.
So they approached me and askedme if I would do they want to

(12:46):
do, like, like a test, you know,like, how prisons would function
during yoga, deep relaxationyoga, Nidra is, that's what we
call it, yeah, yeah. And so Isaid, Okay, I went down and
there was seven prisoners, youknow, and so what they wanted to
do, they wanted me to teach themyoga, but they weren't curious

(13:08):
about the deep relaxation part,so they put electrodes on each
one. And before the class, theytested them in their anxiety
level was eight or nine, and hewanted to see after yoga nidra,
what happened? Like, how muchthey would, you know, progress,
yeah. So, after deep relaxation,they were down two or three.
Wow. So, so they were soimpressed, not even to have me

(13:32):
teach classes on a regularbasis. I mean, so, yeah, so that
day I was gonna, you know, I hadto go through, we had to go
through some political channels.
You know, there was apsychologist, there was a war,
and there was a bunch of peoplethat had agreed to all this,
because it was like a they weretrying to do some testing with
these prisoners. And so thefirst day, they said, like,

(13:56):
we're going to do the class.
They had seven prisoners comein, and there was in this room,
and they wanted two guards tocome in with me. And I said that
one that's not going to doyou're not going to have two
guards watching, you know this,yeah, like, what? So I told my I
didn't want to do it that way. Iwould rather do it by
themselves. Keep the roomlocked, and I think I would be

(14:17):
all right. So one of the guards,his name was cap Johnson. The
prisoners really respected him.
He took the class.
Ah, very quickly. I'll take theclass. Perfect solution.
Yeah. And the class went reallywell. And there I signed the
contract for three years, andwent three days a week. I taught
them pranayama and breathingtechniques. And it was I had a

(14:39):
really good relationship withthe, you know, teammates for
years, it's incredible, somereally good guys, some of them,
like a couple murderers andstuff. But it was I really they
trusted me, you know. And I gotinto their language, you know.
And I know how to respond tothem. And it was, yeah, and I
went three times. So when,actually, after, I think, was I.

(14:59):
Five, three or five years, thegrant was over, you know, and
politically, they didn't want todo it anymore. I volunteered to
just teach for nothing because,you know, I wanted to leave
these guys, but they didn't.
They couldn't do it, you know,such a Yeah. So it was really
something, you know, but that'sso cool,
dedicated five years, that's along that's incredible. That's

(15:23):
incredible. I love hearing thatstory. You know, is it? Tell me,
sorry. No, please tell me. Tellme. We actually,
there was a part what we wantedto do with this. The woman
psychologist, name is cranegrosbeck. She was really into
rehabbing the inmates, you know,that's what you want to do. So I
don't know if you ever visit aprison, but the diet is, like,

(15:46):
horrendous. So we talked aboutworking with the diet. And at
that time, there was a fellow inNorth Carolina. His name was Bo
Luz off, and he was working withinmates too. So he got a hold of
me, and we were trying to get aprogram together for for, uh,
nutrition for inmates, you know.
But like, once again,politically speaking, it was,
you know, it didn't work out.

(16:06):
But I felt that because the dietis horrendous, you know. I mean,
I used to eat with them.
Sometimes you sit down duringlunch and it was like, sugar,
white flour, mashed potato. Itwas like, terrible.
I hear the food is not verygood. It
was like a man say, Well, if Ieat like that, it'd be dead in
two days. But that, that partdidn't work out, you know, so,

(16:27):
but it was a really niceexperience. And then I also
taught in the psychiatric wardin St Joseph's Hospital in
Paterson, New Jersey. I did thatfor a long time. Did
you have any harrowingexperiences in that department,
because, like, I remember I'vefrom learning pranayama. There
are, I've heard people saystories about how you have to be

(16:49):
careful when learning pranayama.
And then I heard my teacherwould made a joke once that
there's like, you know,dedicated wards in India for
pranayama victims, like, if youif you didn't practice pranayama
properly, you could have sometype of psychiatric reaction.
And personally, I've neverexperienced that. I don't know
if you've ever met anybody overyour years of teaching and

(17:11):
practice that has had a negativereaction to pranayama, but I'm
so curious to hear about whatyou're working with psychiatric
patients, what type of reactionyou witness? Well,
I was very, I was very careful.
See psychiatric seminar onmedication, so you have to be
very careful. And I never hearda lot of people say that, you

(17:31):
know, you have to be carefulwith pranayama, it could be
dangerous. I've been teaching it54 years. I never had an
experience where I felt, youknow, maybe because I felt that
I knew what I was doing, butnever that had a really bad
experience. You know, somepeople, because of their
digestion or the pressure,sometimes you have to work with
them a little bit. But there'sdifferent breathing techniques
that you could do that wouldcounteract whatever they were

(17:53):
feeling, see, and this pranayamatechniques for digestion
relaxation. So, I mean, if Ilearned directly from Swami
Satan on, so whenever I had aproblem, I would just, you know,
I would ask him, sir. So I hadfirst hand experience. Yes, I
had with a fellow in Wattsduring the red when they had the

(18:14):
riots and years ago. And therewas a African American fellow.
He was in a wheelchair, and hecouldn't be he was in a car
accident, and friends of mineasked me to go see him, and I so
I saw him such an under whatshould I do? Called the most,
you know, I'm teaching fellowcan't move his fingers or his
hands. What could I do to help?

(18:37):
So he said, do the three Part Dbreathing, he says. And during
the inhalation, let him bendforward and come back on the
exhalation, just like verylittle movements. After about
three weeks, you could start it.
He started moving his fingersToronto went right into the rest
of his body, amazing. And, youknow, he's still, he's still in

(18:57):
the wheelchair. And then I so Iwould call, Gird up against
Swami Satan. And again I see, isthere anything else I could do?
He says, Ask him moves his lastthought before the accident. So
I asked him, and he there was atrauma. And what happens is, I
told Swami said. He says,sometimes, when there's an

(19:19):
accident, the trauma manifestedsuch a like, a fierce vibration
that would like really affectthe person, not only mentally
but physically see. So the fellatold me what the trauma was, and
we worked on that littlemeditation, and he seemed to get

(19:39):
better and better. Yeah, it was,it was really nice. I was in
California, so I had to go back,so I kind of lost contact with
him. But, you know, but for themonth I was with him, there was
some results. That'samazing. That's incredible. Do
you think the rocking of thebody forward and back in
relation to the inhale andexhale created some sort of like
lever system? Dumb or like,almost like it

(20:01):
well, allowed the prana to enterdeep into the where the core of
his digestion, that's where hewas having problems, to getting
noise. That makes sense. Youknow, I've dead. I've seen
that's all right. I've seen. Myfirst introduction to such
Ananda was always I was born inthe 70s, and then in the late

(20:26):
80s, I started listening to 60smusic and getting nostalgic and
kind of wishing that I wasaround for Woodstock. And then
so I was watching a Woodstockfilm, and I saw a yogi with, you
know, orange robes on and, and Ithought that that's amazing
what, what's going on here. Andand then it had on this

(20:48):
particular film, there was, likethe classic footage that we see
of Woodstock, of some hippieshanging out, doing some yoga,
also having a wild drug inducedexperience as well. And then,
and I remember it caught myattention as to like, how
fascinating that here's thisIndian yoga guru spending time

(21:10):
at Woodstock and having thisinteraction with all these, all
of the folks that were seekingsome type of liberation. Can you
talk a little bit about thattime period, and what you
learned from I don't know if youdid experiment with
hallucinogens, but what didSachin Ananda teach in
relationship to how to do itnaturally, or what his thoughts

(21:35):
were on all these crazyWesterners tripping out? That's
exactly what he told me,usually, in the beginning with
Swami Satchidananda, if you wantto have a personal consultation
with him, you did that was likegoing to see a psychiatrist
almost, you know, so and at thattime, I did hallucin genetics
out of the herbs, you know,getting high every day. So when

(21:56):
I went to see him, he was askingme, you know, 12 years it's just
a casual conversation. Then heasked him what type of, you
know, drugs I did, and I toldhim. So he told me about what,
LSD, why it was so popular andat that time, how just Huxley
and Timothy Leary were advocatesof so he says, What happens when

(22:17):
you take a chemical like that?
And he gave me, he broke downall the compounds in LSD, it's,
you know, what they were. Hesays, that type of chemical,
what it does, it releasesserotonin from the brain at a
very rapid pace. He says, whathappens with your third eye?
There's a channel. He says, itopens up the third eye. The
serotonin being released opensup the Third Eye very rapidly,

(22:38):
you know? And that's when youget all these visions. What
happens? It closes shut. Thenext day, you really lost
because all those thoughtsmanifested, you couldn't figure
out what it was all about. Hesays, what meditation does
during meditation, when yourmind is completely still, it
opens up that third eye veryslowly, but doesn't close

(23:00):
anymore. So you get thatawareness stays with you, and
you can interpret that awarenessthrough that meditation. And on
a daily basis, your mind willget clearer and you'll be able
to see or explain what washappening at that time. Wow,
wow. So that's how it explainedmeditation, and difference
between meditation and drugs. Soit was very somebody brought
right into, you know, so I didthe medication every day, you

(23:23):
know, I mean posture, breathing,very cool. You made mention that
he knew the chemical breakdownof LS. I know it just
did you, did you? How would youwhat sort of insight do you have
on his like, level ofintelligence? Did he strike you

(23:45):
as a very intelligent man, very,uh, intuitive. What if you
were to analyze on all levels,on all levels he was, you know,
yeah, I mean, like, I give youan example. Like, he knew he his
students very well. And when Iwent to see him, I told him
everything about everything youknow, personal, depression,

(24:06):
whatever's going on. I nevertold him I was bad in math. Why
would he even say that? Rightwas I get to learn him? He would
call me up see Mark a bond. Hesays, I'm getting a Jacuzzi tub.
But the doorway, the tub is 37inches the doorway. Said, What
could I could, could you get atub? You know? He would say
that, and I would figure out,dementia, I'm supposed to tell

(24:26):
me that the next day, close tohim, he's telling me he's
getting these MICHELIN tires,and the rims are 40, you know.
And I'm saying, You got to bekidding. Then I figured, after
the third time, I figured out,Wow, he really knows you. You
know, it was like, it was like,That's how well he knew us.
Yeah, he knew the deepest partof what was going on with you
and he and he figured out everytime with me

(24:49):
was, was he a would you say? Washe a strict teacher, or was he
compat like it was compassion,more of his basis? Yeah. The
compassion was there. But hewanted it. He wanted for you to
be the best at where you couldbe. So if that required a little
discipline, he was right there,yeah, can you do you have any

(25:09):
any times that you can rememberwhere you feel he disciplined
you,but many times you left me on a
Santa Monica freeway once whatyou guys were driving in the car
together, and you made himupset. He dropped. He pulled
over. AndI gotta tell you start. I gotta
tell you the story. So I get acall. Swami session is in

(25:32):
Pasadena, Apocalypse town. Hewas in. It was, was simply,
anyway, was in California, and Igo to see him, you know. And it
was a couple cars. And from thisplace where we were, we were
going to go to, like, ahousewarming from Swami
Satyananda. So there was twowomen in the car that I never

(25:54):
was, kind of like, I didn't knowhim, but there was, like, a
flirtation going on So, and Iwas in the car with Swami,
session now, and then this girlis looking behind me like you
see she was coming. So he stopsthe car on the freeway, smug,
man. I know you see the tires,you know, something like that.
So I get out of car, and alsohe takes off.

(26:18):
That's how you write thediscipline. But the best one was
what happened when he first cameto New York, they did a program
at Carnegie Hall on yoga, andthey had two Heidi Zupan was his
name, and another fella weredemonstrating the posture. Was
sitting in the chair in themiddle, and these two guys were

(26:39):
doing all the advanced stuff.
Mayor Lindsay was there.
Everybody was there, and theydid the advanced postures. It
was, it was a fantastic show.
And and it was run by the NewYork Times. It was, it was
unbelievable. And the peoplereally mesmerized by these
fellas doing the postures. Sotwo years later, he's in New
Jersey. No, I'm going to do thepostures. Okay, so I'm training

(27:03):
life for the Olympics, andeverybody's training. My ego got
so big, I couldn't my headcouldn't fit through the door.
I'm going to do this becausePhilly Dickinson University, and
I'm going to do the postures.
I'm really Todd. I was like,training like I was going to go
to the Olympics. Yeah, right,yes. My ego was so big. Was

(27:24):
ridiculous. Like, about 20minutes before the bosses, he
let somebody else do he put mein charge of extension cords.
And that was it bosses.
That was it. Knew he could seethe video, and he knew, you
know, this isn't going to begood, so let's, let's get him
doing the electrical instead,yep, oh, man, what's classic. I

(27:47):
loveit. So his discipline was, you
know, it was, and, you know, anddo you understand? I understood
a lot of times. I reallyunderstood, yeah,
yeah. When did you open a yogastudio? Because if you've been
the studio first started any guywho was a lead singer of the
rascals. I was living with himat the time, so he was on tour a

(28:10):
lot. So and I had what happened.
There was a couple fromMontclair, New Jersey, they
wanted to open up a center. Soin hottie Zupan was the director
of the New York iyi. So hecalled me up. Mark Obama, I'm
teaching a class in Montclair.
These people want to open up thecenter. Why don't you come and
take the class? Because I usedto do the postures. So I go take

(28:31):
the class. And after the class,these people don't want to start
the center, asked me, Hey, I didthe posture pretty good. And
they said, if I would help out,and I really didn't want to get
involved. But I said, Okay, howabout so I took teachers
training. When they finishedteachers training, the couple
broke up, and that is no center.
So I got, I'm a yoga teacherwith no class and but I was
living with Eddie at the time,so he says, Look, I'm on tour a

(28:55):
lot, and he had a really bigroom apartment. He said, Why
don't you start classes here? SoI invited friends over, and
then, you know, they knewexactly we got his apartment. I
would get 40 people in theclass, you know. Oh, wow. We did
that for almost a year, and Istart going two, three times a
week in his department, youknow, yeah. So there was a
couple that came and they, theythere was a building down the

(29:16):
street from his apartment, andthe parents owned the part the
building, and we cleaned it out,and we we were in that center
for about how many years, about18 years, you know. And then
from there, we had a house incommon station. We rented it
from the Sisters of Charity.

(29:37):
There was a brother monk. Hisname was brother David. He was
close with Swami Satchidananda,and he was a Benedictine monk,
and he did a lot of programswith Swami Satchidananda. So he
we became very closer to me. Soyou know, margamanda, if he's
wanted place to live, there's ast Elizabeth's College in

(29:58):
Morristown, New Jersey. The inconversation New Jersey, he
said, you can rent the housefrom them, and you could teach
classes there. So we had acenter in Garfield. We taught
the classes, and we had a housewhere 17 of us lived there. Oh,
wow. And so from there, wetaught classes at this
conversation. And there was alot of Morristown was the upper

(30:19):
middle class area. So I met her.
There's a lot of socialitesthere. So I met a woman who
wanted to have private classes.
So I went to her house, and I goto house, and just people
sitting in the living room,she's introducing me, and it was
she said, This is my son in law,Kurt
Vonnegut, oh man, I love Kurtzblur. I've read so many of

(30:42):
Kurt's books. I love KurtVonnegut.
There was, yes, that was a son.
Oh, so. And then this other ladywas, they were very there was a
lot of money with them. So therewas one woman, Miss stole, that
took the class, and I taught herfor 35 years. Ah, and she was
Christopher reason, wow. So I'mSuperman, yes, yes, I do know

(31:05):
it. Love all these people, youknow. And this woman gave us
$25,000 to buy the building thatwe're now in,
ah over here, you know. Andyou're still in this you're
still in that same location.
We're in, safe family, NewJersey, beautiful space. I gotta
comevisit. That sounds so I can't
wait. I'm coming. Ican't wait. I want to come visit
you in Florida. Well, I'll comeup there

(31:28):
in summer and you come down inwinter. That's, that's the
perfect trade. All right.
So 54, years later, we're stillhere. Wow.
That is so inspirational. MarkBondy, because I just, I hope I
can do the same thing. I want tofollow in your footsteps. I do.
I really do. I feel like there'sso much joy in holding down a

(31:49):
center and teaching. And I just,I want to keep going until the
very end. And so I just, I Ilove to meet you and hear your
enthusiasm. You sound just aspassionate about it as if you
started yoga yesterday. So Ilove that. So we're so
refreshing. No more. So you feelmore inspired. I love that. So,

(32:14):
you know, I'm thinking of, ifit's been 54 years, this has to
be, if it's to 2025 it's like1971 you somewhere around about
there. Medgar,ever 67 Okay, then, but, and
then we opened up our own centerin 19, actually, Eddie's
apartment says it was actually69 but then housing wired the
play. How long have we beenhere? Sean in this building

(32:35):
where we own now, you know, weown it. Owns it. So,
I mean, with with that manyyears, with five decades, what
have you seen in the yoga worldthat you're very proud of, to
see the evolution and what haveyou seen that you're a little

(32:56):
disappointed in?
Well, most of it really. Peoplehave really responded very well.
The people that took it, like toa higher level, you know, now
their lives became much better,you know. And I teach it, but
having a lot of times, I dodifferent programs in different
centers, you know. So I do a lotof pranayama. Has really been

(33:20):
very popular lately. So there'sone place in South Jersey I go
and everybody wants to learnpranayama because it wasn't
really that big with othercenters. You know, yeah, past
two centers I work with, theywanted pranayama So and there's,
there's an interest in them, andI see a lot of people, they feel
much better by doing a completeyoga class yoga. See, the way

(33:43):
Swami said to designed ourintegral yoga. He covered all
the aspects of yoga. That's whathe called the integral yoga. It
covers the breathing, themeditation, Braj yoga, bhakti
yoga, the chanting, see? So hecovered everything in one shot.
When he first came here, he onlyhad a 30 day visa. So he we were

(34:03):
all like, 60s experts, you know,pseudo intellects, you know,
like chemistry majors, you know,that type of, type of guys. So
he says, What am I gonna do withthese kids? You know, plus he
was, he was, you know, likepeople used to get on this case,
you know, he's teaching thesehippies. And said they're like,
you know, they have nodirection. So he gave us the
direction, see. But the class hetaught us covered everything,

(34:26):
you know, yes, yes, all thedifferent aspects of yoga. He
worked with our diet, you know.
He worked with everything,everything possible for us, you
know, yes. And then we allbought into it, you know, Peter
Max was one of the mainavocados. So we had access to
everybody and everything. He hadvery successful people
supporting him. See AliceColtrane, you know, wow.

(34:51):
So well, what have you observed?
And maybe this is off your radarcompletely, have you? Is there
anything that's happened? Theyoga world, in the yoga
community, in the evolution ofyoga in the last 50 years that
you've witnessed that sometimesmakes you go, Oh man, I wish. I
wish yoga wasn't beingrepresented that way. Or is

(35:11):
there something that's caughtyour attention that's that's
made you feel like it's beingmisrep, misrepresented and in
its authenticity.
Well, sometimes it becomes justlike an exercise, you know,
yeah. I mean, it's more like ouryoga. I mean, it's all good.

(35:32):
Maybe you're doing your to somedegree. But a lot of it's
misinterpreted, you know, thereal meaning, you know, finding
yourself and stuff. A lot ofit's like, yeah, like,
physically oriented, you know,in a way, and it's not that bad,
but, you know, if you want tofind the spirit of a dis go, you
know how it is, it goes deeperthan what they sometimes they

(35:52):
advocate, but sometimes it'stheir lack of experience, maybe
too, you know, yeah, we learned,in a way that we learned All the
different aspects he taught us,Raja Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, you
know, all the different levels.
So you were fortunate to have ateacher, and then if you have
someone that could explain thatto you, and then you buy into
it, then you're fine. But a lotof times, people don't have that
experience, or don't have thataccess to a person that would

(36:15):
teach them that, you know, yes,that's awesome time. I remember
one time it was at a talk, andsomeone asked, Swami said, No,
you know, Guru Dev, you know, Idon't think yoga is, you know,
we need to do aerobics. So hesays, go look up aerobics in the
dictionary, it means withoxygen. And there's nothing that
brings more oxygen into the bodythan yoga, the postures. Yes.

(36:38):
Yes. So that was his answer, youknow,
yeah, you don't need, like, kindof like, you don't need to go
and do a million jumping jacksand ride your bike 100 miles,
like, yoga breathing. You'regonna get it all.
You're gonna get it all thatthat's stuck in my head, you
know? So I the breathing is themost important thing for me

(36:59):
right now. You know,that's amazing. Have you
maintained a vegetarian dietthrough the course of these last
50 years or so? Yes,wow. I I was working in the deli
when I became a vegetarian.
Yeah, the last I tried was aliver sandwich, because he's
like livers. I made about tobecome a vegetarian. I was gonna

(37:20):
say, let me try for a while. Itook one bite a sandwich, I put
it down, and that was it. 54years later, wow, and never
showed it. And even it wasn'teven interesting me and I was
drinking a belly cuts every day,making sausage and everything.
Ridiculous. My boss went nuts.
The real Sicilian? No, he's areal Sicilian. You know, were

(37:42):
you getting me?
What did? What did your mom anddad think?
You know my father, my motherand father were really great.
You know my sister, my oldsister, rosemary, who's a
scientist, she got concerned,because I might be lacking
something, but, but, no, myfamily is very accepting. Yeah,

(38:04):
my mother didyoga after a while. Yeah, you
got your mom doing it. That'scool. My
father did it for a while, andmy mom passed. My father even
came to classes at theinstitute. Nice. Yeah, my
parents, you know, my fatherbeing Sicilian, you know, being
stubborn. Sometimes he wasreally good. My parents were
pretty cool.
Yeah, that's amazing. That's socool.

(38:26):
Yeah, so I, for me, the yogapath was easy. It was something
I write into I bought it toSwami satyannas teachings. I was
surrounded by I had good supportfrom friends, family. So it was
very easy for me, you know, yes.
And whatever I did, you know, Ilived in the nostril. I took the
vow of a monk for a year. I wascelibate for a while, you know.

(38:49):
So, yeah, I did the whole thing,you know. And I found it very
rewarding and very healing andvery mentally relaxing for me.
Yeah, I can imagine doing it,I hear ya. I hear ya. After the
the breath that you mentioned,the the inhale, the retention,
the exhale. What is your next goto breathing technique that you

(39:12):
either enjoy yourself or enjoyteaching
well for my own personalpractice, which I feel made me,
I don't want to say advanced,but it's a little more than I
would normally teach a regularclass. I do a lot of bandhas and
mudras. You know, there's atechnical prana mudra. I know

(39:38):
the hand mudras, and I do thatevery morning. And each hand,
mood you deals with each hand.
There's different fingers forthe fingers, and they work on
different areas of the body, thedifferent five Piranhas, Samana
prana, udana prana, and I workon that every day to bring that
energy to different areas of mybody. I had a fractured knee, so
I do udana prana. Every morningto bring the energy to that

(40:00):
particular party where the kneehad been fractured.
See, is it udana, the downbreath? Yeah,
udana, where it's this prana.
Then the prana itself is the onefrom the navel to the throat.
That's prana. Apana, prana isdownward that goes from the
navel to the lower extremities.
Samana, prana is the digestivetract. It goes gallbladder,

(40:23):
liver, stomach and spleen. Udanaprana is the extremities, from
the shoulders to the fingertips,hips to the toes, throat to the
top of the head, and thenvayana. Prana is all the
promise. So each finger mudrarepresents a different prana. So
for example, if you're doingsomething with the gallbladder,
you do hand mudras for Samanaprana. So that's what I do every

(40:44):
day. I do each mudra and like,depending on what particular
part of the body I feel thesethat extra energy. But I've been
doing udana prana for past yearor so just to heal the fracture
in my knee. It worksnice, amazing. And in this
method, or the way that SachinAnanda taught you, was their
emphasis on trying to increasethe duration of kumbhaka of

(41:10):
retention. Was there any sort oflike here you'll build up to
maybe doing five seconds,potentially 1030 a minute long.
Was there ever any sort of likeendurance challenge involved in
the Kumbh? Be carefulwith that, with the retention,
because sometimes, like yousaid, before you know, you have
to be careful. So there's one wedo, the alternate nostril

(41:33):
breathing so and then theadvanced stages. They call it
sucrovict, where, when you'reinhaling five and then usually
exhale in County 10, that's anormal one. When you do the
retention, you inhale five, holdfive, exhale, 10. Then you build
up to 142, and build up. So thenit goes, inhale, five, hold 20,
exhale, 20, see. So that's anadvanced variation, plus the

(41:58):
different bonds for the, youknow, Kabbalah Bhatta, that
breathing technique we do,alanda, Banda, Ula, Banda, you
know. So, yeah, we have to becareful. So in the beginning
class, we don't teach thebandhas or the mudras, you know.
So we're very careful with that.
Gotcha, what I had success with,I teach, I was teaching autistic

(42:20):
children, you know, and I foundthat the the alternate nostril
breathing, seemed to helpbecause of the fact that, when I
did research on the autism, mostof them, there's a fibers that
connect the differenthemispheres in the brain. They
call it the corpus callosum. Anda lot of autistic children, I
found that they don't haveenough fibers so that switching

(42:42):
doesn't go it doesn't happen. Sothey do a thing called stemming.
Where they start they vibrate.
That's what they quote. That'swhat they call it. When the
autistic children start movingtheir body, because the energy
gets stuck. So the alternatingseems to help, that he seems to
stop that. Wow. Also autism, Ifound that a lot of them have
digestive disorders, so I wouldgive them certain herbs for the

(43:04):
stomach, and that seemed to helpout a lot. I know I worked
children for about five sixyears, yeah, about five or six
years, yeah, incredible. Ifound, yeah, that really helped
out a lot. Yeah.
You know, sometimes with autism,children might have a hard time,
like focusing and staying still,and so to the in my mind, the

(43:27):
thought of attempting to teachpranayama in that environment
could be a more challengingenvironment to do it. What was
some of the things that youwould do to make it where it
seemed fun for them that they'dwant to do it, versus like the
teacher coming in and saying,you know, here, do this and
follow me, and having them belike, I don't even, you know if

(43:48):
I know I want to do this, whatwas that like?
That's a good question. Well, Iremember when I first went to
teach, years ago, I was teachingschool, there was autism, bunch
of kids, and ask Swami Sachi,now what to do. I'm going to go
to the school I have noexperience, just like 40 years
ago, I just started teaching. Hesays, Bring a drum and do the

(44:09):
chanting and do and give him thebalancing exercises.
So bring a drum and chant, bringa drum and chant, have him try
to balance it the same.
Yeah. Do the best vagus nerveyou do the chanting. It goes
right through the vagues nerveto the parts of the brain, the
hippocampus area and thehypothalamus, the the memory

(44:32):
center of the brain, as well asthe emotional center. That's
what chanting does, so and Itaught them balancing, and then
went to the school forhyperactive kids, emotional
kids, and I thought balancingand the chanting and the
directors were amazed that thekids responded because they're
mimicking you too. You know,autistic kids like to mimic you,

(44:52):
and it was pretty successful.
That's cool. This woman I workedfor, she had a an organization
called ashrams for autism. I. Soshe had teachers, so I used to
teach the teachers what toteach. Oh, man, that is so good.
I work her diet and everythingwith
them. I'm so happy I'm hearingthis because I have a local

(45:12):
teacher who is involved in anorganization called surfers for
autism, and she's like, we gotto do a yoga program for the
surfers for autism. And I said,Okay, I'll follow your lead. She
was so excited, but I'll have tointroduce her to you. And
perhaps, I'm sure, a ton ofgreat ideas that's amazing.

(45:33):
Margo Bandu, what is, what isyour name? Translate as, and did
Satan Ananda give you your name.
Friend to all that comes acrossthis path. Can you say that
again, please? Friend to allthat comes across this path,
thank you. Nice.
And that was a name that he gaveyou. Is that something that's a
part of the tradition ofstudying with him is receiving a

(45:56):
spiritualname? Marga means path. Bandu
means friend, yeah, whenyou meet people that have no
idea what yoga is, I don't evenknow if that probably happens to
you now, because probablyeverybody coming up to is like
your reputation proceeding,dude, do you introduce yourself
as Marga bondu to everyone? Isit catching?
Right? Yeah, it's rough being ayogi in your hometown, because

(46:19):
everybody knew I went somewhereelse in Marga Bondo. I grew up
with all my friends, but theycall you like Bitcoin mark a
bond Yeah, love it. My friendsare into yoga, and I still see
them, you know, but they'regreat. They support me and
everything. Yeah. Doyou travel to help me out with
the the name of the ashramthat's really famous around
about the the Yes, please, yeah.

(46:44):
It's called thegreat air once a year. Nice. It
was a couple months ago. That'syoga Ville, right? Yoga Ville,
yoga.
Where is that? It's in Virginia,nice, in the country, in the
mountains. It's aYeah, yeah. I can't even think
Charlottesville, nearCharlottesville, okay,

(47:09):
what is your experience goingthere? Oh,
I love it there. Last time Iwent there, I gave Satsang
there.
Nice, nice. And is there? Arethere residents there? Like, is
it an ash? Oh, yeah. Peoplelive there. You're monks.
There's a lot of monks. There alot of female monks, mostly, but
there's a lot of people. It'slike a community. It's like a
city. It made it like a city.

(47:30):
It's not only in Ashram. There'sa city. People, you know,
regular people have regularjobs, you know. But everybody's
into yoga and supports SwamiSatyananda, you know, teachings.
Oh, that's gotta be, that'sgotta
be incredible. Is what, whatdoes it entail to become a monk
or a nun within this tradition?
Well, you take vows, you know,you follow the teachings, and

(47:53):
you take vows of, you know,different vows that you want to
live by. And you know it's, it'sto me, it would be, you know,
when I did take the vows, I wasokay with it, you know, because
I wasn't married. But you know,it depends on, you know, where
you feel, how you feel about theteachings, and if you're going

(48:15):
to go further, then, you know, Ihad experience. One time I had
to give a talk on celibacy to150 nuns and priests, and I
wasn't even I saw about the timeI called good I says, What am I
going to do? So he said, youknow, he told me the first thing

(48:36):
to do, he said, Tell him it'snot a sacrifice, and give them
the physiological benefits. Andso I went that day, and I had
first got, maybe 50 years ago,and I just nuns of priests.
There's nobody else involved,you know. And I gave him to talk
about it, how, you know,Physiology of and stuff. And
they were in. One of the priestswas a scientist, and he came up

(49:01):
to me after the talk. He saidthat was very interesting. Yeah.
So Wow. Grito, his main, I wouldsay, main, absolute attribute
that he he was all about wasthat he explained everything to
the lowest common denominator.
He made you really understandwhat you were doing, no matter,
and that was no matter what youwere doing, he would explain it.

(49:23):
That's how he was such a clearthinker.
It's really interesting. Didwhen he came to us, I don't know
what year it was, what was hiswhat was his first visit? You
said he metPeter Max and Conrad rooks was
in Italy, I think. And theybrought him to New York, 6766 or

(49:43):
67 Yeah. Andthen from that point, did he
travel internationally again, ordid he kind of stay put?
Oh, what happens? He had a hehad a 30 day or 60 visa to stay
in New York. And Peter Max hadinvited a group. Of people for
his friends, because at thattime, Peter Max was really

(50:03):
popular. You know who he is,right? The artist I did, I do so
he and people kept coming, andthen he opened up a center in
New York City. That's where Iused to go see until we opened
up our own center, and peoplereally gravitated towards him.
He spoke at Carnegie Hall indifferent talks, and he became
friendly with the Rabbigelberman and brother David, you

(50:27):
know a friend. You know a Ben,addicting monk and a rabbi. So
between the three of them, itwas like, you know, it was
really interesting. And that'show yoga became more popular.
Just with those three mentogether, there was a retreat.
In the beginning the Anna'sretreat. There was Rabbi
government, Swami Satchidananda,brother David. There was a

(50:50):
Buddhist monk. It was the firstAnnas retreat. 350 people showed
up. It was amazing. Wow. It was10 day silent retreat.
Did it? Did it? Did it seem toyou when you met him that he was
a proponent of all religion, andif you were to try to, if, if

(51:11):
you were, if you were to attemptto put what philosophical
leaning he was, would you say Hewas like an Advaita vedantist,
or was he, you know, did he haveany specific like Hindu, you
know, yeah,yeah. But that with him, because
I was in such a space that neverentered my mind, yeah. I just

(51:33):
wanted to see,of course, of course. You look
over here,you see, we have our youngster
has all the different yoga.
They're all the differentreligions. See, he introduced a
way that we all understood allreligions are acceptable.

(51:56):
Yeah, see, I love that. Yep.
Yes, yes. Yes. It didn't matter.
Yeah. It sounds like he was veryinclusive in relation to
whatever religion, male, female.
Hewas comfortable. Yeah, yeah. He
was comfortable. Anyway. He wasanywhere, wherever he spoke. He
would speak at a Buddhistmonastery, a Hindu center,

(52:17):
Catholic Church. It didn'tmatter where he was, and he made
everybody around him feelcomfortable. And to me, it was
amazing that he knew so muchabout everything else. You know,
he just had thatfeel for everything. It is
incredible reading his workthat, yeah, what? What were the
circumstances of histransitioning from this world?

(52:39):
His death was there, when wasthat, and what was the
circumstances? Well,he, he kind of knew he was going
to, you know, he, he contactedus here in New Jersey, and he
said, and had a secretary, get agroup of us and get together at
that time, we know it was goingon, and we met with him, we

(53:01):
stayed with him, and maybe twomonths later he passed, yeah,
two months later he passed. So Iguess that was his way of
saying, I guess he knew he wasgoing to, going to pass. His
time was up, yeah? He just had ahand on everything, you know.
And when we try to figure it outas much as we can, it's like,
you know, yeah. Understood.

(53:23):
What year was that? 2000 2002gotcha. Gotcha. Did the
community draw together? Werethere any challenges in that, in
that time period? Yeah, yeah,he could as well. Yeah. Yeah. He
may stand the people that stayedwith him understood his whole
trip, you know, yeah, yeah.

(53:49):
Especially here in New Jersey,we have such we have a song, we
have a small group. Everybody'son the same page.
Understood, yeah, what? What is,what is it? What does a day in
your life look like? Are howmany hours a day are you
teaching? Are youI have my own practice. See, I'm
here every day. I mean, thankGod. I mean, he gave me such a
position to be in. I'm hereevery day, you know? So I have

(54:13):
my own personal practice. Butthen I teach. I I teach at
fairle Dickerson University forthe past 54 years, and it's
accredited. Yoga is accredited.
So I teach there two days aweek, you know. So, and then I
work on people, you know. Andthen in between, teach a class

(54:33):
or something. So, you know,it's, it's really pretty easy
day.
And you're I noticed that you'rea master herbologist as well.
I don't call my sister myself amaster. I know a lot about
herbs. I just did a programSaturday on them. Once a year.
There's this dentist, Dr Malika,and he has a school, a college

(54:57):
for it's called the integrativea. A program for for dentists,
just for dentists. So once you Igive a talk, I'm the herbalist,
and give it. I just did lastSaturday, and I'm there from
nine to five on talking aboutherbs to dentists, not only
herbs, lifestyle and stuff likethat. And they come from all
over the world. Dentists, likethere was a dentist from China,

(55:18):
was from Costa Rica. It's reallygood school. Dr Malika organized
a school, and it does all the Ido, all the alternative healing
methods for dentistry, and justand let them want to know about
their own personal health aswell. Wow, wow. For example, I
talked a little bit thisSaturday about constipation with
dentists, because, you know,they're doing root canal and you

(55:41):
got to go to the bathroom.
They're not going to leave. Theycan't leave, you know. So
something like, you like, say,so I was explaining to them, you
know, like, what to do and howto handle that, you know,
because a lot of times ithappens, you know. You know,
they're in the middle of a rootcanal. You can't say, I'll be
right back. You can't themouth's open, so you got to
really be careful. So they havea really explained to them. I

(56:01):
see you really have a, like, atough job sometimes, just for
your own personal health, youknow? Yeah,
I hear it's a really challengingjob, like neck and shoulders
being hunched over in thatposition. And they can have
really chronic painthey get. Yeah, so a lot of them
want to learn not only aboutherbiology, but their own

(56:21):
personal health, what they coulddo. Very cool.
I also saw that you're a massagetherapist in an acupressure,
acupressure, acupressure andreflexology practitioner, when
At what point did you feelcalled to do hands on body work.

(56:43):
Well, I always, I always feltthat way, even as a kid. It was,
I know, but when I was atHippocrates, you know
Hippocrates?
I Well, I know there's one herein West Palm Beach. Is that the
same moment? Thiswas run by Dr Ann Wigmore. When
it was in Boston. Okay, when Iwas in Boston, they made
victorious COVID. He was authorof survival of 21st century. So
I was running the kitchen there,so Dr Ann would put me in charge

(57:06):
of working on certain peoplethat needed extra help. So I
learned reflexology, because themain therapy Hippocrates was
reflexology. And then while Iwas there, there was a fellow
named Stephen up Richard. He wasconsidered the master
acupressure person in Boston, soI took classes with him, and

(57:28):
then I learned acupuncture fromDr Ralph Allen Dale, some, but I
never practiced acupuncture. Inever felt comfortable with
that. Yeah, but so then Istudied with Dr Christopher
herbology, and and then, so,yeah, so that's why I do, I work
with people. They come in. I doiridology. I try to figure out,
I read out a program for them. Iwork or make her you should

(57:50):
come, if you come up here withdo a whole thing that sounds
thatwould be incredible. Margo bond.
Do I love all the facets thatyou're speaking of. I mean, I
just love that you have such abreadth of history, the amount
of different situations you havetaught in, from psychiatric

(58:13):
wards to prisons to withchildren with autism to holding
down your own studio for 50 plusyears, running teacher training
programs, teaching priests andnuns about celibacy prior that
one would make my palms sweat.

(58:34):
Yeah? Here, everybody don't doit, yeah? I always remember the
first thing he told me, youknow, tell him it's not a
sacrifice. Yeah, that makessense, because I was, I used to
be an altar boy, me too. So, youknow, I was about to boy,
juvenile delinquent,juvenile delinquent. I went from

(58:56):
altar boy to delinquent to yogi.
Yeah, that's the typicaltrajectory, isn't I think I
followed that. I followed thatsame but so, but I always had, I
always had a, like a yearning tolearn more about God. There was

(59:16):
something that I always, even asa kid, you know, saying no, who
is God? You know, what's it allabout? And then when I met Swami
Satchidananda, you made itreally clear how everything
should be, what I should do toexperience that. And that's it,
you know, man, so yoga for us,you you me, you know, it's a

(59:37):
it's a nice for us, it's alifestyle, almost, you know. And
and people come to us, you know,it's a blessing that they come
to us and we're able to makethem feel relaxed, even if you
make them just feel relaxed.
That's like a blessing for us,you know. So I find, I find,
very blessed that we're here. Wehave an environment that we have

(59:57):
our own right. You have yourplace. We have our place. It's
we're really fortunate, youknow, we consider what's going
on in the world today. We'rereally fortunate to have a place
where they come to us, man,you know, well said Margo Bandu,
well said, I am so grateful forthis opportunity. Thank you so
much. I mean, we're on a littlethree week run here where this

(01:00:18):
podcast will be released. Thenext one will be with Reverend
Jagannath, and then you'll haveone with the two of you
together, which I can't wait toto have this opportunity to get
the two of you together and hearstories from both, both of
y'all. I when I had a pre POSpodcast interview with with you
guys the other day, it was justso refreshing to see how, how

(01:00:40):
much you guys respect eachother. I love seeing that. It's
really something. Yeah, soclose. Oh man, well, I can't
thank you enough. I appreciateyour generosity and thank you
for holding it down for so long.
And I can feel your passion forwhat you do, and it really is

(01:01:00):
inspirational, and I just amvery grateful. Thank you so
much. Margo Bandu,thank you so proud of you really
thank you.
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(01:01:22):
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