What Lineage Do You Come From?

A very standard question in the yoga teacher world: “What lineage do you come from?”

To be completely honest, this question often used to throw me off.

As I’ve deepened my yoga philosophy studies, I’ve finally started to feel secure in my answer that has been unchanged over the years.

I’ve practiced many styles - Ashtanga, Hatha, Iyengar, Bikram, Vinyasa, Kundalini, Bhakti. Each offered something that shaped me, that met me at a different time in life. Each became a support, a structure, a home for my practice. And each worked for enough people, long enough, to become a recognized lineage.

Yet… I’ve never felt the need or desire to claim one as mine.

In yoga philosophy, we learn about kleshas - the subtle ways the mind creates suffering and attachment. One of them, Asmita, is the over-identification with roles, labels, and identities. I realize that even loving a lineage, even calling a style my practice, can become a form of attachment.

I’ve loved so many approaches, and I honor them all, but I don’t feel comfortable letting them define me. The moment we hold too tightly, we risk turning a practice that teaches freedom into a cage of comfort.

Over time, I’ve realized the question was never about lineage - it was about identity. Sometimes, I also wonder if the question carries an unspoken assumption because I am Indian: that somehow my background should anchor me to a tradition, or prove authenticity. And the reason it used to feel difficult to answer is because deeper me has always resisted identities. Always resisted traditions. Deeper me is a yogi. Deeper you is a yogi. Deeper all of us is a yogi. As long as we let that guide us, it will resist labels - because it is all one: pure consciousness.

So now, when someone asks, “What lineage do you come from?”, I see what’s really being asked, and I see what I used to be caught by. And I remind myself… isn’t this an attachment, in a practice that teaches non-attachment?

So now, I answer simply: “I don’t have one.”