Thrifted Lineage, Jedi Gurus & DJ Drez: Rethinking Transmission

In this episode of Third Eye Roll, Justine and Scarlett dive into the messy, mystical, and often misunderstood world of lineage. From the Sanskrit idea of paramparā—the living flow of wisdom from one to another—they challenge Western obsessions with certificates, credentials, and “lineage flexing.”

Instead, they frame lineage as a relationship: teacher and student co-creating, transmitting, and transforming wisdom across time. Expect mythic riffs on Vyāsa and Gaṇeśa, Jyotiṣ insights from Magha Nakṣatra, and personal stories of their own root teachers—from yoga in Southern California basements to long afternoons in Ayurvedic pharmacies of Kerala.

The duo also explore the shadow sides of lineage (authority games, spiritual branding, exploitation) while celebrating its heart as an alive, relational, embodied current. And yes, they still find time for their pop-culture picks: thrifted vintage as “wearable lineage,” DJ Drez and Miles Davis as remix-gurus, and Star Wars’ Jedi council as the ultimate metaphor for transmission gone cosmic.

Lineage, it turns out, isn’t a receipt you can wave around—it’s a flame you keep alive by tending it together.

Transcript

Justine Lemos (00:46)
as usual. Welcome back to Third Eye Roll. I'm Dr. Justine Lemos. I'm here with Scarlett Trillia and we are rolling through season two. We had some problems with our episode and the sound quality last week with our episode on Ponchakarma. We'll re-put that up, reinstate. I don't know the word.

Scarlett (01:09)
Re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-

Justine Lemos (01:13)
Re-upload. Okay,

we will re-upload that content for you as soon as we are able to without the gaps in it. But we're here today and we're talking about Jyotish, Ayurveda, Tantra, and specifically yoga. Specifically today we wanted to talk about lineage and why lineage is important and what lineage is, what our lineage is.

and dive right into that.

Scarlett (01:46)
Yeah, and it's something we've hinted at or alluded to in the past and I was realizing we didn't actually get into very much depth or specifics and just how important this is to kind of the bigger picture in so many ways. So I'm looking forward to this episode.

Justine Lemos (02:05)
And I also wanted to just ⁓ make a statement that two days ago was Ganesh Chaturthi, which is the fourth day after the new moon, specifically in this month that is celebrated as the birthday of the god Ganesh, who is the remover of obstacles and also the creator of obstacles. So Jai Ganesha and what a wonderful time to talk about lineage.

Lovely. So let's dive right in. The Sanskrit term that I want to talk about today ⁓ is in our WTF is That segment is what is parampara? And parampara literally means from one to another, a chain or a succession or a passing down.

And in yoga, in tantra, in Ayurveda, parampara is how wisdom flows from teacher to student to student to student to generation to generation. It's like a living current or a transmission, or sometimes it's called a golden chain that carries the juice of the practice and also its quirks of practice, but the fingerprints.

And it is in part like the humanity of everyone who's ever held the tradition.

Scarlett (03:43)
I like that.

I like that. I wasn't distracted, but I was. So we chatted a little bit about this before the episode, and we do want to go deep on this concept and into our own lineage, but we will not abandon our connection to the Jyotish. And I was kind of just...

Justine Lemos (04:02)
Yeah.

Scarlett (04:03)
taking

a little look at the sky in my mind as we're preparing to have this conversation. ⁓ And again, we can become very tangential and nonlinear in these conversations, but I have a, that's what they're here for. They love the ADHD. And I think we manage it very well. It's exciting and interesting. I went on a walk with somebody yesterday and I started. ⁓

Justine Lemos (04:15)
That's what people are here for!

Scarlett (04:28)
pointing out all of the plants and their medicinal properties and they were like, wow, you know a lot about plants. I was like, you don't even know. Just because I have the social skills to sort of control how much I want to tell you about these plants and those stars and stuff. Yeah.

Justine Lemos (04:49)
You know, I read something that like for neurodivergent people, like telling you about our subject of interest is our number one love language. And I think that that may be, ⁓ the truth. Like, let me, like, let me please info dump on you everything I know about this one thing. And that is me telling you that I love you.

Scarlett (04:58)
It's such a huge love language.

Yeah, that is-

It really truly is. If you have an enthusiastic person in your life who takes you on a walk and starts picking plants and crushing them and holding them up to your nose, you can smell the different properties. And then you explain historically how those were put in, put into use for different medicinal and recreational purposes. That person loves you. For sure. Yeah.

Justine Lemos (05:36)
Or if you have

a child who's very, very interested in this one particular music composer that's composed this whole performance art piece, and they want to tell you about all of the secret symbolic knowledge in those musical pieces for four hours on a hike without pausing, you listen. Because that is them saying, I love you over and over and over again.

Scarlett (05:57)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you listen and...

And, and if we really want to break this down, curve ball podcast, if you really want to break it down, when someone who is neurodivergent is telling you things that they really care about, it means that they feel safe. And which is a sign that is like a foundation of love. It means that they feel safe and it means that they think that you are.

Justine Lemos (06:19)
That's right.

Yes.

Scarlett (06:28)
even vaguely intelligent enough to relate to them, which is a very high compliment. Which means that if you are listening to this podcast, we love you. We love you because we're telling you things that we have been ridiculed for being enthusiastic about in certain social contexts.

Justine Lemos (06:33)
is very high compliment. This is true, true love right up in here. Yeah.

We love you so much!

Absolutely. And, ⁓ and shamed for our deep knowledge of astrology and Ayurveda. I also like that, ⁓ that meme that's like why many men get triggered by astrology is it's the only thing they can't mansplain.

Scarlett (06:56)
Furt.

Yep. another curve ball. won't take that one on this. Well, not yet. Okay.

Justine Lemos (07:17)
All right. All right. So looking at the Jyotish

and thinking about lineage, know, yeah, bring it, bring it. Come on. Come on. Sun is in Magha. Sun is in Magha. We just had new moon in Magha. And that's all about ancestral lineage.

Scarlett (07:23)
Oh yeah, I got this one. I've got this one. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

It is all about interstitial lineage and the moon in Maga for the two of us also is like, well, and, and K2 being placed there with the sun and then the new moon. It's like spiritual leaders to the front. This is our time. Get on the mic. Exactly. It's so fun. Okay. So Jupiter, the guru to the sun, the guru to the, the kind of

Justine Lemos (07:51)
Exactly. Exactly.

Scarlett (08:03)
leader of this system in a sense, the wisdom teacher of the king, is doing some really interesting things. It's he is finishing a transit through Gemini. I didn't realize this was going to happen. Gets all the way to exaltation and cancer and then retrogrades out of exaltation all the way back through Gemini. We're going to be talking on rewind. We're going to have to redo the whole podcast. We're like, run that ship back.

Justine Lemos (08:21)
Yes. Heads on back.

Scarlett (08:33)
we're gonna explain it again.

Justine Lemos (08:34)
Like this last this episode that we

recorded last week. It's just like there are problems with the sound files. ⁓ Well, of course.

Scarlett (08:38)
Yeah, it's gonna have to be done again. It's because I wasn't there. It's

because you missed me. Okay, so Jupiter's gonna retrograde. It's gonna go to exaltation. That's so exciting for us because it's like the teacher of the king is in its highest placement, but then it's gonna go backwards all the way through Gemini, all the way back into Taurus. What? That's like, what? And then it's gonna turn direct and it's gonna go back.

Justine Lemos (09:01)
What?

Scarlett (09:08)
through Taurus where it had just been, all the way back through Gemini again, and then back to exaltation. ⁓ And so in a way, this is like, if your brain synapses can make this connection, this is like us a perfect time for us to look back on our lineage. And then, and it's like, how did this information get to us? And how does it move back up to source? And then how does it come back down from source again? And I think it's...

Justine Lemos (09:09)
through to.

That's right. Yeah, absolutely.

Right.

Yeah. Up and down the world tree or up and down the Mount Miru of the spine, up and down through this. And because, you know, Gemini is Mercury sign and Mercury is the staff, right? Mercury carries a staff and it is that ability to travel betwixt and between the worlds and to carry knowledge betwixt and between the world. So here we have Guru, Jupiter in Gemini.

Scarlett (09:38)
These are conversations that...

Justine Lemos (10:06)
Carrying the knowledge, carrying the lineage, carrying the dharma. I like it. So, ⁓

Scarlett (10:11)
I like it too. So, and I, and we get

to talk about our teachers. This is fun. Yeah.

Justine Lemos (10:18)
Yes. And you

know, you know, it's not about who owns the knowledge. This is about continuity of breath and practice across time. And a teacher teaches because they embody it. And the student doesn't learn. They catch it, you know, like a fire from a candle. you know, parampara is embodied. It's oral. It's ritual. It's relational. It's alive.

And this is why, I'm not saying it's not possible, like transmission happens online, transmission happens via sound, via breath. And it is through the audio touching that transmission happens. But there's all these different ways. I happen to have written a lot of peer-reviewed journal articles on the transmission of tradition.

So I'm kind of passionate about this subject and there are different ways that tradition can be substantiated and passed on. And we tend to think in the West, I believe, we think of it as via replication. That is, I do something, I show you how to do a posture and then you replicate it and you look like me in that posture, let's say.

But in doing long-term field work in South India and then studying ⁓ how tradition in a particular embodied practice, not yoga, was passed and recreated, I found that there is a time-honored system of simply sitting near and being around the teacher.

that establishes tradition in a way that is not via replication. And this is disruptive to the idea of how we think tradition is and tradition lineage and authenticity is created in the West.

Scarlett (12:32)
That is a really beautiful way of explaining it. And I just want to note, I've kind of just dipped my toes, but really like my whole feet. I'm kind of diving actually back into teaching after a pretty long hiatus. And I've been focused on business and I decided I launched a website. I just kind of put some offerings out there and immediately got invited on a retreat. I was, which is my favorite environment for teaching. So I got to spend three nights and four days.

24 seven with a small group of people and we did a bunch of different kinds of practices. And this topic came up ⁓ because people who are enthusiastic, we love them, we're enthusiastic people. And there is this desire, it's like, teach me, show me, let me replicate what you have, what you know, what you do. And we got to have the conversation about in the past, traditionally, and you and I have talked about this over the years, a person would spend,

12 years, 12 years hanging out with their potential teacher before they quote unquote were taught anything or learned anything or given any information. That like, can we get into that a little bit? I you're basically saying that right now, but like, yeah.

Justine Lemos (13:44)
Exactly.

I am saying that, and I'm

also, you know, also that system potentially creates harm against students because of indentured kind of servitude and teachers withholding knowledge. You know, the system that we have in the West is potentially abusive to the teachers themselves because so much is taken and not very much is given. But ⁓

Scarlett (14:10)
Mm-hmm.

Justine Lemos (14:18)
We need to be careful in this conversation, even as we talk about our teachers, that lineage is not just like this flex of like, trained under so-and-so who trained under so-and-so whose photo I keep on my altar. And it becomes this like spiritual Rolodex or like a brand logo, right? As if depth is a receipt that we can show. And also as Westerners,

⁓ who are deeply involved in a science that has its origins in a different cultural milieu that we especially aren't using ⁓ those teachers who are from that culture of origin as kind of like calling cards of authenticity. See, I've really been to the source.

Scarlett (15:14)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Justine Lemos (15:18)
Right. And

so I'm always, I'm always playing with and being aware of these, ⁓ these issues. Para para, you know, the root doesn't mean certificate or clout. Para para means flow. This flow of knowledge. That's a river. It's not a trademark, right? it's like, if you've had your candle lit by the flame of the teaching.

Scarlett (15:49)
And I think that it's really significant that you said by the flame of the teaching and not the flame of the teacher.

Justine Lemos (15:56)
Yes, exactly right.

Scarlett (15:58)
That's a very specific ⁓ call out that I just wanted to emphasize. It's like, put it in the book.

Justine Lemos (16:03)
though teachers are

very, very, very important, right?

Scarlett (16:07)
Essential,

essential and they are not it at the same time. It's like, yeah. Well, and I think that this is, of course, this is a perfect place to observe binary opposites. Culture and geography are massively important and not the point. The transmission, right? Transmission must occur through a teacher, but it's the teaching that you're receiving.

Justine Lemos (16:30)
Correct.

Scarlett (16:37)
And, but they can't be separated. And so it's also an illusion of opposites. And I think, I mean, I think that's why I really wanted to talk about this because they're like learning about teaching is, ⁓ is a whole lesson in and of itself that, and there's just so much here. think, ⁓ well, maybe we can.

Justine Lemos (16:37)
Yes.

Scarlett (17:06)
Maybe we can give, we haven't really, and I like that we haven't really said, we don't say the names of our own teachers very often, but we do to each other. Because it's not like, there's like tremendous respect and I guess respect is kind of the best word, tremendous like reverence for these people. And yet again, interestingly, they don't come up in conversation very much because they're not.

accolades.

Justine Lemos (17:37)
Right, exactly. Because we come from this kind of, I don't want to say weird lineage, but this lineage, it's super weird, right? And it isn't like these big, big stage on the stage. That's not what we come out of, right? Of these big billionaire, millionaire franchise teachers. Cause that's not what we do. ⁓

Scarlett (17:43)
It's too super weird. It's super weird.

Justine Lemos (18:07)
So our root teacher of, I would call our root teacher, though I practiced much yoga before, ⁓ encountering this teacher, but he really, I think of as my root teacher of postural yoga is, ⁓ is our teacher Scott Miller and Scott Miller is down in Southern California.

He is really our teacher of deep inquiry into Hatha Yoga. he studied with, know, Krishnamacharya is the grandfather of modern postural yoga as it comes into the West. There are a few other currents, but Krishnamacharya is the major one. And Krishnamacharya was

⁓ the teacher and father-in-law of Iyengar. He taught Sri Pattabhi Joyce, who then pioneered or recreated from the Yoga Karunta text, ⁓ Ashtanga Yoga. And then he was the father of Desi Kachar, who created Vinayoga, which then really is the roots of

therapeutic and Ayurvedic yoga practice. And Scott Miller studied in all three of these pathways and then in turn passed that flame to us. And so I see very much Scott as our root teacher of yoga, but not in the sense that people might

Think of that. ⁓

Scarlett (20:07)
Well, it's with

very little fanfare that that passing occurred. And I think that in the United States in particular, I don't even want to say we, the dominant culture of that nation, which I'm not in right now, so I feel a bit abstracted from it, is one of much fanfare and much public appearance and...

external, if not superficial identity. And this isn't a negative judgment. It's a statement of ⁓ fact as I perceive it. And when Scott, believe I may have been in his last group training and then we kind of carried on without him. I don't know what is with you. Okay. Okay. The last one that he did with you before you kind of became more independent.

Justine Lemos (20:40)
Yes.

last true group, last group training with me, not last one altogether.

Scarlett (21:06)
occurred in a very isolated place in a pretty humble building with a lot of quirks and a ⁓ fairly small group of people and without anything very shiny. ⁓ There was, and with very little if any documentation, I don't believe we took any photographs. And it wasn't by...

Justine Lemos (21:21)
No nothing.

Like I think there

are what there's one or two photographs from that whole training. It's like us sitting around a harmonium.

Scarlett (21:38)
Yeah. And maybe faces are not even clear kind of thing. And this wasn't a conscious ⁓ value based decision that we made as a group or anything like that. It just simply was not the point of that group of people coming together. And in a way also there was no fanfare with regards to the kind of passing of the baton, you know, after which time you taught many more trainings. And then we kind of facilitated similar.

group, small strange groups of people after that. But it wasn't like Scott was like, I now bestow upon you with my permission and great grandeur the next phase of a little, like there's the, it's all like retrospective almost. ⁓ When we look back at the way that this has unfolded, the background noise on your end, by the way, is ⁓ very on point. It reminds me of a story.

Justine Lemos (22:22)
Exactly.

It's very on point,

but unfortunately, you we had a band saw. There's some construction upstairs, of course, and the water was off today. There was a band saw when I recorded the last one and the software is so smart that it takes it out magically.

Scarlett (22:42)
It does,

if you listen, knew it was there. So I listened very carefully to that recording and it's like a high pitched hum in the background, but it's, it's quite effective. But the reason why I said that ⁓ it's almost like Scott's in the room with us right now, because weren't you telling me about the, well that and the, the, wasn't there a tap studio above his Yen Yoga studio?

Justine Lemos (22:50)
Awesome.

Being like, hey.

Yes. ⁓

you can leave and as soon as we got her on the table and settled in, it got silent, you know, and we didn't hear from it at all. And so these things are always what we call namitta or omen, you know, all around us at all times, but we have to be very clever to know what the namitta is and what it's representing. You know, I would be remiss, however, if I did not speak a little bit about my earlier, ⁓

Scarlett (23:35)
Exactly.

Justine Lemos (23:56)
indoctrination, enculturation, which started in 1995 when I met my guru of classical Indian dance, whose name is Sri Ranjana Devi, Guru Ranjana Devi. And via her teaching, I embarked on 20 plus year study and performance of two forms of classical Indian dance and was living in India to do research.

on dance, but it's really via dance because through dance, was, I never sat down and learned these myths that I'm sharing. I've never, you know, I maybe I've read them somewhere along the way, but it wasn't like I, you know, studied them in a book sense or in a class on religion or something, but it was via dance that

I came to learn about mythology, that I came to learn about mudra, about hand gestures and secret pathways, that I became, that I learned the subtle anatomy of the body because yoga and dance are very much aligned. And so there's that route that is, that very much opened the doorway to these teachings for me. And so I come in via this dance tradition. ⁓

and musical tradition into the current or stream of the Vedas and the tantras. So there's that. Yeah, absolutely. Like full bodied. And the Ayurveda is also very interesting. So I was living in South India doing research for my doctoral degree. And we became very good friends with this young man whose father was the first Muslim Ayurvedic pharmacist.

Scarlett (25:26)
What a way to come into it. What a way to come in. Yeah.

Justine Lemos (25:49)
in South India and Ayurveda and Ayurvedic pharmacology is traditionally held by the Hindu community and he's Muslim and had this Ayurvedic pharmacy. had gone to Ayurveda school in part because of the liberal politics of Kerala in South India and it was very, very hot and I would go and hang out in the pharmacy all day long because it was very cool temperature.

And there were these women there who were like village women who were sitting and rolling Ayurvedic pills and like cooking herbs over a fire. And like there's just spices around and like the cement pharmacy in the rice paddies with some coconut trees around. And I drink coconuts like taken from the coconut trees and just hang out in this very like calm space. India's really can be really harsh. There's a lot of hustle, a bustle of people, dirt, diesel, loud noises.

this became this kind of refuge and that was my introduction to Ayurveda. Like not at all any kind of formal teaching but just colloquial kind of village teaching. Like um but it wasn't a pharmacy but like oh you know like don't get your head exposed in the sun right because the crown of the head is very hot and it can increase pitadotia but I didn't have that language for it right and we would like eat Ayurvedic so-called Ayurvedic food in that context and just kind of

again, started living this lifestyle, oiling, without really knowing what it was. And then it wasn't until much later that I took formal training in Ayurveda. ⁓ And one of our root teachers in Ayurveda is Dr. Paul Douglas, who is an MD, a Chinese medical doctor and an Ayurvedic doctor. And ⁓ did training with him in pulse work, in tongue work, in face work, in

⁓ the anatomy of Ayurveda in herbology. ⁓ And so that's one of our roots of Ayurveda. And then, know, he also introduced me to Jyotish, to Vedic astrology, because that was part of his learning. And many, if not most, Ayurvedic practitioners, vijas, physicians, consultants, what have you.

don't have knowledge of Vedic astrology, but in my training as an Ayurvedic practitioner, I was trained to look at the Vedic astrology first, or at least at the same time as you're taking pulse, as you're looking at tongue. And then

than me being me and that neurodivergent thing that we spoke to at the very beginning. If we start to get into something, we're going to go really, really deep with it. Right. And at first, actually in my study of Ayurved, the Jyotish was quite overwhelming to have at the same time, because I was trying to get a handle on like all of this Ayurvedic terminology, all of this Ayurvedic information. And that was kind of like, Whoa, I can't, I can't deal with Saturn and Jupiter layered on top of this. This is too much for me.

Scarlett (28:43)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Justine Lemos (29:03)
And then after, you know, years of being really immersed in Ayurveda and its knowledge, I started to get deeper and deeper into Jyotish. And, you know, I've had several really amazing Jyotish teachers along the way and done a lot of training with very prominent Jyotish teachers.

Justine Lemos (29:23)
but I don't have one teacher is what I was trying to say of Jyotish that I consider to be like, they're my, they're my root teacher. Like that's, that's the lineage of Jyotish that is kind of my thing. Yeah.

Scarlett (29:33)
Well, here's.

Well, let's.

They want to make it really weird? Let's make this really weird. So they say traditionally, and I too have had numerous different sources of great Jyotish teachings and wisdoms passed to me, but they say, and one of the people I studied with a lot would always lead with this, remember it takes 300 years to learn this, which is a way of saying in one lifetime it is not possible.

Justine Lemos (29:42)
Yeah, of course.

Scarlett (30:08)
It's also a way of saying nobody is a master of this art and science. And at the end of the day, it leads you back to faith and spirituality because, you know, to be just very basic in the statement, God only knows. Because it's too much for the human mind to fully conceptualize this entire thing. But what I wanted to say that makes it really weird is to the first of those three points, there is, we share a belief that, ⁓

you know, in this tradition, we're talking about multiple lifetimes reincarnation, things like that, we're comfortable with those kinds of topics. And so typically, like for somebody like say, for me, it kind of came without the the doge came without warning as if a seed had been planted prior, and found the right time place environment to ripen. And you witness this, justine this like

Justine Lemos (30:53)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Scarlett (31:02)
sudden ripening of like, I'm curious, I'm kind of bumbling around in this, we're starting to learn it, we're starting to talk about it in context to this like, download of information, which is kind of to say it's like, who is the primary teacher, it may have been me in a past life. It doesn't really matter, but it's like, it's...

Justine Lemos (31:18)
Right, exactly. ⁓

Scarlett (31:23)
It's kind of might be you like it might, they might be yourself. It's a very, this is where lineage can kind of go off the rails a little bit.

Justine Lemos (31:25)
Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly. And I mean, right. And

we say, right, it's like taking refuge in yourself as a future Buddha. It's like the most beautiful thing. It's inevitable. So you might as well take refuge in yourself as future Buddha. It's coming. ⁓ You know, we say the same thing with Ayurveda, the same thing with yoga. It's like you're swimming across an ocean and you have no hope.

Scarlett (31:39)
Mm-hmm.

Justine Lemos (31:51)
that you're going to get to the other side, but you still keep swimming, you know, in this ocean of this current of knowledge, right? It takes many, many lifetimes. And, but it's interesting to me that I've had these great teachers of Jyotish, many very kind of prominent names that we can throw out a name if we feel inspired to. We, again, we don't have to, but then it's also like, huh, like who...

where is that route? And actually, I've been studying with somebody recently who may have maybe the closest to that route that I have discovered in myself, but it's also these, you know, these ripenings of the wisdom that you already have inside of yourself.

Scarlett (32:31)
Mm-hmm.

Justine Lemos (32:36)
that suddenly flowers out and you're like, ⁓ we've talked about this before. You're like, suddenly after a year, all of a sudden I know, I know so much about Jotish. How did this happen? I don't know. Just all of a sudden it is there.

Scarlett (32:49)
And it wasn't that I didn't show up for it. mean, during the quarantine time, I participated intensively in these online groups and on that app that kind of came and went on Clubhouse. And it was like 50 people showing up regularly to speak together two hours a day, five, six days a week. I mean, we really went deep. So sure, of course, there was a lot of practical learning that went on over the course of maybe a year in that space.

Justine Lemos (32:51)
Of course.

Yeah, yeah.

Scarlett (33:18)
But some people were showing up as much as I was and it wasn't sticking and landing in the same ways. And that's because we had, in some ways in our own practice, in our own lineage, we had prepared a very fertile ground for that to land. And the teachers in that group were also aware of my chart, which is very weird, and aware that there was also a seed that was waiting for ripening within me and cultivated it. So it's like, it's very hard to put these things to words.

Justine Lemos (33:30)
That's right.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Scarlett (33:48)
And it's very beautiful to witness it and you see it all the time as a teacher when you are teaching and you see what things are ripening or coming to fruition or suddenly kind of taking root in other people. And of course that they become your teacher back to you. It becomes this very beautiful circular or kind of figure eight ⁓ type of.

Justine Lemos (33:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

That's right.

Always.

Scarlett (34:13)
of thing, which is why we were talking about the Jupiter moving forward into exaltation, retro getting back, coming back again. It's like the work that we are doing now is perhaps also feeding backwards in time. And, the things that were maybe moving toward each other in somebody else's teaching, we have like closed those loops or connected those synapses and that registers in all directions in space and time. Just, just to keep making this as you know,

Justine Lemos (34:25)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Exactly. And

this is the Siddhi of the yogi who can travel through time forward and back. So fashion.

Scarlett (34:43)
Like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Music and movie pick. Ooh, ooh, okay.

Justine Lemos (34:53)
This movie! It's gotta

be thrift. It's gotta be like thrifted vintage. Yeah. Yeah.

Scarlett (34:59)
Thrift store fashion? Yeah,

yeah. Remember that time? So I'm not there now. I don't want to reveal like exactly where we live, but long story short, there's a long, never speak of it, but there is a long and winding road between an urban metropolis and a rural village, hinterland, and many of us were in the regular practice of making that as a commute.

Justine Lemos (35:11)
Never speak of it. Do not tell them.

Hinterland.

Scarlett (35:29)
for whatever reasons. And I did that with my family for my whole life from one direction and then moved to the other direction. a lot, a lot of driving. And we saw a lot of slow, but like constant change in the businesses that stayed active along that ride. And for a period of time, something that had been, was it like a Foster's freeze at one point, like a fat, and then, and then it became like a goodwill. I remember that time we were getting ready to go on retreat and take a group of people on retreat and. ⁓

Justine Lemos (35:50)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Scarlett (36:00)
This is in middle of nowhere. All of these beautiful vintage ⁓ clothes and things showed up from India. Yeah, from India, beautiful things. And it's like, I've never seen an Indian person in that town ever. ⁓ And it wasn't like tacky. Yeah. And it wasn't tacky or touristy or...

Justine Lemos (36:04)
Yes! ⁓ And they were Indian clothes, yeah.

No. And like somebody's entire closet showed up there.

Scarlett (36:25)
It wasn't weird. You know, we can kind of tell when a physical object carries a strange energy. was just like, it's beautiful things. And so I brought them on that retreat. I forgot about that. Why am I even saying that? It's just funny. ⁓ fashion thing. Fashion thing. Yeah.

Justine Lemos (36:35)
Yeah, that was amazing. Because it's thrifted lineage and it's like we're wearing history. Yeah, fashion pick

music. Music's gotta be, ⁓ it's gotta be sampling, you know, like flow through remix and, then it's totally DJ Drez my God. It's also Miles Davis who like taught through jam sessions, you know, and like oral transmission.

Scarlett (36:48)
Mm-hmm. It's DJ Drez. Come on, it's DJ Drez.

okay.

Mm-hmm.

Justine Lemos (37:04)
Like he didn't leave any textbooks. just that like jazz lineage is, you know, is very much this like you don't study just come and do it.

Scarlett (37:14)
So I had a teacher of music when I was 14, which is a quarter of a century ago. he's in his 80s. I think he turned 80 this year and he texts me almost every day. He sends me music every day. Twenty, twenty five years, right? If that's not a lineage, that's I don't I don't know what is. And did I learn about presence from this person?

Justine Lemos (37:22)
Hehehehe

Scarlett (37:42)
Like, who's to say he's not a yoga teacher, right? ⁓ Of course he is. I mean, without a doubt. He's part of us too. And I think that we can say, and that's why we don't, although we respect ⁓ effort and accolade and achievement, we don't necessarily lead with it because you may learn more from an unexpected source than from the person who has 2 billion.

Justine Lemos (37:42)
Yes, you did.

⁓ he is.

Yeah.

Scarlett (38:11)
followers on social media because they look sexy in yoga postures. I'm just just saying. Okay, fashion music movie pic. ⁓

Justine Lemos (38:13)
on exactly.

Right?

Movie. Okay, it's

gotta be like Star Wars and the Skywalker lineage, right? ⁓ It's Jedi's. Yeah, I couldn't go. There's nowhere else to go with that. Yeah.

Scarlett (38:26)
⁓ yeah. Yeah. yeah. It's the jet. It's Jedis. Yeah. It's the, it's the Jedi liege. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Okay. Easy. Yeah. Yeah. No, no.

We, we, we kind of nailed it. DJ Drez, Yoda, Jedi and, whatever you find at the thrift store on your way to a retreat.

Justine Lemos (38:40)
Yeah. Also, also like also

also music, Apex Twin like has his finger into like every single musical genre in the contemporary era. And most people have no idea that like every single sample like Richard James is phenomenal in terms of his influence on contemporary music. Like Apex Twin is everywhere and we don't even know that it is.

Scarlett (39:09)
Yeah, similar to J Dilla. mean, people who know, know, but, ⁓ you know, as, as we all age, those of us who think that that's common knowledge for all people, we're starting to get a little old, but like J Dilla's influence on, on hip hop music is so extensive. And that comes from that deep kind of like Apex twin analog sampling and crate picking and like just being a vector for all of these really beautiful inputs.

Justine Lemos (39:11)
Yeah, exactly.

Scarlett (39:39)
and transmitting them back out to the world. Hmm. ⁓ OK.

Justine Lemos (39:44)
So I have a myth that is very appropriate

about Vyasa and Ganesha. Happy Ganesha Turti. So the sage Vyasa, he has the great epic poem, the longest epic poem, one of the longest that's ever been composed. It's like inside of him. It's like this cosmic download for lack of a better word. The codes of it are just emerging inside of him.

and he doesn't want the knowledge to vanish, so he needs someone to write it down for him. There's some obstacle he can't write it himself. So Ganesha, remover of obstacles, patron of beginnings, enters into the scene and Vyasa asks him to write the Mahabharata down. But Ganesha, you know, Ganesha is cheeky and playful and he says that he'll agree if Vyasa

dictates without pausing. He just needs to be a continuous stream of this epic. And that if Ganesha doesn't understand something, he'll stop writing. So Vyasa, he counters with his own condition that Ganesha must only write after he fully understands each verse. So they begin this collaboration where Vyasa begins speaking in these spirals of poetry.

and layering in riddles and meanings whenever he needs a moment to breathe because Ganesha says that if he pauses even for a breath, he'll stop writing. And Ganesha has his broken off tusk as his quill in his hand and he's writing, keeping the pace of this river of verse. And so this is not lineage as authority, this is lineage as relationship.

one transmitting and one receiving and together weaving something that's bigger than either of them alone. If there's no student, there can be no teaching. And again, in many ways I am very remiss. I'll just say it publicly. I hold this lineage, two lineages of classical Indian dance and I don't have students for it. And in some ways right now, and in some ways this is creates a lot of sadness in myself because I don't have

like this fertile ground to offer this teaching so the teaching can't live. And this text of Mahabharata survives not because Vyasa held power, but because he entrusted it into the living intelligence of Ganesha. So this is the idea that lineage isn't certificate. It's not a rubber stamp.

You know, and we run yoga teacher trainings and we certify people and at the same time we're like, that's not it. It's a wonderful entry, but so what? Like this is the lineage's reciprocal. It has to be transmitted and received with discernment. Ganesh doesn't write unless he understands, right? And there is some creative tension in lineage. Vyasa needs Ganesha's diligence.

Scarlett (42:59)
Okay.

Justine Lemos (43:01)
and Ganesha needs Vyasa's wisdom. It's co-created. That's really important. It's not just imposed. And that is the difference between cult and lineage that we've pointed to so many times. It's like a duet, yeah?

Scarlett (43:05)
Mm-hmm.

And it points us back to the most fundamental principle of all that is yoga, which is that it occurs in the present moment. It is occurring, it is in the teaching itself. And so again, the certificate, it's like, we want so badly to hold on to things. I have this, it's like I am,

Justine Lemos (43:25)
Yes.

Scarlett (43:43)
Receiving, I am offering a teaching. am receiving a teaching in that moment is when it is happening. And that's why we're saying that these things can move in all directions. So in the moment that I am teaching you something, I am honoring all that have taught me and you are learning it in that moment and receiving it. And it's like this feedback loop that, that we have to keep co-creating in order for it to exist. Otherwise it's, it, otherwise it's, ⁓ well, whatever.

Justine Lemos (43:49)
Yes.

Correct. Yes.

Scarlett (44:13)
It's a living oral tradition. I don't need to over explain that.

Justine Lemos (44:15)
⁓ Well, very

good. Om Namah Shivaya. Hari Om Tat Sat.

Scarlett (44:20)
Om Namah Sheva El.