Off the Mat, Into the World: An Interview with Seane Corn

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"We want to support anyone who is interested in engagement, but we want to help them do it in a way that is healthy for them, creates community, and creates longevity, so that everyone wins, and no one gets burnt out or sick. That is not what service should be about. It should be about joy, on every level."
--Seane Corn, co-Founder, Off the Mat, Into the World.

Off the Mat, Into the World is an educational, experiential and motivational process for people interested in conscious activism and service.

On March 5, 2009 I interviewed yoga teacher and co-Founder of Off the Mat, Into the World, Seane Corn, for the Big Vision Podcast shortly after she returned from a trip to Cambodia with participants from Off the Mat, Into the World's Seva Challenge.

Seane has been featured in commercials and has appeared on the cover of Yoga Journal, Fit Yoga, and many other magazines. She utilizes her national platform to bring awareness to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

During our conversation, Seane talked about what inspired the creation of Off the Mat, Into the World, her trip to Cambodia, the connection between your inner work and your outer work, and the tools Off the Mat, Into the World uses to help people determine how they are being called to be of service.

Below is an edited transcript of our conversation, which began with Seane talking about Off the Mat, Into the World's origins, and the Seva Challenge. You can also listen to the interview on the Big Vision Podcast.

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SC: I'd started working with an organization called YouthAIDS which provides services and products to children worldwide who are affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis. I came up with the slogan, "Off the Mat, Into the World," and put that on a T-shirt, which I sold to benefit YouthAIDS.

I raised a lot of money. I targeted the yoga community. I realized I had a platform where, for whatever reason, people would pay attention to me. I just thought, "I wonder what would happen if I made this shirt, sold the shirt and put the money towards YouthAIDS?" We raised around $60,000 doing very little. It was an effortless effort for me. It got the seeds planted in my head that this is an altruistic community, it's an educated community.

According to Yoga Journal, the average household that practices yoga earns about $72,000 a year. This said to me that the average practitioner has some disposable income. I thought, "What would happen if we began the process of aligning our heartfelt intentions, our energy, our time, and also our money to be able to benefit some particular causes?" I started working with other grassroots businesses, like Energy Muse Jewelry; for example, and Spiritual Gangster to create different kinds of products, and then tie those products over to benefit YouthAIDS.

It really became a win-win for everyone, because I won't sponsor an organization, or a company unless they're willing to tie the money to a cause or crisis. It benefits the grassroots business, it benefits me, it gives me an opportunity to sell and talk about the crisis or cause that I'm backing and, it also benefits the organization that I'm supporting. It seemed to be a really good and sustainable model, and we raised around $300,000 doing that kind of work.

Then, I started going around the country teaching workshops around spiritual activism: why it's important to take your yoga off the mat and into the world, and the different ways that we can get involved. The idea is now that we're getting stronger and more flexible, more conscious, more patient, and more aware, we need to take those very qualities that we're learning in the yoga room, and begin to truly apply them in our families, in our local community, and into our global family as well.

I knew that