White Lotus Yoga Foundation

The White Lotus Foundation opened in late September 1967 at 5355 Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, in a former beauty school. Ganga White had just returned from intensive residential training at the Sivananda Ashram. He and the original team knocked out walls, posted flyers and pulled hundreds of hairpins from the carpeting. There was no start-up money, so White kept his electronics job. In those first months a class of twenty often left only a few dollars in the donation bowl.

The center outgrew the space within six months and moved to a Larchmont Avenue warehouse that turned out to have been a dance hall once, with hardwood floors underneath. The staff built a yoga deck on the roof. In 1968 White organized and led the In-Depth Yoga and Teacher Training, which the Foundation describes as most probably the first yoga teacher training in the United States.

Two of the first members, Yogi and Mrs. Ernst Haeckel, were the original builders of the present retreat in Santa Barbara. It sits in a steep canyon on forty acres in the San Marcos Pass, with San Jose Creek running year-round below. The Chumash held the land sacred and called it Taklushmon, the gathering place. Tracey Rich, White's wife and co-director, has taught there and worked on the retreat's design and development since its inception in 1983.

Today guests stay in yurts, a loft over the great room, platform tents by the forest and waterfall, or a few private rooms. The grounds hold a large yoga room, a dining room serving vegetarian meals, an underground Hopi-style kiva temple and a library-media center built by Santa Barbara artists. Teacher trainings run four times a year. Weekend retreats include Sacred Breath pranayama, Thai Yoga, a Memorial Day retreat and a weekend on music, sound and vibration.