I heard yoga teacher John Friend deliver the keynote address at the Omega Institute’s “Path of Yoga” conference at a Sheraton Hotel in New York City last Friday. This conference is always a nice one, drawing well-regarded yoga practitioners like Kofi Busia, Baron Baptiste, Cyndi Lee, and Seane Corn, and Lilias Folan.

Friend’s lecture was all about the beauty of yoga’s diversity, and about how exciting it was that people from all over the world of yoga could unite in one place to teach, learn, and enjoy each other’s company. Friend then noted that about 75 percent of the teachers at this confab for hundreds came from the same basic “lineage,” or line of gurus–Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, whose most famous pupil alive today is B.K.S. Iyengar.

Despite the similarities, yoga politics abound today with American teachers often speaking critically of each others’ ways of teaching a posture, or another’s teacher-certifying structure. The world of yoga today is not one big peaceful place. And that was Friend’s stepping-off point.

Since so many people in the audience live and breathe yoga, and since so many of them come from the same yoga family, it behooves them to stop cutting each other down. “If the yoga teachers can’t get along…” Friend’s voice seemed to fade into wordless despair. He shook his head, “We’re trying to build peace in the Middle East,” he said, and if yoga teachers can’t appreciate their own diverse community, how can they help to create a world where their students and others choose peace over conflict?

I’ve never tried Friend’s Anasura yoga method. But I thought the speech was great. And he strengthened his peace-through-diversity argument by volunteering many details about his own multi-faith path. He’s had spiritual teachers of all stripes and nationalities, including a “white practicing witch in full black robes” who died of AIDS.

“Everything’s alive,” he said. “There’s good in everything… And we all have our own path. It’s important to always look for the good, for the highest in all. May we be positive examples.”