Tao Porchon-Lynch
In Memoriam
Tao Porchon-Lynch (August 13, 1918 – February 21, 2020) was the world’s oldest yoga teacher at 101. She trained and certified hundreds of yoga instructors since founding the Westchester Institute of Yoga in 1982. Tao had over 70 years of yoga practice and more than 45 years of yoga teaching experience. She worked with students in India, France, Dubai, China, Russia and throughout the United States. In 1995, Tao attended the Yoga for Peace International Peace Conference in Israel with Indra Devi to try to help bring peace to the Middle East through yogic principles. Before teaching yoga, Tao had a long and varied career. She was an actress in the 1940s and ‘50s, then wrote screenplays and made documentaries in the 1960s and ‘70s. She also received several hundred first-place titles in competitive dancing. Tao’s philosophy was “There is nothing we cannot do if we harness the power within us.”