yoga miscellaneous: healing

A letter from Sri.K. Pattabhi Jois to Yoga Journal, Nov. 1995

"It is unfortunate that students who have not yet matured in their own practice have changed the method and have cut out teh [sic] essence of an ancient lineage to accommodate their own limitations."


"Spiritual Madness and Compassionate Presence" -- healing of mental suffering through the philosophy and practice of Yoga

‎"One of my patients had severe post-traumatic stress disorder. His experience of isolation and helplessness sent shockwaves through his day-to-day life. He had flashbacks and significant difficulty relating to others.

We began his treatment with daily pranayama. We added meditation on both the destructive and creative aspects of the mother goddess Kali. Finally, he began to meditate on his own eternal nature: “I am that I am” (Hum So). Slowly but surely, this healed his illness..."


I worked with a private student today and after 10 years of teaching I am still amazed at how transformative the breath is. She is a relative newbie to yoga and in her classes at various venues from health clubs to studios, teachers have told her to "focus on the breath" but apparently no one has ever TAUGHT her how.

I could see how tight her belly and shoulders were. We did conscious breathwork just like Mark Whitwell or Ramaswami or my teachers at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram teach.  A light bulb went off over her head. Her entire body visibly relaxed and she left my house looking lighter and brighter. In a word, transformed.

She's returning for more instruction on the breath and wants to work with me in the vinyasa krama method:

“By integrating the functions of mind, body, and breath...a practitioner will experience the real joy of yoga practice. . .Vinyasa krama yoga strictly follows the most complete definition of classical yoga.” – Srivatsa Ramaswami, The Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga

Breath + yoga = healing.

dropping the curtain

original art Karin Bartimole

"When you are truly genuine, there will invariably be people who do not accept you. And in that case, you must be your own badass self, without apology." (Katie Goodman)


"Yoga is not for people who are interested in staying the same." (David Life)


My decision to stop writing this blog came to me in India. I returned from India just last Thursday and my final blog post brewed in the back of my mind ever since the last Tara Stiles "rebel" story in the New York Times came out. Here I was in India and people emailed me telling me that I was quoted in the New York Times. I appreciated their attention (I think), but my first thoughts were Holy Shiva, I can't get away from the bullshit that is now part of modern yoga (yes, bullshit, and if you don't like that word, get over it) even though I am thousands of miles away. I thought it must be a slow news day for the New York Times when the writer had to dig up a story that yoga bloggers wrote about last summer.

Does the phrase "been there, done that" have any meaning?

But actually my decision to stop writing has been almost 6 months in the making ever since an article was written about me by the current yoga editor of elephant journal that seemingly pitted me against Tara Stiles, my yoga vs. her yoga.

Bullshit.

While the writer thought the story complimentary, I felt blindsided and betrayed. He did not feel it necessary to ask my permission or even to ask my opinion before he wrote about me. While he apologized to me months later for writing the story, it did not matter at that point. Intention is everything and you can't unring a bell. To me his story brought to light what this modern yoga scene has become: us v. them. The rightous v. the unrightous. The purists v. the modernists. Old v. young. Thick v. skinny. The Lulus v. The WalMarts.

Bullshit.

Back in the day when I got into yoga (and no, not the prehistoric days although it sure as hell feels like it sometimes), yoga was just yoga. No one gave a shit what you wore or how your yoga was labeled.

As one reader wrote on my Facebook wall, "on the psychological/spiritual side, perception is reality, which is different for everyone...the non-dualism of advaita wisdom does not map to North American uber-dualism."

I got over his offense almost as soon as it happened, but it set the wheels in motion to euthanize this blog.

I have always written about what my real yoga is. I really don't know how often I can repeat this before people understand it: I don't care what your yoga is, I know what mine is, but one thing that I know is that if something isn't changing for you off the mat or off the cushion, then it's not yoga. That's Yoga Sutras 101.

No bullshit, basic shit. Like compost for your garden, yoga is the compost for the garden of your mind/body/spirit.

And no apologies to those who hate the phrase "real yoga." I'm tired of that judgment, too. It dawned on me the other day that even in the yoga world, political correctness abounds. Certain things are not supposed to be said for fear of offending. Anyone who criticizes or questions the yoga status quo is called a "hater" or "judgmental" in the yoga blogosphere.

Bullshit.

As a reminder after that last expletive, I heard Jack Kornfield say that anyone who thinks those on the spiritual path are not allowed to become angry or upset anymore, well, those people have a kindergarten view of spirituality. I bow to Jack Kornfield.

Yes, I am sensitive about the topic of "real yoga." Over the five years of writing this blog I've caught flak about being outspoken and that has made me misunderstood at best and unpopular at worst. I've been described as being passionate in my defense of yoga in the face of commercialism, exploitation, and misunderstanding. If the body cult of modern Americanized yoga is right, then I'd rather be wrong.

So I am moving on. I am not this body, I am not my thoughts, and I am certainly not this blog. When I started writing there weren't that many yoga blogs, I guess I was one of the first ones that people noticed. Now, just like there are hundreds of yoga teaching programs, there are hundreds of yoga blogs. I don't need to write anymore because it's all already being said on a daily basis. And actually, what is being said has already been said over and over again, there is nothing new under the sun -- I learned that at a supposed "meditation retreat" in India.

So I am moving inward. I feel a closing in instead of expansion, but not a contraction in a negative way. There is a Kabbalistic concept called Tzimtzum which means Divine Contraction. The thinking is that if God is infinite, he would have to draw in and so make a void into which creation can come. According to Wikipedia, "Tzimtzum...is a term used in the kabbalistic teaching of Isaac Luria, explaining his concept that God began the process of creation by "contracting" his infinite light in order to allow for a "conceptual space" in which a finite and seemingly independent world could exist. This contraction, forming an "empty space" in which creation could begin, is known as the Tzimtzum."

I have had more than a few experiences in India that some call "shakti blasts" and they are impossible to explain unless you have felt them. But they have always changed me. Change brings out either the best or the worst out in a person. I feel that my experiences have brought out the best in me although others may not agree. But as the jyotish told me, those others should never be my concern. Standing in my own truth is my only power.

So I am contracting in order to allow a new creation. I have been told by more than a few spiritual adepts and most recently by the jyotish in India that I am destined for great things, things I will not write about because they would be misread as being egotisical and indeed, impossible. But I know my path as surely as I know my own name. Changes have already begun by my signing up for a training in teaching yoga to trauma survivors. I am also applying for a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology program. The next time I return to India it will not be as a student.

My past has marked me and it made me a beautiful palimpsest. I jumped into the Ganges on a most auspicious day and washed myself clean so that I can be used again. You either dance with life or burn and become bitter. There isn't any other choice. Change is inevitable and unavoidable. It’s just life.

And real yoga is always about life.

here we go again, part 1

Hindu blessing of cow, Rameswaram beach, 2006

Getting on the yoga merry-go-round again of the old debate on "who owns yoga?" and whether yoga springs from Hinduism.

There's lots of stuff going on in the world but it must be a slow news day when the New York Times publishes another article with a dramatic title on the Hindu group that is stirring up the debate over yoga's soul.

Then there was the USA Today article, "Take Back Yoga Campaign: Back Where?"

Lisa Miller in Newsweek asked whether yoga's Hindu roots matter. I thought her article was a breath of fresh prana in this debate, but I still think she is mistaken about some things.

And after the debate burned through the yoga blogosphere and Facebook this week, Deepak Chopra finally weighed in on the yoga yada yada in HuffPo.

I thought his article was a bit amusing, since in Miller's article he claims to have "sanitized" Hinduism in order to make it more palatable: “The reason I sanitized it is there’s a lot of junk in [Hinduism],” explains Deepak Chopra, the New Age guru....“We’ve got to evolve to a secular spirituality that still addresses our deepest longings … Most religion is culture and mythology.  Read any religious text, and there’s a lot of nonsense there.  Yet the religious experience is beautiful.”   But in his HuffPo article he states that  "the nobility of Indian spirituality elevates Hinduism to a unique place in the world."

Uh, which part of that nobility did he sanitize? OK, whatever...Deepak is a zillionaire guru and I'm not. He must know what he's talking about because he's written a ton of books. And is a zillionaire guru. Did I mention that already?

STOP THE PRESSES! I've always wanted to say that....

One would think Chopra would be the last word on this but no, I don't think so...gather 'round, kiddies, and I'll tell y'all a story. I will preface this by saying that I'm not a yoga scholar and have never written a book. I have no fancy advanced college degrees (yet.) I'm a yoga student first and then a teacher but I've been around the yoga block a few times and have taken a workshop or two.  My only claim to yoga fame is studying four times (soon to be five) at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, Desikachar's school in Chennai, India -- two intensives and private classes. That's all.  Like Tao Porchon-Lynch, "I don't tell you these things from ego, but because it's what I know." Be advised that I pulled out my notes from KYM. And I take damn good notes.

But I want to say to the Hindu American Foundation referenced in the NY Times article that I feel your pain. I understand why they are verklempt. As Lisa Miller wrote in Newsweek, “You can’t stop people from using and transforming yoga.  But you have to honor and credit the source....know where yoga came from and respect those origins." I'm getting very tired of yoga articles written in terms of "fighting" and "owning", but I don't blame Indians one bit for wanting reverence and respect paid to an art and science that originated in India. Don't get me started on OM tattoos on feet but I digress.

But yoga doesn't come from Hinduism and Hindus don't own yoga.

Yoga is much older. What I learned at KYM was that yoga was part of the six systems of philosophy in India called the saddarsanas, darsana meaning "to see":

1. Nyaya -- logic; using analysis to look a problem;

2. Vaisesika -- evolution; what is the evolution of something to discover its reality. EX: a desk comes from wood which came from a tree which came from a seed.

3. Mimamsa -- rituals and rites (doing something in order to get something.) EX: animal and human sacrifice; fire rituals.

4. Sankyha -- closely related to yoga; our problems arise because of "seer" and what is seen; there is confusion between the "I" and the rest of the world. "Sankyha" means knowledge of Self through right discrimination. (See the Samkyha Karika of Isvara Krsna.)

5. Vedanta -- school of philosophy that interpreted the Upanishads (advaita vedanta is a subset of this philosophy.)

6. Yoga -- school of philosophy that holds that the mind is the problem; focus the mind and we solve our problems.

The above information is from my Yoga Philosophy class notes, 2005. The next line I wrote was: "Hinduism actually rejects yoga." As a legal assistant for 20 years I sat in many a lawyer's office and wrote their words verbatim to transcribe into letters and legal documents.

So no, I did not make that up and I suppose those words shock some of you. When long-held beliefs are challenged it can be quite painful. Let me try to explain the yoga and Hinduism connection (or non-connection as the case may be) in part 2 after I finish reading the scholarly essay "Brahmanism, Buddhism and Hinduism: An Essay on Their Origins and Interactions" by Lal Mani Joshi of the Department of Religious Studies, Punjabi University, 1970.

This essay was sent to me by a long-time reader and is an essay that Stephen Cope of Kripalu used for his book on the Sutra-s. When I did the Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation Training at Spirit Rock in California, Stephen Cope used many of the points in the essay in his talk to us on the history of yoga.

The gist of the essay is that many of the things Westerners and contemporary Indian Hindus think of as "classically Hindu" actually come from the shramanical tradition generally (the sramanas being the ancient yogis, the ascetics who lived in the Vedic era which is pre-Hinduism) and Buddhism specifically and were incorporated very late in Indian history.

Stay tuned.

just an old-fashioned girl

Last night in class I only had two students. Believe it or not, this no longer bothers me -- I show up and I teach. Despite how "mainstream" yoga people love to believe yoga is nowadays -- and I would really like someone to explain to me what mainstream is -- the number of students in class is diminishing. I'm not the only teacher in my area who finds this to be true.

So since it was a loosey-goosey class, we yakked for the first 30 minutes, me and my two students about the State of Yoga in America. I will add that this was totally unsolicited by me, these two gals just wanted to let loose. Of course this is not a scholarly study by any means, merely anecdotal, but interesting just the same.

One woman told me that she was glad she found my class -- this woman is older like me, I would say in her 50s. She told me she was glad she found a "real yoga" class -- her words, not mine, unsolicited. By "real yoga" she meant not "power yoga" (her words) as is taught in her gym where she takes Pilates. My class is the first yoga class she has ever taken (because her chiropractor recommended it), so she had nothing to compare it to. In spite of knowing nothing about yoga other than it was supposed to help calm her down, she somehow knew she wanted to take a "real yoga" class.

She was dismayed at the lack of commitment from the drop-in students. She asked why students feel that a yoga class is supposed to be convenient for them, instead of making it a priority like anything else in their lives. She asked me why students feel they don't have to support a yoga class, that they can just show up whenever they want to. We recalled the couple who came once and said that they "maybe" do yoga once a month. Uh...why bother? Was it a night they were bored and wanted to spice up their evening with my class? OK, I'm kidding.

I shrugged. I have no answers anymore to questions about yoga in OMerika. But I smiled and thanked her for calling my class "real yoga" and thanked her for her commitment to herself.

The second woman, younger, 30s maybe, was also dismayed at the lack of students in my class. She had been coming to this venue for yoga for a long time and told me the class used to have about 20-30 students in it. I was asked to take over this class to try to build it back up -- I had heard that the class had too many subs and people had stopped coming.

The younger woman told me -- again, unsolicited and her words, not mine -- that I was old-fashioned. I smiled and she laughed. She told me, "I think your class is the way yoga originally was before it became mainstream. You know...real yoga." Ahhhh....there are those words again.

I asked her what she thinks "mainstream yoga" is. I said to please explain it to me because I'm stuck in my little ol' boring box of asana-pranayama-meditation, so I am out of touch.

She said this: that the more mainstream yoga becomes, i.e., yoga taught all over the place, the more people will lose sight of what yoga really is. She said that yoga right now is trendy and popular, it's merely "the thing to do", just another fitness trend.

It was her belief that mainstream yoga has been dumbed down (her words) to cater to this culture rather than trying to change this fast-paced culture.

I will let that sink in because it is a very powerful statement.

She believes that people are so used to moving fast in their daily lives, that that is the type of yoga people want instead of yoga to slow them down, to go inward. She told me that to her, that's not "real yoga." She said, "if I wanted that, I'd go to an aerobics class."

I smiled. I told her thanks for saying I'm old-fashioned, but I prefer the term "old school." "Now let's do some old-school yoga," I said, as I started the vinaya krama class.

Out of the mouths of students.

I found the exchange interesting. According to my student then, "mainstream" merely means "popular." But is popular always a good thing? This student also believes that with the popularity of yoga nowadays, the sheer number of yoga classes being offered outside of yoga studios (her emphasis) actually devalues yoga and cheapens the real message of yoga, which is personal transformation. This student lives in a suburb that is far from my class. She told me that there is plenty of yoga around her house but it is the "fast food yoga", as she calls it, and will have none of it.

"Fast food yoga." I like that description. Sure you can survive on a diet of fast food, but how healthy is it for you in the long run?

Do you want fries with that?

a question of semantics?

Carol Horton's post on Tara Stiles' book still has legs so I thought I would add my two rupees here as a post.

I'm a jazz freak and usually listen to what is considered "real jazz" (as a Sirius XM satellite radio station is entitled) as opposed to "lite jazz" (as a former Chicago radio station billed itself.) Although I learned the piano as a child, I am not a jazz musician so I don't know what technically makes jazz "real jazz" or "lite jazz" -- all I know is that they each sound very different to my ears. However, I also have a "lite jazz" station programmed in my car radio. They advertise themselves as "contemporary jazz."

The other day when I was driving I thought how appropo for yoga nowadays. If a teacher teaches an asana-only class -- i.e,. no pranayama, no meditation, no chanting, no proper instructions on bandhas, no mention of chakras, no discussion on texts or philosophy -- call the class "contemporary yoga" and call it a day.  Don't bother with any name branding, calling it vinyasa, or anything else.  Just "contemporary yoga."

Or if it's an asana-only class, why call it yoga at all? Physical therapists use movements derived from yoga all the time but they don't call it "yoga." It's physical therapy and everybody knows that is what it is. Nothing else.

Just like Frank Jude said in his comment to Carol's post, I have also taught in places other than yoga studios. I started out at my local park district in a gym. But even nine years ago when supposedly there were a lot less people doing yoga, I never felt the need to water down yoga.  Something brought people to my classes other than "slim sexy yoga" or "yoga for abs" when the number of asana-only "yoga" books did not exist as they do now. What brought them, what were they looking for?

I've also been told that more people are being brought to yoga now because of books like Tara Stiles', allegedly a book for beginning students.  If that is the case (i.e., more people doing yoga), then why did I have 40 students in a class nine years ago (when supposedly there was less awareness about yoga) and am lucky now to have 10 in a public class? I'm not the only teacher in my area who has experienced this.

Something in this modern yoga equation does not compute.

As Frank Jude said, "It's so EASY to teach mindfulness, compassionate action, non-judgmental awareness, radical acceptance [my note: what is usually seen in "real yoga" classes] without using any yoga jargon, overt 'spiritual' terms or expressions."

Indeed it is.  So why the sea of change with the new generation of American yoga teachers?

upon further reflection on the yoga noise

This is me after my head exploded over the latest furor about the way yoga is advertised in America.

OK, not really, but after the requisite three days all things pass and we move on, right? Wrong.

Once again an advertisement for a yoga book created a firestorm in the yoga blogosphere. Maybe the fire was not as widespread as was created by the Judith Lasater letter to Yoga Journal or the naked ToeSox ad, but it did generate many comments here and at Svasti's place. So let's just move on. Wrong.

Just for the heck of it I looked at Tara Stiles' twitter feed to see if there were any more comments about her book other than for yours truly, Svasti, and Blisschick. Over 90% of the tweets are consistently hugely complimentary. Obviously detractors are in the minority. But then I found this one lonely tweet amongst the cacophony of Stiles' cheerleaders:

"I feel you sold out Yoga to Honda. If you want to model for products, fine. Just keep yoga out of it. Just my 2 cents."

You see, I thought maybe my last post about her appearance on the morning show in New York was over the top, that I was picking on her too much. But you have to admit that the Dunkin Donuts commercial before her fry the fat yoga show was a priceless piece of irony. There could not have been a better juxtaposition of two images to make a point and that's the essence of satire.

Then I read what a well-known yoga teacher said about comments on yoga blogs being divisive and not in the spirit of being a yogi (I don't know if the comment was about the TS discussion, but it made me wonder.) Also, some commenters feel that whatever brings people to yoga is fine and that ultimately they will learn that yoga is so much more than a way to burn blubber and fry fat on the mat.

So am I just a big ol' meanie?

Last night this foggy menopausal brain thought about all this in the context of being "yogic."

In the first place, this has nothing to do with Tara Stiles as a person. I haven't called her any names and I am sure she is a good person in her daily relationships. She must be a good yoga teacher (whatever "good" means to some people) because if she wasn't she would not have reached the level she has, she would just be another unknown yoga teacher. Or maybe she just got some lucky breaks. Her karma.

But what is true (and it's not only my opinion but that of others, read the 20+ comments here) is that she sold out yoga for her own purposes just to make a buck. Because what other reason would there be to so blatantly cater to women's insecurities about their bodies in her atrocious marketing campaign? To use advertising language that is no better than what a cheap diet aid uses for marketing. To further perpetuate the notion that screams at us from every cover of every woman's magazine at the supermarket checkout line that there is something wrong with us, that we need fixing, that we are always lacking. As it said in the above tweet, keep yoga out of it. If you put yourself out there in the way you advertise your product, then you'd better be willing to take the heat.

Go ahead and call me unyogic, but that's not yoga. Which leads me to my second point.

I am so tired, saddened actually, that in this Americanized yoga business anything can be called "yoga" and that makes it yoga. No, your morning stretches using yoga poses are not yoga and just because you call them yoga doesn't make it so. Calling a dog a cat doesn't make it a cat. I consider myself fortunate to have been exposed to yoga and meditation back in the prehistoric times of my college days when yoga and those who did it were considered weird -- there was a reason they called us Freaks.

I started reading books about the Eastern wisdom traditions when I was in high school. I am passionate about all the teachings (if you are also reading the Avadhuta Gita raise your hand) and do my best when I teach to honor the Krishnamacharya lineage. Yoga is very precious to me -- I am grateful and blessed that I have opportunity and freedom to travel to India to study in the heart of yoga. So pardon me for feeling protective and angry when people bastardize yoga for their own purposes.

Being "yogic" doesn't mean being peace-love-dove all the time. The ancient yogis, the sramanas, were rebels, they were spiritual warriors against the status quo. Buddha was a radical -- he went against the stream and said to look at reality as it is, not as what you want it to be.

Accusing someone of not being a "yogi" or of not being "yogic" is a cop-out. I will always remember what Jack Kornfield said in our first retreat for my training at Spirit Rock -- that anyone who thinks that someone on the spiritual path should not still get angry has a kindergarten view of spirituality.

Chogyam Trungpa taught the way of the spiritual warrior. He said, "Warrior-ship here does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word “warrior” is taken from the Tibetan “pawo,” which literally means, “one who is brave.” ... "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.‎"

That cave in India is looking pretty good right now.

burn your blubber and fry your fat

....after you eat those Dunkin' Donuts.

I almost blew my chai out my nose all over my keyboard when I saw that. Irony rules.

 

YogaDawg once told me that some things are too ridiculous to satirize, but check out his link.

No further comments are necessary although I'm SO disappointed -- not one mention of bra fat.

I'll go sage myself now.

seva is sexy

"Yoga is about GIVING. Not taking. That’s how I get my calm and my sexy. I don’t need no special book and unrealistic promises to deliver that."

Those words are from Svasti's great blog "Body image issues, yoga & Tara Stiles is a sell-out" that was in response to Stiles' atrocious ad for her new book (I am loathe to give it any more publicity.) The amazing and heart-felt comments from readers on my blog about it make me think that a yoga revolution is in the air. At least I hope so.

What I found so appalling in Stiles' ad was the language: "banish belly fat, FAST"; "a YOGA-SLIM body in just 15 MINUTES A DAY!"; "size 8 to a size double 00!"; "combat bra fat with one easy move." This one was the kicker: "Reshape your body. Learn a fabulous new way to balance WIDER-THAN-DESIRED HIPS."

Uh, Tara, don't you think a little thing called BONE STRUCTURE might have something to do with that? How is feeding into women's insecurities about their hips in any way "yogic"? How about preaching acceptance about those "wider than desired" hips instead of trying to change something that is impossible to change because of BONE STRUCTURE?

I am still reeling from the possibility of bra fat. With homeless children on the street, genocide, floods in Pakistan, and starving people all over the world, now I have to worry about my back fat. Holy Shiva, what's a grrl to do?

The ad has nothing to do with yoga and has everything to do with what is wrong with with, well, everything that is wrong in this culture. Everything has to work fast -- "15 minutes" -- and if it doesn't we move on to the next best thing because our brains are no longer wired to stay with anything longer. We have the attention spans of flies, just look at some children.

I remember what Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote in Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness. He said that ADD and ADHD are not the problems of children where the only solution is to medicate them with potentially harmful drugs; he believes that ADD and ADHD are signs of a dysfunctional family unit. In other words, YOU HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE-STYLE.

And that is what weight loss is all about. It's not about "210 proven yoga moves" you can do in 15 minutes. I should know because I used to weigh about 200 pounds in the late 1970s. It was a life-style change. And because I used to weigh that much is why I can comment on bullshit ads that promise the impossible.

Personally I think that every dime Tara Stiles makes off the book should be donated to a place that helps young women with eating disorders.

"You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty." -- Jessica Mitford

How does a "yoga" book that promises results in just 15 minutes a day speak to the fact that yoga is a life-long process of transformation, 24/7? A process where the results are seen in months and years and not minutes. You operate on faith because there are no guarantees.

As I said in my previous blog, I am so over the excuse of how all these so-called "yoga" books or DVDs are just about "bringing yoga to the people, it's all good, so don't be a hater." If you want to bring yoga to the people then teach in a prison or a homeless or domestic violence shelter year after year, don't write a book about how to get rid of your bra fat. Now I am back to my post title.

Like Svasti, I get my calm and sexy from seva which is karma yoga in a domestic violence shelter. It's true the women ask me about losing their belly fat from their pregnancies -- there is nothing wrong with wanting to look good and feeling healthy and sexy. But I can assure you that they care more about ridding themselves of emotional demons and nightmares. The classes are pure joy and joy is big-time sexy. I'll be getting a double dose of sexy because after about 10 years I've been asked to teach twice a month.

Every class is wonderful but last week was more so than usual. I did not teach a traditional yoga class but used movement in general as a stress reliever -- we jumped and gyrated and shook those wider than desired hips. I had them do Lion's Breath which they really got into after I told them how lionesses hunt and feed and defend their children while the lion sleeps all day. They could identify with that....and you've never heard louder roars.

I tell them that they are my teachers, these poor Hispanic women who own no yoga mats, no Lululemon pants, and come to my class after standing all day at factory jobs. Many of them do not have the luxury of even 15 minutes a day for themselves. My 90 minute class once a month may be the only time they have for themselves. Do you really think they care about bra fat?

After our movement I did yoga nidra with them. Some started crying afterward because of the effect it had on them. One woman was there for the first time and after class she was speechless for more than a few moments because the effect was so profound. When she could speak she asked the group leader if she could talk with me any time she felt bad. The yoga had created trust. The group leader translated and I had to tell her that while I understand Spanish, I am no longer fluent in speaking it so I could not answer her, but if she would like a private yoga therapy session with the group leader translating, I would be happy to do it for free.

Then I felt the shift. Sometimes psychic shifts are so potent that you feel them physically and suddenly everything falls into place. The verification that what I have done for almost 10 years is my true path. It was a physical confirmation. No more second guessing.

My path is no longer teaching in studios, it is about truly bringing yoga and meditation to the people. I have plans in the back of my brain and all things happen when they are ready to happen. My yoga therapy training in India next year will be the icing on the cake and my decision to pursue a masters in transpersonal psychology never felt so right. It's all going to meld together and it will take longer than 15 minutes.

Damn, I'm sexy.

you're too fat and not sexy -- so buy my book!

Do you want to be slim, calm, and sexy in just 15 minutes a day? Get rid of your "bra fat" and go from size 8 to a size 00 IN JUST 15 MINUTES A DAY?

"Bra fat"? What a loser you are to have BRA FAT!



Click here for full marketing piece.

I don't care if Tara Stiles is nice person. I don't care if she has done legitimate yoga videos in the past. This is a complete sell out for the almighty dollar. Don't even try to sell me on the "yoga for the masses" excuse. It's pathetic, and frankly, she should be ashamed for allowing herself to be talked into shilling for this trash. That is, if any convincing was really necessary -- somehow I doubt it. But if asked about it, I am sure we would hear the typical higher-lighter-brighter-peace-love-dove-I'm-just-bringing-yoga-to-the-people crap.

We've come such a long way since yoga was brought to America.

Watch this video. And then decide which images you want your daughters to see.

irony rules

Ahimsa aside, if you do not see the irony in this you need one tight slap and told to snap out of it.

A yoga teacher friend sent me this basically asking "what the what?!?" This was in an email she received from Yoga Journal Online.

"Find personal yoga teachers expensive?"

Say what? Uh, thanks, Yoga Journal (and yes, I know it's not Yoga Journal specifically but the advertiser), but does it really benefit all the yoga teachers out there for your advertiser to put the idea into peoples' heads that private teachers are too expensive?

HELLO!! I'm trying to GET more private students, not drive them away! Thanks for nothing.

"Private yoga lessons directly from India"

Hmmmm....let's see. I call Dell and get to talk to someone in Mumbai. Same with American Express.

Now we're outsourcing yoga classes to India!

Forget the gym, forget the yoga studio, forget the private teacher. I will get on my computer and gosh darn it all to hell I can get a real authentic Indian to teach me some yoga.

Woo-hoo! No more stinky studio mats and gross toenails on the floor! No more people coming in late and leaving early! No more cell phones ringing in class! I'm just gonna order me up some yoga in the privacy of my bedroom! YAY! Who needs to interact with teachers face to face, I can shut it down and get a pizza in the middle of the class...now THAT'S a slice of yoga heaven!

And to think I made four trips to India and paid all that money to KYM.....what an idiot!

Click the ad and it will take you to Divine Wellness where you can sign up for a free private yoga lesson so knock yourself out:


"Private Yoga Lesson is conducted online using web camera. You get the same experience as a teacher guiding you step-by-step and continuously modifying the program as per your readiness. Only the teacher is across the internet. Even better, our qualified and experienced teachers are in India, the land of origin of Yoga."


I like the "even better" part because yes, the most "qualified and experienced teachers are in India." The next best thing is teachers who train in India and that's me. So call me! I need more private clients. Will yoga for food, rates negotiable.

Go ahead. Get your free lesson and let me know how much they charge. Then I will tell you how much private yoga classes REALLY are in India. I'm rolling my eyes now.

If I had a webcam I would get that free trial and report back, but, hell...I don't even own an IPod.

Wait a minute....why didn't I think of this?

DOH! I need one tight slap.

a marriage of Yoga and Buddhism

I have written before about Michael Stone here and here so I was happy to receive his upcoming book to preview, Freeing The Body, Freeing The Mind: Connecting Yoga & Buddhism. It is coming out in September with a Forward written by Robert Thurman:

"Those deep into Buddhism can find a lot to help their understanding and meditation practice in the wisdom and embodying practicality of the Yoga tradition. Those deep into Yoga can find enriching dimensions in the Buddhist Yogas presented herein. And the broad range of readers can find practical help, methods, and tools for a better health, life, and state of mind in the integrated paths presented."

This book is an absolute must for anyone who wants to explore and better understand the "inter-being" of Buddhism and Yoga. For me, it is a joy. I believe it will become one of the "go to" books for a combined study of these two subjects. If I had my own yoga teacher training it would definitely be on my required reading list.

Buddha studied with diverse yoga masters on his journey towards nirvana. Buddha was a yogi so the Western interpretations of Yoga and Buddhism as being two separate paths never felt right to me in my bones. Just like the first Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation Training at Spirit Rock spoke to my entirety as a Buddhist yogini, so does Stone's book further confirm what I have intuited all along.

In his Introduction Stone speaks to how the oversimplification and misrepresentations of the two traditions disregarded how Yoga and Buddhism share the same ethical and philosophical components. Stone refers to Yoga and Buddhism as being like the ecology of trees -- while trees share the same characteristics and similarities, a maple and oak are different. The branches and leaves are different, they have different nutritional requirements, and they look very different from one another. But upon closer inspection, the similarities are clear -- root systems grow in similar ways, growth cycles follow the seasons in similar ways. So whether comparing trees or two wisdom traditions, Stone says that "when we look for parallel comparisons, we find difference, and when we look for difference, we find similarity."

But you don't have to take Michael Stone's word for it because various Buddhist and Yoga master teachers contribute the first 12 chapters of the book. Among others, Chip Hartranft and Frank Jude Boccio explore the way their own Buddhist and yoga practices interweave, setting their practices against the backdrop of traditional teachings. Daniel Odier and Eido Shimano Roshi explore the body from the Zen and Ch'an perspectives and in so doing break down the false view that meditation is a mind practice separate from the body. Victoria Austin writes from her perspective as both a Zen teacher and Iyengar Yoga teacher. Christopher Chapple, whom Stone refers to as "one of the most prominent Yoga scholars in the United States" and a practitioner, draws parallels between traditional Yoga and Buddhist teaching. New York yoga teacher Jill Satterfield tells her story about how she integrated Yoga and Buddhism not just in her teaching but also in a dramatic transformation in her own body and heart -- and it definitely is a dramatic story of self-healing because I heard her tell the same story at Spirit Rock. Finally, Sarah Powers speaks to her melding of Yoga and yin practices and Buddhist training and what it's like to practice Yoga and Buddhadharma day in and day out.

Stone's chapter is the last chapter entitled, "Practice Maps of the Great Yogis", where he writes of the wisdom of both the body and the mind as the ancients saw it in both traditions. In my experience I have found that some think that reading the ancient texts is a sufficient yoga practice (mind-stuff); others feel that asana is enough and never delve deeper into meditation and philosophy (body-stuff.) Too much of one and not enough of the other is a recipe for imbalance. An emphasis of one over the other further serves to separate the body-mind complex.

Buddha sat down to watch his own breath and knew that no insight was possible until his mind was settled and his body at ease. Patanjali wrote how asana and pranayama help with the release of effort, both physically and mentally. In the section entitled "Right Mind, Right Body"of this last chapter, Stone quotes Takuan who "reminds us of the immovable wisdom we find here in the body and awareness that is free from fixation and ambition." Takuan said: "The Right Mind is the mind that does not remain in one place. It is the mind that stretches throughout the entire body and self. The Confused Mind is the mind that, thinking something over, congeals in one place."

Stone then quotes the last line of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika:

"As long as the Prana does not enter and flow through the middle channel of one's mind and body, and the internal energy does not become stable by the control of the movements of prana; as long as the mind does not rest in the ease of the inherent resolution of opposites without any effort, so long all the talk of knowledge and wisdom is nothing but the nonsensical babbling of a madman."

Stone points out that the HYP ends with a "description of awakening as a mind at ease and a body dynamic and intelligent." So how do we use the body to study the mind and work with the mind through the body? Obviously asana alone has physiological benefits, but we need to remember that asana teaches us to work with the mind. "In this very one-fathom long body along with perceptions and thoughts, do I proclaim the world, the origin of the world, the end of the world and the path leading to the end of the world," Buddha said. That is, the end of suffering, nirvana.

All the contributors mentioned above are practitioners first writing from their personal experiences of practicing both systems for years. Stone says that looking at traditions like Yoga and Buddhism as mere philosophies without practice is not good science, good research, or good history. He believes that a pure intellectual approach leaves core teachings unexamined and in such cases "the scholar is blinded by his or her books."

Finally, there is an ample Notes section at the end of the book citing references for each chapter from the important ancient texts to the modern Buddhist and Yoga classics -- too many to list here but yoga and Buddhism scholars will not be disappointed in the breadth and scope of these references.

Stone's book, in his words, "attempts to describe not only the philosophical basis of Yoga and Buddhism but also what it's like to practice within and between these systems."

Enjoy the excerpt.

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Freeing The Body, Freeing The Mind: Connecting Yoga & Buddhism
By Michael Stone

"Over the years, I’ve found it increasingly frustrating that Yoga is continually reduced to “a body practice” and Buddhism “a mind practice.” This makes no sense at all. Anyone who has practiced deeply in both traditions knows that the Buddha gave attention to the body, Patanjali the mind, and both traditions value ethical precepts and commitments as the foundation of an appropriate livelihood. I organize a community in Toronto called Centre of Gravity Sangha, a thriving group of people interested in integrating Yoga and Buddhist Practices.

In the Buddha’s teachings, the body is used as the primary object of meditation, so that one can study the universe not through books or theory but through one’s subjective experience. Likewise the Yoga postures, when practiced with breathing and sensitivity, become opportunities for deep meditative insight because they are designed to calm the nervous system. This grounds us. When we move within the various shapes of the yoga poses and tune into the internal energetic patterns of our breath, we are working the habits of mind as well.. Though the Yoga postures we practice in modern Yoga studios have obvious therapeutic benefits at physiological levels, some teachers and schools seem to have forgotten how the postures also teach us how to work with the mind. And for most of us, our troubles are not simply in the body – primarily, trouble is in the mind. How can we use the body to study the mind and work with the mind through the body? By experiencing how the two are completely interrelated.

There is a fundamental affinity between mind practices and body practices. Think of them both as curves in a grand mandala that continually spirals in, on, and through itself with no beginning or end. When I work deeply with my mind, I only do so by giving attention to the body: I witness its processes, from breathing to listening or seeing. The same is true when I study the intricate holding patterns in the web of my body (called koshas in Sanskrit), I end up seeing where my mind sticks, where it can’t focus, where it gets caught in refrains of old tape loops. What I thought was “body” is mostly mental. The Buddha says “Leave the body in the body.” When the Buddha teaches mindfulness practices, he begins with the bare awareness of body.

“The old Indian practice of Yoga,” writes scholar Karen Armstrong, “meant that people became dissatisfied with a religion that concentrated on externals. Sacrifice and liturgy were not enough: they wanted to discover the inner meaning of these rites.”3 Turning inward means taking responsibility for the spiritual path by focusing on the microcosm of reality that exists in the body’s functioning in this and every moment. Although yogic practices can supposedly be traced back some five thousand years, and although yogins described their paths and discoveries in very different terms depending on their respective cultural vocabulary, they all share the same common focus: the body is the primary object of meditative inquiry.

When we begin by taking care of the body and paying attention to its workings, we find ourselves focusing the mind, settling the breath, and learning much more about the nature of reality than we’d know by extroverted thinking alone. There are some things we just can’t figure out with ordinary thinking.

Just resting in feeling the sense of the body without any notions or concepts, we begin to tune in to the glorious operation of the natural world that is only available to a quiet mind. Of course, the mind is not separate from the body in any way – it is just a seamless continuation of the sense organs. We begin with the body because it is always present – it is the very apparatus we need to receive and explore any corner of the natural world. We use “the mind” to explore “the body,” but as we get closer and quieter, we come to see that mind and body are inseparable. The seeker Uddalaka in the Yoga Vashista, a story that interweaves Yoga and Buddhist philosophy, enters a remote practice place and begins practicing Yoga. After some time he exclaims,

"Just as the silkworm spins its cocoon and gets caught in it, you have woven the web of your concepts and are caught in them.

. . . There is no such thing as mind. I have carefully investigated, I have observed everything from the tips of my toes to the top of my head: and I have not found anything of which I could say: This is who I am."

If we approach Yoga practices simply through books and words, and not direct contact with the physical and material reality of the body and breath, all we are left with is conceptual scaffolding. We can’t know these practices from the outside. They were never meant to be mere philosophy or codified ritual. Knowing about practice is not enough: we must drop our “knowing” and feel our way into present experience by seeing things clearly. By seeing, the old yogis are not referring to the eyes but to what the Zen tradition calls “the true dharma eye”——the eye that sees without clinging, without sculpting, without allowing what is seen to get stuck into the web of like or dislike. The spirit of Yoga and Buddhism embodies a radical approach to human experience - we begin practice through paying attention to what is here in this moment. Each and every one of us can wake up without needing to adopt a new ideology or belief system. When we return to present experience through the sense organs themselves——eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, and mind—we enter the freedom of this very moment, and the old paths of the yogis come alive here and now. There is no freedom in just repeating the words and rituals of the old masters——we must express freedom and interdependence through the action of our whole being and community through mind, body, and speech.

Every morning we wake up under the same bright northern star the Buddha saw when he awoke one dawn in his early thirties. Every moment we breathe the same molecules of air that once nourished Santideva, Dogen, Thich Nhat Hanh, your parents and their parents. Perhaps practice also fulfills our responsibility to the yogi-poets and wanderers who long ago struggled with aging bodies, unreliable thoughts, and an imperfect culture. They took great care in putting together words and phrases to articulate their path: they tried to leave maps for us, so we can enter way life happens in a way that motivates us to meet reality in an embodied and creative way."

things white people do

one interpretation of Kali

Given all the recent uproar about yoga advertising, I want to ask this question again:

why is American yoga such a white thing?

This post is from 2007 and three years later I am still asking the same question.

The Color of Yoga

I am white (but have been told "you're not all that white"), so why does this question bother me so much? Maybe because I grew up on the south side of Chicago? Maybe because I lived with Tejanos on the Texas/Mexico border? Maybe because my ex-husband is Mexican?

Don't know. But the way yoga is advertised bothers me, maybe because it seems so exclusive -- despite all the peace-love-dove New Age rhetoric -- when it should be inclusive of older, rounder, darker.

The ads in Yoga Journal for Kripalu are the only ones that are realistic because they have all colors, all shapes, and all ages.

You bet I am tired of the skinny, young, white women in yoga advertising AS IF that is the only type who does yoga in America. Brooks Hall is on fire with her post about....another ad using a skinny, young, white woman. How original Corporate America.

"slimmer calmer healthier" -- notice which word is first in the ad.

As someone who taught yoga in a community college to young women with eating disorders, these people just DON'T GET IT.

"The ways of materialistic culture as seen in this advertisement seem to be trying to cleanse yoga of its Indian-ness, as if the strangeness of it is a form of pollution."

Yeah, let's just make everything white bread because that's what we are really comfortable with since yoga is a white thang anyway. Scroll down to read the Minority Yoga Report: http://www.yogacitynyc.com/yoga_week.php#259

I could go on, but what's the point?

I teach to Hispanic women at a domestic violence shelter and they connect to yoga and meditation more so than many people I've taught at yoga studios. I can count on one hand the number of people of color I have taught in 9 years of teaching.

With the latest discussion about Yoga Journal, the mass-marketing of yoga, all the blah blah about how wonderful it is that yoga is reaching the masses, that more and more people are exposed to yoga, how yoga is so "mainstream" (and I do not believe it is)....where is the increase of people of color taking yoga classes?

Or have our white sensibilities forgotten them in all the rhetoric about how absolutely fabulous it is that so many more white people are taking yoga now?

in review, the personal is still political

original upload by BAM's Blog

Unless you've been in yoga nidra for a week, then you know that Judith Lasater's letter to Yoga Journal about how she felt about nudity in yoga advertising set the yoga blogosphere on fire. In case you missed her letter, here it is:

"Yoga Journal was born in my living room in Berkeley in 1975, where I was one of five yoga practitioner-teachers who gathered to create the magazine. I have loved the magazine ever since. But I'm concerned about ads that have stimulated both confusion and sadness in me about where the magazine is now and where it is headed.

I am confused because I do not understand how photos of naked or half-naked women are connected with the sale of practice products for asana, an important part of yoga. These pictures do not teach the viewer about yoga practice or themselves. They aren't even about the celebration of the beauty of the human body or the beauty of the poses, which I support. These ads are just about selling a product. This approach is something I though belonged (unfortunately) to the larger culture, but not in Yoga Journal.

Finally, I feel sad because it seems that Yoga Journal has become just another voice for the status quo and not for elevating us to the higher values of yoga: spiritual integration, compassion and selfless service. My request is that Yoga Journal doesn't run ads with photos that exploit the sexuality of young women in order to sell products or more magazines. Thank you for your attention and willingness to hear another point of view.

Judith Hanson Lasater
San Francisco, CA"

The comments both pro and con about Lasater's letter flew fast and furious in Roseanne's blog (cited above) and in elephant journal. There was overwhelming support for Lasater on her Facebook page where she said that it was not her intention to harm Yoga Journal: "It is my intention to open the dialogue and be clear about what my values are."

Indeed she did.

Both Brooks Hall and Carol Horton wrote eloquently about the maelstrom. But Nikki Chau said on her Facebook page that Lasater's letter to Yoga Journal "was *not* about the Toesox ads with Kathryn Budig."

Whew. And now it's my turn.

Brooks said that how we react to seeing nudity is personal. Of course it is, and to that I say, the personal is political. I am not a feminist scholar but I am a feminist, a word that many women nowadays shy away from.

"The personal is political" was a mantra of the '70s feminist movement. The saying comes directly from an essay written by radical feminist Carol Hanisch in 1969, and was a way to convey to women who were suffering in silence that their individual experiences were, in fact, instances of cultural sexism.

The sentence indicates that many of our personal problems, and specifically women's personal problems throughout history, have been political -- sometimes created by, definitely supported by, and ultimately addressed by politics. In this case, the politics of advertising.

“Sex, Lies, and Advertising,” was an article written by Gloria Steinem for Ms. Magazine in 1990. She discussed the aspects of feminism and how advertising venues such as magazines use women to sell products. Advertisers have been using women to sell products since the late 1800’s, but according to Steinem, using women became the natural way to advertise and sell products, but is it right to do so?

Advertisers use women to sell anything and everything. Madison Avenue knows that beautiful women are the tools that draw in consumers to buy the products that they supposedly need and ultimately want to buy. That's Advertising 101. Using a naked woman in yoga product advertising is no different from a using a naked woman to sell a car. Just because it's yoga, that makes the ad more "artistic"? A naked body is a naked body whether it's used to sell a yoga mat or tires. Why are some in denial that in the advertising game a naked body = sex or at least sexiness? Advertising is about selling fantasy. At least the ads for porn are honest, they know what they are selling.

So whether or not Lasater was writing about the ToeSox ad in particular doesn't matter. What would the reaction be if a naked male yogi was only wearing socks? The fact is that a naked man would never be used to sell those socks. Ever.

That's the whole point.

I have no idea who Kathryn Budig is and I am sure no one forced her to take off her clothes. She probably was paid good money to pose naked and ToeSox probably sold a lot of socks. She has the right to take off her clothes for commercial purposes and ToeSox has the right to make a profit.

But I can tell you that every time I saw her ad in Yoga Journal I rolled my eyes and said "again?" The ad does not make me want to run out to buy something I don't need and it does not make me aspire to be her as some commenters at elephant journal have suggested.

So when I read Lasater's letter I yelled "right on" just like I did when I marched for women's rights back in the day. Then I started reading the comments directed toward Lasater's supporters and that's when the personal once again became political for me.

Not to get into my life story, but I'm no prude. I'm not an anti-pornography feminist like Andrea Dworkin was and I've sat naked in the communal hot tubs of Esalen. But what was more offensive to me than seeing a naked woman used to sell a yoga product YET AGAIN, were the comments that if we disagree with ads using nudity, then we must:

1. hate nudity;
2. hate the female form;
3. hate sex
4. have a problem with our own sexuality;
5. be repressed;
6. be close minded
7. etc., etc. etc.

From elephant journal, posting its Facebook comments:

"In my opinion "it takes one to know one" and if anyone sees anything perverse about a girl with no clothes on, then the perversion is in their head in the first place....I would hazard a guess that the Ladies...probably wish deep down that they could be in that pic as well!"

[this guy doesn't even know how sexist that statement is -- so much for sensitive yoga guys.]

"Those offended may need to seriously consider gaining a deeper relationship with that oNe in the mirror there."

"we all need to get a little more comfortable with sex and the nude body (our own or otherwise)"

"It's sad when our culture looks at beautiful photos like these and automatically switches into auto pilot and think - SEX. Are we really that much out of tune with our bodies and self."

One female commenter told me that my "tone is full of rage not compassion. Relax. It's an ad. 30 seconds from now another will take its place and it will be forgotten."

Yes, and that's the problem.

As for the armchair diagnosis of "rage"....what? Say again? I'm getting a flashback of being told that we were a bunch of angry bitches. I'm waiting for the "and you all need to get laid" comment.

My oh my....the more things change, the more they stay the same. Still. Even after almost 40 years.

To those comments I say: BULLSHIT.

I'm not as eloquent a writer as Judith Lasater, but I cut to the chase.

Those are the same types of comments I heard as a young feminist back in the early '70s...that just because one is offended by a naked woman selling cars, perfume, clothes, or yoga crap that we don't need, there must be something "wrong" with our outlook, there is something "wrong" with us. We were patted on the head with the comment "lighten up, honey, it's no big deal."

Yes, it IS a big deal in the larger context.

The larger context is not that nudity is used to sell a yoga product (and a half-naked woman is used in the latest issue to sell a Yoga Journal conference) -- the problem is that naked women are STILL used to sell everything. As Cyndi Lee said at Roseanne's blog: "It is NEVER okay to use women’s bodies to sell ANYTHING EVER. Not in Yoga Journal or any other medium. If you don’t get this, then learn about the awful things that are being done to women all over the world right now because people view them as objects.”

Lasater's letter started a powerful discussion on the commodification and values implicit in yoga ads. What is interesting to me is how so many of the commenters on elephant journal and Facebook got caught up in the nudity issue and thereby missed the essential point: that Lasater's letter was a question on "where the magazine is now and where it is headed." If she attacked anything, it was the status quo. To those people who can't see that, I say take off your blinders.

We've become blind to the use of women's bodies in advertising, whether it is "artistic" or not, and our blindness is avidya, i.e., "not seeing." Yoga is supposed to be the means by which our blinders are removed so that we can awaken from our avidya.

As Gloria Steinem asked in 1990, can't we do better than this?

Anne Cushman asked the same question in 2003 with her article in the Shambhala Sun, "Yoga Chic and the First Noble Truth." Anne says that yoga and meditation are ultimately about turning our eyes away from the airbrushed images of the outside world and looking deep within our own hearts.

"It's not that there's anything wrong with these yoga pin ups, in and of themselves...The problem comes when we start to compare ourselves with these glossy images and imagine how utterly happy and fulfilled we would be if we looked like that....

So lately, I'm looking for a different kind of image to inspire my practice. The book I'm shopping for would show pictures of all sorts of people doing yoga and meditating. There would be old people, fat people, scarred people, profusely hairy people, people with bad skin and big noses, people with thighs riddled with cellulite, people with droopy breasts and flabby thighs and faces etched with lines from hard living. There would be people with cerebral palsy, people gone bald from chemotherapy, people paralyzed by drive-by shootings, people who'd lost limbs in wars. Some people would do the poses perfectly. Others would do them clumsily, propped up on sandbags and bolsters, unable even to touch their fingertips to the floor.

All of us would be reflected in this book's pages."

Why are we satisfied with the status quo?

For me, yoga is a vehicle for transformation and that value is lost when we settle for the old, stale paradigms repackaged as "progressive" or "enlightened."

In an effort to market their cigarettes to women in the late 1960s Virginia Slims used the ad slogan "you've come a long way, baby."

Have we?

what is tantra?

"Tantra" is a word that gets thrown around a lot in yoga circles. It's a word that many American yogis have become familiar with via Sting who claims that he can get it on for hours because of tantric sex (see the comments that follow in YogaDork's post.)

I don't think there is anyone who has done as great a disservice to tantric yoga as Sting because of his comments. The whole sex thang is about 1% of what tantric yoga is about. Once Sting and tantra were on Oprah you knew it was going to be all downhill after that. IMO, if this culture's attitude about sex wasn't so f*cked up in the first place (pun intended), there wouldn't be all the giggle-snorts with the mere mention of the word "tantra." ("Oh yeah, you mean THE SEX!!" slobber, slobber...)

Then there is John Friend who is sometimes referred to as "Tantra Lite." In the NY Times article about him that is burning up the yoga blogosphere it states:

"Friend’s “dharma talks” — short sermons — are based largely on simplified tantric principles (not, he stresses, the ones relating to tantric sex): students learn that they are divine beings, that goodness always lies within, that by opening to God’s will — opening to grace, Friend calls it — 'you actually become vastly more powerful than the limited person that you usually identify with.'"

What I don’t understand is when people talk about Anusara yoga’s concepts such as “opening to grace”, etc.. I have heard more than a few yoga teachers say that they never heard those concepts before in their trainings and I really have to question that.

Isn’t all yoga about “opening to grace”? Isn't all yoga about moving beyond our limitations? Isn’t all yoga about opening the heart, surrendering, giving it up to something greater outside ourselves? At least for me it is and always has been. John Friend isn’t the first teacher to talk about such things, he did not invent these concepts, he merely repackaged them for mass consumption.

When I hear a yoga teacher say that they've never heard such things before it makes me even more thankful for my non-Anusara inspired teachers and how they taught and what they taught me. I've been blessed to have the teachers I've had.

Mark Whitwell says, "asana is hatha yoga, the non dual tantra of direct intimacy with Reality that is nothing but nurturing."

All yoga is nurturing. No one specific brand, no trademarks, just do YOUR YOGA.

So what is tantra? In his book Tantric Yoga and the Wisdom Goddesses, David Frawley writes that "Tantra can best be defined as an energetic approach to the spiritual path, using various techniques including mantra, ritual, pranayama, and meditation. It contains a devotional approach emphasizing the worship of the Goddess and her Lord, Shiva. It contains a way of knowledge, directing us to Self-realization and the realization of the Absolute. As such it is a complex yet integral system for the development of consciousness which has something for all those who are seeking the truth."

In my training "tantra" was never separate from hatha yoga. The word is a combination of "tanoti" and "trayati". Tanoti means "to expand, to stretch, to extend" and trayati means "to liberate or free". Therefore tantra (tan+tra) means to expand one's experience and awareness of everything, to extend the frontiers of apprehension beyond the material, thereby attaining spiritual knowledge and liberation.

Isn't that YOGA, no matter what brand name it is?

I learned that "tantra" means "to weave." Through weaving in certain breath and meditation techniques, we train up our system to become more sensitive to the subtle forces of prana or the vital life force. Through learning to control the prana in yoga you learn to control the mind.

Isn't that YOGA, no matter who trademarked it?


Taking a deep breath....SO......

What inspired this post was a Facebook discussion that followed the above photo. It is a photo I took at the Kumbh Mela of a baba whose arm has atrophied from his austerity, his extreme tapas. My caption to the photo was "no Tantra Lite at the Mela!" because the sadhus I met at the Mela were the real deal, the down and dirty tantric yogis.

Taking part in the Facebook discussion are Carol, blisschick, and Baba Rampuri, who's about as real of a yogi deal as you can get.

Talk amongst yourselves and leave a comment if you are inspired.....

##########

"blisschick: and the point of that would be...[i.e., the frozen arm]

Carol: Would actually really like it if someone could explain to me: What is this form of Tantra about, and what if any relationship does it have to anything that we call Tantra in this country?

L-S: these sadhus are devotees of Shiva and the upraised arm is a form of mortification or austerity, it's tapas. it's a way of showing extreme detachment from the body, transcending the body. other sadhus might stand day and night,... even while sleeping, or they sit in one place and stay sitting there, till they die.

Baba Rampuri: Wonderful photo! It is Naga Baba Amar Bharti Ji in this photo, he is a Naga Sannyasi, and a very close friend for many years. He is an "Urdhvabahu" meaning "raised arm", but this is a description not a sect. One of the main things distinguishing traditional yoga from American yoga is austerities, "tapas." It is a powerful means of obtaining knowledge and power. In one way, it's an extreme form of focusing will power, almost like saying, "Nothing is going to stop me in my quest! Not pain, not discomfort, not the attraction of the world, not even death! I don't need food, water, nor even air!" When I make disciples, and some of you know that we have 5 gurus, I always choose Amar Bharti Ji to join me as one of the five.

L-S: Carol, what is tantra in this country? In America, hasn't the phrase been mutilated, people taking a sensationalist approach encompassing only thinking about "sacred sexuality," with little reference to its true practice as a path to enlightenment? for me, hatha yoga IS tantra yoga because there is philosophy, meditation, and mantra and other practices. don't forget there is also Buddhist tantra in the Mahayana tradition.

of course American yogis aren't going to perform austerities like the Urdhabahu baba (who blessed me with his other hand!), or cover their bodies with ash and sit in cremation grounds to try to transcend their worldly attachment to life.

Baba Rampuri: Carol, these days Tantra means anything you want it to. In the West, it's normally a marketing tag for something to do with new age sexuality, or at best, new age psychology. In India, at it's worst, it is thought of as black magic. Yoga, as practiced in the West, has nothing whatsoever to do with Tantra as it is practiced in its high and low forms in India. At it's best, Tantra is the teaching that Shiva gives to Parvati regarding knowledge and immortality. The practice of this involves the connection of Sacred Speech with Knowledge and the corresponding withdrawal from the illusory perception of the world.

Carol: thank you so much, Linda-Sama & Baba Rampuri! I feel so fortunate to wake up & find so many answers to my question. If you are interested, here is a link to a Yoga Journal article that I think captures how I commonly hear Tantra described in the American yoga community: http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2240.

blisschick: It seems very much to me like a denial of the GIFT of this life. If transcending the body were meant to be a spiritual goal, why are we given bodies at all to begin with? (I know these statements will simply be perceived as me not getting it but I find this bothersome. I choose YES and this seems like a giant NO.)

Baba Rampuri: Christine, you are right, if it is his purpose to transcend his body, which it is not. He is pushing the envelope. He is using an extreme practice to get quick results. He is using his body in a way to acquire knowledge.

L-S: thanks for the clarification....I used the wrong word in "transcending"...yes, we have these bodies to use as vehicles for enlightenment (as the Buddha also taught about the "fathom-long body"), but these austerities (to me) show a non-attachment to the body, i.e., "non-attachment" being different from "transcending."

Carol, I scanned the YJ article and will read it more deeply later...but as for tantra in the US...I have heard people say that they never heard of the tantric concepts or even the word tantra before they studied with John Friend.

I find that a bit hard to believe. I don't know about anyone else, but I became familiar with tantric concepts from India from my teachers early in my yoga training. so I agree with Baba when he says that it seems that "tantra" can mean almost anything in American yoga. I also think many of the concepts have to be distilled in a different way for westerners. I mean, I've been to studios where the mere picture of Durga or Shiva on the wall makes people uncomfortable...how are they going to handle tantric ideas if a teacher talks about them?

blisschick, to me, tantric yoga is about "sacred body-fearless mind". Buddha taught that the path to enlightenment is in this body, watching body/breath, watching the feelings/felt senses, watching those mind objects that are our thoughts, and embodying the dharma, the ultimate truth of reality which is impermanence. those are the four foundations of mindfulness, and that is how we can use our body, use the physical asana practice to realize deep truths."

bad yoga?

"Expand. Evolve. Grow. Forget not the goal.

Awake. Achieve the goal."

Swami Sivananda

Let's see....in a "modern" yoga class Swamiji would be told his yoga is "wrong".....

Oh my! His legs aren't straight in locust!

He has a rounded back in his forward fold!

Look at his hand position in shoulderstand! He must not know what he's doing! Shame on his yoga teacher for allowing him to do that! His fingers MUST point up, not turned out to the side, that's not right! He is seriously going to injure himself!

In a "modern" yoga class Sivanandaji would also be told to put his elbows closer together in his shoulderstand and a teacher would immediately run up to put a strap around his upper arms because that's the way his arms "should" be.

And Swami, look at your belly! You need a lot more CORE WORK! C'mon, Swami...get a Yoga for Abs DVD!

(shakes head...)