It seems to me that yoga has become or is becoming another form of exercise and or a form of relaxation - well of course it is both of these things and a whole lot more.
We get 'stressed' and we seem to get over 'stressed' for various reasons.
Stress unfortunately for all of us is part of living - where would we be without it? If life was easy we would not be inspired to evolve would we - we would wither and die of boredom.
Anyway the point I am trying to make here is that although it is nice to be chilled and relaxed it is not possible to be that way all of the time - the expression 'get real' seems appropriate here. We get stressed - get over it - we get emotional and upset form time to time - get over it!
Yoga is an ancient technology for the purpose of transcendence of the mundane towards super consciousness - how many times have you experienced super consciousness?
Sadly Yoga seems to have become a vehicle for people to make a lot of money - the big shots of the so called world of yoga start telling us what it is we are meant to be doing as long as we keep handing over the money - WAKE UP PEOPLE!!
Who do you think you are that you need - anybody - to tell you what to do? The answers are tight under your nose. Read the old books on yoga - read different books by different people on yoga and see how most if not all of them disagree with each other.
Oh it has to be done the way of Patanjali or it has to be done this way or that way - SHUT UP!!
We have yoga heroes and hero worship and idiots who praise them in their funny little hats. They lie about themselves in order to make you give them your money - If you need them good luck you deserve everything you get including enlightenment!
"Old Hari Krisna he got nothing on you. Just keeps you crazy, with nothing to do" John Lennon.
Over the last few years there has been a general watering down of this amazing practice. Perhaps gyms were initially the cause of this, but yoga centres now seem to be contributing to this also. Over priced classes and workshops in generic centres are springing up everywhere, in London. People are being taught by ' teachers ' with very little experience except that at some point they may have been a dancer or gymnast, and those teachers who have many years under their belt are not headhunted , as would happen in almost all other fields. Nepotism seems to be the order of the day.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore we in the UK have this uncanny ability to negate our home grown yoga treasures for anyone who comes out of America. One of the most cynical aspects of this is the preachiness that often accompanies these ' teachers ' when it comes to saving our planet, and all the time these teachers are jetting all over the place.
" In my day as a novice yoga student it was essential that the teacher and student form a relationship. And that this relationship was paramount to the development of both. When reading about traditional yoga, going back to Krishnamacarya et al this was how the knowledge was passed on. Some may say, any yoga is good yoga. I don't agree. It seems to be any yoga, as long as the cash is coming in now. " Lili