During our practice I noticed a yoga class sitting nearby where the practitioners pretty much talked for 90 minutes. The practitioners all looked young, fit, intelligent and at least superficially self-aware. But I could sense from my periodic glances from a distance that no yogic cultivation was going on the whole time, although they did sit in meditation for a few minutes at a time. This was confirmed when the yoga group disbanded after my class completed the second round of the Long Form and we moved over to our usual practice ground that they had been occupying. There was a palpable cloud of dis-eased energy over the grass which one of my students immediately absorbed and experienced as sharp pain within this body. Thus I took time to teach him and the rest of the class five yogic methods of dispelling foreign energy from the body ranging from purely mechanical to purely telepathic--without the use of reflective surfaces since we were out of doors. If the dis-eased group had been practicing any form of yoga correctly, tangible negative residue would not have been left in their locale. Thus I instructed the class to perform the third round of the Long Form at 3x normal speed in order to (1) safeguard the students so that they wouldn't absorb (through slow-moving meditation) the effluvium lingering over the grass and (2) to dissipate the effluvium and thoroughly exorcise the space.
I have great respect for all yogic traditions when they are well-practiced and effectively healing and empowering the participants--and all traditions have a karmic trajectory that moves forward and upward ratchet-like--i.e., with periodic minor set-backs and digressions. But what we witnessed was a self-indulgent talk-fest without any noticeable practice, which resulted in observable false pride, vain worship and mental masturbation that left the same (albeit weaker) psychic pollution as physical masturbation. I personally detested having to subject my students to cleaning up other beings' psychic ejaculation.
While I along with the rest of the community of Tai Chi instructors have extolled the virtues and benefits of all forms of yoga practice for decades (for I have rented space and given workshops in every yoga studio in Los Angeles since the mid-1980's), Saturday morning's experience has caused me to stand up against the popular tide and yell to my Indian yoga brethen, calling for a return to the strictest discipline in enforcing the highest of standards of instruction. With the MacDonalds-ization of yoga training in the United States over the past 15 years, where today yoga instructors are "certified" after as little as 18 months of training, I vote that yoga should roll up its faddish rubbery mat of commerce and revert back to being a totally esoteric art the way it was up until the 60's--open only to select initiates of authentic Indian spiritual traditions actively presided over by a bona fide guru/master of yoga, who has spent a life-time in training and actually has something to teach. While I pray that what we experienced Saturday morning was not indicative of how this country is practicing yoga, I'm afraid that it was a sign of the times. Because of its over-commercialization in the great American tradition, the quality of yoga instruction has degenerated through dilution and perversion to the point of being served up as weak cups of "tea" to go along with this or that new age teacher's "sympathy"--or worse, as we saw on Saturday.
To practice any form of Eastern yogic exercise without the supervision of a qualified master or guru makes one prone to many errors and pitfalls--and I quote from W.Y. Evan-Wentz's classic translation of "Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines":
"Simply to believe a religion to be true, and to give intellectual assent to its creed and dogmatic theology, and not to know it to be true through having tested it by the scientific methods of yoga, results in the blind leading the blind, as both the Buddha and the Great Syrian Sage have declared."
Thus I pray that the Yoga industry goes bankrupt so that the practice of Yoga can be taken out of the hands of the money-changers and put back into the temple, where it belongs, and everyone else goes back to aerobic forms of exercise, the "Thigh-Master" and Tae-Bo. For partaking in the commercial exploitation of a spiritual art (yoga) is not only a hindrance but also a regression on the path to spiritual liberation. I also hope that the so-called "New Age" phenomenon will finally disappear with all its loony, burlesque, indolent, and debauched forms of spiritual practice. Twenty-five years is enough.
"There is no such thing as the new consciousness. There is only the old one remembered." -- Swami Satchinanda
All that moves well moves without will. All skilfulness, all strain, all intention is contrary to ease. Practice a thousand times, and it becomes difficult; a thousand thousand, and it becomes easy; a thousand thousand times a thousand thousand, and it is no longer Thou that doeth it, but It that doeth itself through thee. Not until then is that which is done well done.
-- Aleister Crowley
I have great respect for all yogic traditions when they are well-practiced and effectively healing and empowering the participants--and all traditions have a karmic trajectory that moves forward and upward ratchet-like--i.e., with periodic minor set-backs and digressions. But what we witnessed was a self-indulgent talk-fest without any noticeable practice, which resulted in observable false pride, vain worship and mental masturbation that left the same (albeit weaker) psychic pollution as physical masturbation. I personally detested having to subject my students to cleaning up other beings' psychic ejaculation.
While I along with the rest of the community of Tai Chi instructors have extolled the virtues and benefits of all forms of yoga practice for decades (for I have rented space and given workshops in every yoga studio in Los Angeles since the mid-1980's), Saturday morning's experience has caused me to stand up against the popular tide and yell to my Indian yoga brethen, calling for a return to the strictest discipline in enforcing the highest of standards of instruction. With the MacDonalds-ization of yoga training in the United States over the past 15 years, where today yoga instructors are "certified" after as little as 18 months of training, I vote that yoga should roll up its faddish rubbery mat of commerce and revert back to being a totally esoteric art the way it was up until the 60's--open only to select initiates of authentic Indian spiritual traditions actively presided over by a bona fide guru/master of yoga, who has spent a life-time in training and actually has something to teach. While I pray that what we experienced Saturday morning was not indicative of how this country is practicing yoga, I'm afraid that it was a sign of the times. Because of its over-commercialization in the great American tradition, the quality of yoga instruction has degenerated through dilution and perversion to the point of being served up as weak cups of "tea" to go along with this or that new age teacher's "sympathy"--or worse, as we saw on Saturday.
To practice any form of Eastern yogic exercise without the supervision of a qualified master or guru makes one prone to many errors and pitfalls--and I quote from W.Y. Evan-Wentz's classic translation of "Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines":
1) "Cessation of thought-processes may be mistaken for the quiescence of infinite mind, which is the true goal." 2) "Meditation without sufficient preparation is apt to lead to the error of losing oneself in the darkness of the unconsciousness." 3) "Sense perceptions [or phenomena] may be mistaken for revelations [or glimpses] of Reality. 4) "A mere glimpse of Reality may be mistaken for complete realization." 5) "Weakness of faith combined with strength of intellect are apt to lead to the error of talkativeness." 6) "Strength of faith combined with weakness of intellect are apt to lead to the error of narrow-minded dogmatism."
Similarly, Carlos Castaneda's teacher don Juan corrected him when he thought he was at a level of "not doing" when in fact he still had a life-time of "doing" still ahead of them.
Gasan once wrote:
"The poor student uses his teacher's influence. The average student admires his teacher's kindness. The good student grows strong under his/her teacher's guidance."
Tai Chi Master Cheng Man-Ching, the last disciple of Yang Cheng-fu, when asked what are the most important factors in mastering Tai Chi Chuan, answered: Of the three things--natural talent, hard work, and correct teaching--"correct teaching" is the most essential. Lack of natural talent can be made up for with hard work; but both hard work and natural talent without correct teaching, will gain a student absolutely nothing--even after a lifetime of practice."
--as related by Master Benjamin Lo
Without proper yogic instruction and without practical and adequate understanding of the (spiritual) Doctrine that is activated by the yoga, one is liable to appropriate the exoteric philosophies and religious trappings of the East in service of one's ego and fall into the error of religious self-conceit. Without correct yogic teachings there can be no proper yogic practice; and without proper yogic practice, all Eastern religions and philosophies stay exoteric, dormant and ineffectual, as the great scholar-yogin-initiate W.Y. Evans-Wentz reminded us:Similarly, Carlos Castaneda's teacher don Juan corrected him when he thought he was at a level of "not doing" when in fact he still had a life-time of "doing" still ahead of them.
Gasan once wrote:
"The poor student uses his teacher's influence. The average student admires his teacher's kindness. The good student grows strong under his/her teacher's guidance."
Tai Chi Master Cheng Man-Ching, the last disciple of Yang Cheng-fu, when asked what are the most important factors in mastering Tai Chi Chuan, answered: Of the three things--natural talent, hard work, and correct teaching--"correct teaching" is the most essential. Lack of natural talent can be made up for with hard work; but both hard work and natural talent without correct teaching, will gain a student absolutely nothing--even after a lifetime of practice."
--as related by Master Benjamin Lo
"Simply to believe a religion to be true, and to give intellectual assent to its creed and dogmatic theology, and not to know it to be true through having tested it by the scientific methods of yoga, results in the blind leading the blind, as both the Buddha and the Great Syrian Sage have declared."
Thus I pray that the Yoga industry goes bankrupt so that the practice of Yoga can be taken out of the hands of the money-changers and put back into the temple, where it belongs, and everyone else goes back to aerobic forms of exercise, the "Thigh-Master" and Tae-Bo. For partaking in the commercial exploitation of a spiritual art (yoga) is not only a hindrance but also a regression on the path to spiritual liberation. I also hope that the so-called "New Age" phenomenon will finally disappear with all its loony, burlesque, indolent, and debauched forms of spiritual practice. Twenty-five years is enough.
"There is no such thing as the new consciousness. There is only the old one remembered." -- Swami Satchinanda
--And it takes devoted hard work--not talk--to remember it. --t.d.
All that moves well moves without will. All skilfulness, all strain, all intention is contrary to ease. Practice a thousand times, and it becomes difficult; a thousand thousand, and it becomes easy; a thousand thousand times a thousand thousand, and it is no longer Thou that doeth it, but It that doeth itself through thee. Not until then is that which is done well done.
-- Aleister Crowley
