Ultimately, you are the one

Within the past six weeks or so yoga was held accountable in the media for being a potential source of serious injury and a prominent yoga teacher was accused of abusing his role for sexual and financial gain.  In the May 2012 Yoga Journal, editor Kaitlin Quistgaard writes about this... I quote from the editiorial.

"If you cultivate awareness as you move through asanas or meditate, you begin to notice your expectations, reactions, desires, and all kinds of emotional and behavioral patterns.  Over time, as you observe patterns that do and don't contribute to your well-being, and as the discipline you develop on the mat flows over into the rest of life, you will often find yourself making healthier choices.  This is such a common phenomenon that yoga has become celebrated as an agent of positive change... But yoga itself isn't the change agent.  YOU ARE!!  Yoga doesn't set intentions for you, nor dictate whether your practice encourages more compassion, or more ego.  Yoga is like a language that can be used to communicate a lot of different ideas; its effect depends on who is speaking it...  Yoga isn't some benevolent deity at whose feet you can throw yourself and hope to be taken care of.  The practice of yoga, like everything in life, requires you to be discerning, to take responsibility for yourself, to listen to the voices that question whether the instruction is right for your body or whether that behavior is one that will ultimately benefit you and others around you.  Yoga is a powerful vehicle for change.  Fortunately, it can only take you in the direction you're steering.  It's essential to reflect on where you want to go."

Then in the same vein... said a different way, but the meaning is the same.  This is from the Daily OM from March 23, 2012 which my friend Bev forwarded to me the other day. 

"We carry within us everything we need to know to make progress on our paths...  The path of the spirit is often defined as a journey with a goal such as the fabled pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  However, most of us know that getting what we want only makes us happy for a moment, and then the happiness passes until a new object of desire presents itself.  Joy is a permanent aspect of our inner selves and not separate from us at any point.... So when we find ourselves on our path, not knowing which way to turn and wishing for guidance, we can turn to ourselves.  We may not know the right answer rationally or intellectually, but if we simply ask, let go, and wait patiently, an answer will come.  The more we practice this and trust this process, the less we will look outside ourselves for teachers and guides for we will have successfully become our own."

Finally in an interview with Coleman Barks, Bill Moyers asks him... "What is ecstasy?"  He answers:

"When I was a child in Chattanooga, seven or eight years old, I remember sometimes in April when that spring gold light would come at the end of the day and just be there for about ten minutes.  That gold time, well, I could hardly stand it as a child.  I would lie down and hug myself, and my mother and father would be playing bridge with the Penningtons.  Lying on the floor hugging myself, I'd look at her and I'd say, "Mama, I've got that full feeling again," and she'd say, "I know you do, honey."  So I grew up in an ecstatic world in which it was okay to lie on the floor and hug yourself or maybe just sit out on the bluff and watch the river."