What we bring to yoga...

Reading from Monday, April 9, 2012 yoga class

About a month ago, I was in St. Louis and went to an afternoon session of a weekend yoga workshop by Mary Paffard.  I wrote about her in an earlier blog... anyway, she has a newsletter and the following is from that newsletter.

Recently I was asked to teach a class to a group of young CEO's.  This was the most unpleasant teaching experience of my life!  They were power yogis, and in relatively good shape.  I tried to put a blanket under the head of one of them, whose chin was at an alarming angle in a reclining position.  He refused the blanket and hissed at me: "I don't do props!"  They wanted a different type of yoga--work me hard yoga and just tell me what to do so I can dominate my body.  The issue of push and control was glaring here and not exactly what I was intending on encouraging.  What we bring to yoga is just as relevant as what we expect from yoga.  How can we divorce our lifestyles from what we do on the mat?  If you add the kind of push or be damned attitude to a ridiculous reverence for "postures", then all your intuitive responses are deadened and you have signed on for evangelist yoga.

I received some letters from yoga practitioners who are incarcerated explaining why they do yoga.  They touched me with their sincerity.  Last year, I had the privilege of meeting these men and some remarkable volunteers who have maintained a rich yoga and meditation program at this prison for many years. 

John (a young man who will be in prison for a long time for a violent crime) finished his piece explaining how after initial resistance, yoga had saved him, from himself, "The simple act of being present with other people who guide me, void of judgment, has allowed me to feel safe in my own skin."  One day, he realized this as he was in child's pose in the chapel where the weekly yoga classes take place.  A fight broke out in the corridor.  He could hear it and..."I was shocked.  Not at the fight, rather at my reaction.  I felt no typical fear.  No desire to jump up and find a corner in the room.  I felt safe and proud of my emotional control.  I felt a deep sense of pity for the people involved in the altercation.  They did not feel the peace and solace I did in the moment.  They did not understand.  I hope one day they do."

Mary ends with this poem by Tukaram, a 17th century Indian sage and poet

Certainty

Certainty undermines one's power, and turns happiness
into a long shot.  Certainty confines.
Dears, there is nothing in your life that will not
change--especially your ideas of God.

Look what the insanity of righteous knowledge can do:
crusade and maim thousands
in wanting to convert that which
is already gold
into gold.

Certainty can become an illness
that creates hate and greed

God once said to Tuka,
"Even I am ever changing-
I am ever beyond Myself,
what I may have once put my seal upon,
may no longer be the greatest truth.


I am going to be taking some time off from teaching.  The last Monday class will be April 30, 2012.   The last Tuesday class will be April 24, 2012.