William Broad – You seem to poo poo the spiritual aspect of yoga which is the essential part of yoga. When you divorce the physical from the spiritual then you are dealing with the ego only – I won’t get into it, but that’s what gets you into trouble. It’s you, not yoga, that makes you mis-step, feel less than, get injured.
When the ego drives the work in yoga (any part of it – BTW, yoga is not just the physical work – asana), then you get injured. You said it yourself – with all the pretty flexy girls in class doing crazy postures, you said, you couldn’t help but follow and try to match them. I would think that after 40 years of practice you would know better; You would see that you are imposing a structure (your own) onto the practice of yoga that isn’t really there. It’s only there because of your own need to impress or prove or something else – or the teacher’s need to push you for some reason (and that’s a different story).
Any teacher worth their salt would have let you know that you are treading into dangerous waters when you leave your own senses and become an instrument of your own ego. Yoga practice of any sort doesn’t look to highly on that sort of thing. It is you who’s deciding to go there; to deny the truth of your own reality…that your body may be too old or too much a guy’s body and not a young chickidees body to do the things they were doing! In fact, if you did yoga with the spiritual/philosophical aspect in mind you would have known that through your readings/teachings. But you obviously don’t.
Yoga is very scientific – traditionally. There is a reason for everything you do in the more traditional practices. You do get results. But when taught wrong through lack of knowledge or an imposing ego (teacher or you), it all can go horribly wrong.
Yes people have changed the practice of yoga – too much in my opinion. And really if you listen very closely, you will hear the little whine from those that change it for their own needs, into their own image. I say, you don’t have to change a thing.
Just because someone’s a teacher/guru doesn’t mean they know what’s what here or in India. The depth of the practice has been almost lost and we are usually paying lip service to someone else’s ego’s notion of what yoga is. That is wrong to me.
Changing the practice is thinking you know better. Changing the way we teach is recognizing the depth of ourselves. Much different. You can read thousands of books on yoga; they’re out there, go to a million classes there’s enough of those to go around too. If you are still looking without instead of within, in other words, looking for the wisdom outside of yourself instead of within:
“If he (she, my addition) is indeed wise, the teacher does not bid you enter the house of wisdom, but rather he (she) leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” Kahlil Gibran,
if you can’t find a good teacher to guide you to the truth of yourself, if you still think you know better instead of earnestly trying to shed all of your resistance to the teachings, if you treat yoga less than what it truly is and has to offer, you’ll never find what your looking for – – a deep, meaningful, challenging, mind-blowing, humbling, life-affirming and joyful life.
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