The discussion I participated in on LinkedIn about the American “Yoga circus” continued for many days. Part 1 of my contribution to this discussion is posted in this blog [intlink id=”156″ type=”post”]here[/intlink]. Part 2 is posted [intlink id=”172″ type=”post”]here[/intlink]. A number of the people involved in this discussion were, in my experience, fixed on the idea there was something “wrong” about the way yoga is taught and commercialised in the world today. Of course, one could presume and say I am fixed on the idea that there is nothing wrong with it.
Actually I could make a case for either side of the debate. The are plenty who have heard me discrediting the current state of affairs in the world of yoga classes, props, fashions, teacher trainings, et cetera. In this discussion on LinkedIn I took up the position I did because my intention is to provide a potentially liberating perspective to someone who has expressed they are being disturbed and limited by the perspective they currently live with.
To someone who is still under the spell of yoga commercialism, who does not know Yoga beyond the realm of a kind of trendy exercise class, I would very likely be heard elucidating what is dysfunctional about this world of yoga commercialisation and fashions. I would not do this because there is something innately “bad” or “wrong” about the American yoga scene; rather I would do this because being ignorant of what waits beyond yoga commercialism represents a limitation in consciousness. It is a manifestation of that limitation. There is another possibility, a possibility that is more life-giving, more liberating, more in alignment with the reality of Yoga.
Much in the same way we gently guide a child who is starting to show signs of walking. We don’t help this child to get up and walk because there was something “wrong” or “bad” about crawling around on the ground. In the same way we don’t condemn the condition whereby a child cannot communicate through the language of words, and yet all encouragement and assistance is provided when the child shows signs of wanting to talk, and later of wanting to read and then to write.
If someone was to start telling me that there is something fundamentally “wrong” with young children not being able to walk or talk, I would have to take the position that it is not “wrong” and is all part of the unfolding Perfection. If they were to take the position that the state of a 1 year old represents the full experience of what it means to be Man, I would have to take the position that it is not, that it has limitations, and that greater possibilities exist. Similarly when people believe the overall state of Man in the world today is the ultimate, I simply must point out that it is not—that relative to what is possible, Man’s current state of being is barely a few steps beyond conception and, for some, still very much in the allegorical womb.
My interest—and therefore the position I will take—is an interest in the Truth. A Truth which is in accordance with my particular experience of reality. Of course my own perception of reality has its fair share of limitations. But it is far enough advanced (in terms of exclusivity) that I can take the position of guide or teacher to those living with even greater limitations than I; and, similarly, I take the position of student when in the presence of those whose limitations are even less than my own.