yogalila

2.14 te hlada paritapa phalah punya apunya hetutvat

Iyengar:  According to our good, bad or mixed actions, the quality of our life, its span, and the nature of birth are experienced as being pleasant or painful. 

Taimni: They have joy or sorrow for their fruit according as their cause is virtue or vice.

Carrera:  The karmas bear fruits of pleasure and pain caused by merit and demerit.

This sutra further explains the karmic law of cause and effect.  Iyengar says that to minimize the imprints of our actions, we should “plan a yogic, disciplined way of life”. 

Taimni says “The effect is always naturally related to the cause and its nature is determined by the cause”.  He disputes the orthodox conceptions of heaven and hell because pleasure is considered a virtue and pain a vice in this idea. 

Carrera points out that this sutra explains the word experiences – “our successes and failures, the obstacles and unexpected lessons we encounter, the friends and foes, and how much we might suffer or rejoice are all contained in that simple word”. 

Anxiety under authority: the teacher problem.

The guru (the teacher) is one subject about which I thought I had very little to say. I've always had a problem with authority figures and I think of myself as being resistant to guidance -- sort of.  I don't follow too well, not even on the dance floor.  My mode of learning is more uneasy assimilation from odd and differing sources than adherence to a system, theory, idea, person, animal, whatever.  At least that's the way I see myself.

And here I am, in Buenos Aires, spending the months of July and August.  With my husband.  Studying Spanish with the gifted teacher Martha Berman.  And I'm feeling sad that my home yoga studio in Brooklyn is closing and my relationship with both my yoga teachers (Jonathan Fitzgordon and Marissa Nielsen Pincus) will be strained, interrupted or disturbed in some way.  And I'm over 60 and that's an advanced age, perhaps, to be so involved with teachers, especially for someone who balks at external discipline. 

And I think back to some of the wonderful, nurturing and inspiring teachers I've had in my life:  from high school English teacher Jesse Troupe, who not only got those of us in advanced classes to stretch ourselves but also took over the senior remedial reading class and got half of those students to apply for college, to my university and grad school art professors Clare V. Dorst and Vincent Longo.  All of them were able to give something individual to me as a student and they're all part of my thought and reaction patterns.

I still believe that the real learning takes place through assimilation and it's the mixing of forces and elements (internal and external) that make up the process of learning.  When I frame my daily yoga process on my laughably inadequate travel mat and soar into my handstands, that seem so much more fraught at home I think about my teachers.  And I hear Marthas voice in my dreams sometimes, correcting my Spanish.  And I think about the process of teaching and learning.

I'll never be a disciple and wouldn't want to be.  But I see a lot of stuff that's not just me when I look myself in the eye.

Drawing from DayBooks.

Feet of lotus, feet of clay

My first yoga teacher was a devoted student of the guru central to one of the most well known scandals in yoga in North America, Kripalu founder Amrit Desai. This was my first encounter with someone who had truly – and literally - bowed at the feet of her guru and experienced the deep spiritual connection and love flowing between guru and student. As most people now know, Desai transgressed those boundaries of spiritual connection and love by sleeping with some of his students. As a married man who demanded celibacy of his followers, he shattered the community he built, leaving disillusioned, grieving students in the wake of his actions.  Though this is a matter of public record detailed in books such as Stephen Cope’s Yoga and the True Self, nevertheless, what sticks most in my mind is the love and devotion my teacher continued to feel for him, even after that betrayal, even after knowing all that she did, the underlying sense of forgiveness of his wrongs and gratitude for his teaching.

It brings me to wondering – what does this teach us about how we see our teachers, and our ability to separate the good of what they teach from their inevitable human frailty?  Is it even necessary to make this separation – can we accept that even amongst the ideals and principles they aspire to, imperfection is inevitable? 

Even without acknowledging our regular teachers as gurus – however we choose to make that distinction – we may still expect some degree of inspiration and role modeling.  We expect some degree of moral accountability, whether by showing respect to students by showing up on time and being prepared for class, or living responsibly and showing a sense of community involvement or leadership.  Most teachers I know are householders teaching yoga part time and juggling classes with family, school, and other jobs. All inspire me with their commitment, their personal choices, their honour and integrity. Perhaps, by not elevating them to figures of devotion, it is easier for me to learn from them, and continue to respect them.

We tell ourselves we are too modern, too independent, too cynical to fall into an attitude of devotion, but perhaps subconsciously, something within us may still wish to bow at the lotus feet of the guru, and in that attitude of devotion, discover those feet are of clay.  And perhaps a shift is needed in the attitude of the student: If we see a guru as a teacher who can bring the student from darkness into light (and we can interpret that as bringing knowledge to ignorance if we wish), who can educate and elevate, then perhaps we can stay free of the sense of submission and devotion that sets up artificially high expectations of their behaviour.  Even without the extremity of Desai’s behaviour, we may still be disillusioned by teachers who are constantly injured, who experience breakdown of relationships, who aren’t vegetarians, who don’t look like a yoga journal cover model - who don’t give us what we expect.  We may ask ourselves if we can still learn from this teacher. And so this is where we take our responsibility in perception and expectation.  Take a step back, listen with your ears, watch with your eyes, bend and fold in the way your teacher asks, and then bow to the guru that silently witnesses, and guides and informs your actions and response; be guided by the guru within.

2.13 sati mule tadvipakah jati ayuh bhogah

Iyengar:  As long as the root of actions exists, it will give rise to class of birth, span of life and experiences. 

Taimni:  As long as the root is there it must ripen and result in lives of different class, length and experiences. 

Carrera:  With the existence of the root, there will also be fruits:  the births of different species of life, their life spans, and experiences. 

Iyengar says that our current condition stem from our past actions (karma) and paint the experiences we meet in this life.  The fruits of these actions are called samscaras which means an imprint or impression. 

Taimni says that Patanjali classifies experiences under three areas – class, length of life, and pleasant or unpleasant experiences.  By class, he mans the environment one is born into.  Length of life affects how many experiences someone can have in that particular lifetime (but according to Taimni that person will be reborn so a short life is like “going to bed early”).  “Pleasant or unpleasant experiences” has to do with how the person perceives and reacts to a particular experience.  For example, a wealthy person may have a miserable life, being very unhappy from beginning to end, while a poor person may have a rich happy life. 

Carrera builds on this saying that our karma doesn’t mean that we have no choice in the direction of our lives.  “Our choices create new karmas all the time.  The future is rooted in our present thoughts, words, and deeds and exists as a universe of infinite possibilities”. 

2.12 klesamulah karmasayah drsta adrsta janma vedaniyah

Iyengar:  The accumulated imprints of past lives, rooted in afflictions, will be experienced in present and future lives.

Taimni:  The reservoir of Karmas which are rooted in the Klesas brings all kinds of experiences in the present and future lives. 

Carrera: The womb of karmas has its roots in these obstacles, and the karmas bring experiences in the seen (present) or in the unseen (future) births. 

I have some notes from this sutra from my classes with Edwin Bryant.  In the margin it says: “Before I act, should I consider how the effect of this action my influence the level and quality of my existence?”

Karma is the universal law of cause and effect.  Iyengar says that our actions are the “seed of future sorrows and pleasures which we experience both in this life and in lives to come.”

Sri Hariharinanda (another translator of the sutras) says “ one’s reservoir of karma is analogous to a seed; desire, greed and lust are shoots from the field; life is the plant and life’s pain and pleasure are the flowers and fruits.”

Taimni says “Each thought, desire, emotion and action produces its corresponding result with mathematical exactitude and this result is recorded naturally and automatically in our life’s ledge”.  I read a book a few years ago called Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert that describes the phenomenon from a biochemical point of view. Everything we do, every thought we have, has a biochemical reaction in the body.   I have put this into practice in a simple way - I have made a promise to myself that I will speak the truth.  This means not telling those white lies to make things more convenient for me.  It is sometimes very hard for me to do this.  For example, I won’t tell the kids some white lie so they will do what I need them to do.  If I have an acquaintance that did something to offend me and they ask me about it, I’ll tell them in a way that is clear and un-hurtful.  You get the idea.  I can tell you this has made a difference in my quality of life. 

Carrera compares karma to the concept of sin in the Bible.  “A man reaps what he sows” (Galations 6.7).  He points out that the concept of karma can be unsettling – it is not some outside force causing your suffering but your past actions.  He says “all experiences of pleasure and pain are and have always been in our own hands”.

2.11 dhyanaheyah tadvrttayah

Iyengar:  The fluctuations of consciousness created by gross and subtle afflictions are to be silenced through mediation. 

Taimni: In the active state, they can be destroyed by meditation

Carrera:  Their active modifications are to be suppressed by meditation.

Iyengar says the afflictions come in three intensities:   gross, subtle, and the subtlest of subtle.  Tapas (devoted discipline) eradicates the gross afflictions. Svadhyaya (self study) eradicates the subtle afflictions.  Isvara pranidhana (surrender of oneself to God) eradicates the subtlest afflictions. 

Taimni clarifies this sutra in that he feels that mediation is the pivot point to destroying the klesas, but that Kriya Yoga is the tool to use. He also mentions tapas, svadhyaya,and Isvara pranidhana as part of Kriya Yoga.  Mediation he says can include “reflection, brooding over the deeper problems of life, changing habits of thought and attitudes”.   He says again that Klesas must be “attacked as a whole” because they are expressed in many ways.  If we attack one expression the Klesa may show up in another expression. 

Carrera that klesas or obstacles are referred to in Sutra 2.4 as intercepted or sustained.  “Meditation averts awareness away from the obstacles, which gradually wither from lack of attention”. 

The Guru in the Corporation

Recently, we saw a job posting for a yoga clothing retailer titled "Community Guru."  The description said the employee's duties would be essentially to build brand awareness, network, and connect people to their stores to drive retail.

Outside the walls of this particular company, we generally call that role a "Brand Manager."  So why did this company buck the standard nomenclature (while still hewing to the standard job description) and call this role "Guru"?  What's in a name, indeed?

If we go by the fairly standard definitions of the word "Guru," it is clear that the word carries some weight.  While there is a slangier use, context is key.  If an accountant says that one of her colleagues is the firm's "tax guru," then it is reasonably unlikely that you are going to get spiritual guidance along with advice on your deductions.  But when a retailer specifically targets the yoga community -- a market that has a strong (if sometimes undefined) spiritual side -- what are they trying to say when they label their employee a guru?

Westerners also have, as Elizabeth Gilbert has noted, a "sketchy" relationship with the concept of the guru.  After all, becoming a student of a guru often means surrendering your free will, partially or totally.  Westerners, especially those of us from North America, are not very good at surrendering - especially to someone who looks an awful lot like another fallible human being.  Marry that with some high-profile stories of self-proclaimed gurus being nothing more than charismatic hucksters, and I return to my original question: why this name for this role?

When you consider the question on a literal level, it seems like it may be unwise to cast an employee of a retailer as a influential spiritual sage who might - just might - be a sophisticated con artist.  If you consider it in a more casual light as an attempt to make a linguistic bridge to the retailer's customers, it seems cheap and superficial.  Think about it: if you were a Christian bookseller, would you rename your brand manager role "Brand Bishop"?  

2.10 te pratiprasavaheyah suksmah

Iyengar:  Subtle afflictions are to be minimized and eradicated by a process of involution. 

Taimni:  These, the subtle ones, can be reduced by resolving them backward into their origin. 

Carrera:  In their subtle form, these obstacles can be destroyed by resolving them back into their original cause (the ego). 

Iyengar says the five afflictions can be dormant or highly active, or can alternative.  He says attachment to life is the root of all afflictions.  He is a the king of metaphors: “If a seed becomes parched, it cannot germinate; so one must render an affliction sterile by tracing it back to its source”.  He says the source is the mind and yoga – the process of involution – should be directed towards the seer. 

Taimni talks about completing erasing the potential of the Klesas.  For example, we may be skilled at staying calm but there is still a small seed of anger inside us.  Can we eradicate that seed? He says until Avyida (ignorance) is destroyed, the seeds, however small will still be there. “This means that no freedom from the subtlest forms of the Klesas is possible until full enlightment”.

Carrera clarifies dormant to mean “too fine to be clearly identified by the intellect.  He says the “light of the Self”  will clear out the obstacles. 

Gurus as Guides

We at yogalila have had this conversation about gurus before.  So, when we decided to reflect on it fairly intentionally for the month of July, I figured I knew where it was going.  We'll see ;)

I would like to come out in defense of at least the idea of a guru.  Moreover, I will suggest that most of the people here who claim not to like gurus, when you think of the concept slightly differently, actually have gurus.  And on some level, why wouldn't you?  All guru means is "teacher."  And the only reasons not to have a teacher are if you already know everything  -which certainly no one here is claiming- or if you're in a place where you can't or don't want to learn anything more for a little while.  There can be very good reasons for that, I think, but I imagine that feeling is episodic in a person's life.  Most of us will flow in and out of having a guru.

Maybe an analagous story will help us.  Barely 18-year-old Andrea goes to college, an innocent abroad, if ever there was one.  I'm wandering around the university bookstore, looking for the books for my courses, and I almost melt down from excitement.  There are piles and piles of books -for Russian language, and calculus, and English history, and anthropology, and philosophy, and heaven knows what else.  And I thought "Oh my GOD, people get to know and study all of these things."  Seriously, only finances kept me from purchasing dozens more books than I, strictly speaking, needed.  I didn't really believe that buying the book was sufficient to give me the knowledge inside it, but somehow it would give me access to the knowledge.

Left alone, I would probably have drifted from one thing to another, delighting in the newness and the richness of inquiry, and the world we live in.  (OK, I was REALLY innocent then, but arguably it hasn't gotten much better!)  Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed, and an orderly structure -a loose structure by college standards, but a structure nonetheless- was imposed upon me.  And I got a different kind of experience from that structure -the delight of digging deeply into one field and really making it mine, deep in my bones.  And to do that, I had to metaphorically sit at the feet of the scholars who had come before.  What those gurus (scholars) knew that I did not yet, was that critical thinking requires disciplined thinking.  You have to be trained to do it; otherwise you're just sounding off -annoying others and embarrassing yourself. 

Yoga works like that for me.  It's more complicated -and possibly more risky- to have a yoga guru because it involves the body and the spirit as well as the intellect.  Nonetheless, yoga is such a rich body of knowledge that without a guide I don't see how we could make sense of it all.  It would take too long.  We would spend precious time re-discovering things that are already known.  And we would probably get hurt in the process.

But people get hurt because they have gurus, you say.  Yes, they do - sometimes.  But I have two things to say about that.  One might be mistaking that look of starry-eyed wonder that can happen at the beginning of any exciting inquiry with turning over one's life to the guru.  They might look the same on the outside, for a little while anyway, but they are very different.  Maybe try to give the students a little more credit.  Maybe they are perfectly competent, intelligent people who are simply reveling in a discipline that is new to them.  Conceding that one is a beginner and has much to learn from someone can be a sensible course of action -particularly when it's true.  Humility and respect when one is out-gunned in the expertise department only make sense.  And the person who is humble and respectful in the yoga studio can turn right around and command respect in another venue.

And the flip-side to that concern is that gurus will inevitably disappoint us.  Probably they will.  The sub-text to that concern is actually what concerns me, though.  Did you really expect that they wouldn't?  What's that about?  Gurus are just people.  Of course, they are all flawed, and some are spectacularly flawed.  Gandhi had, to put it delicately, lapses of brahmacharya.  That doesn't mean that he did nothing worthy of respect, or that I have nothing to learn from him.  The Dalai Lama has probably done something wrong, but I think I could sit at his feet and learn a thing or two.  It seems to me that the fact that we can confidently say, "I accept this part of what you are telling me, and I emphatically reject that bit" is because someone, somewhere, taught us to be critical thinkers.  We all have gurus all the time, and we do that without losing ourselves at all.    Quite the contrary, we come into ourselves, if we choose our gurus well.