The New Spiritual Slavery
“We are all one”. “There is no you”. “That is just your ego”. “That is just their/your pain speaking.” All these sayings have become the opiate of the spiritual masses. The new religion. A new way of getting people to shut up and allow injustice. They are being used in the same way plantation owners used Jesus to placate slaves. It is being used in the same way that missionaries used God to sooth Africans as they stole their land and their children. I am not saying these aphorisms are not true. I am saying they are being used to pacify the unrest that people feel deep in their bones.…
Forgiveness + Responsibility
You can forgive someone and hold them responsible. You can love someone and seek justice for that person’s abhorrent actions. People often use Jesus as an example of forgiveness. Well, there is the “turn the other cheek” Jesus and there is also the revolutionary Jesus. The Jesus that spoke up against a corrupt system and was hated and eventually killed for it. The Jesus that went into a temple with a whip, made by his own hands, turning over tables and kicking out charlatans. This Jesus spent his time with people that normal society had cast aside. If you agreed to change your actions, he would heal you. If you…
Lessons From a Drunk Spiritual Teacher
There is a story about a drunk spiritual teacher told in some tantra and wisdom traditions. For the purpose of this blog, I will paraphrase it and make it super westernized. There was a student who was in line to take over the lineage when his teacher died. He had been studying with his teacher for over 20 years and had never once been invited to his teacher’s house….until now. He was super excited. He dressed up in his best clothes and picked the perfect gift for his teacher. Probably some prayer shawl made of unicorn tears. He knocked on the door. When his teacher opened up, cigarette smoke was…
With Me or Against Me
People are asking, “Why is there a culture of silence in Yoga?” Something that often makes people go silent is “all or nothing” and “with me or against me” thinking. It is the idea that everything is black or white and you have to choose a side. If folks don’t want to choose a side, they will often just go silent. When the person speaks up, they get crucified by both sides for not choosing. This results in shutting down the conversation and shutting down the person. You can hate someone’s choices around a particular event but totally still love and respect everything else about them. You can love your…
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My Answer To Kino: Would You Still Love Me If I Don’t Handstand Anymore?
Kino posted an article today, “Would You Still Love Me If I Don’t Handstand Anymore?” My answer is “yes” because I do not choose teachers based on the poses they can do. Even though the yoga world at large has not followed suit, I outgrew that years ago. If someone believes that achievement in physical asana constitutes dedication to practice or greater knowledge of yoga, they either don’t really practice that much or they change studios, styles of yoga or teachers too often. It only takes a few years of hanging around in the same yoga rooms with the same students and the same teachers to see that this is…
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It Is So Much Easier To Tell You To Change
It is so much easier to tell someone else or an organization to change than to actually change ourselves. How many times have you made a statement that Ashtanga, the government, your job, your yoga studio should change but you cannot even clean out your closets without having a meltdown? For most people, switching careers, cities, boyfriends or hairstyles is a harrowing ordeal, but your democracy, that should change overnight. Not only should everyone change but they should do it smoothly and quickly without disrupting YOUR life. Hmm…how realistic is that? I have been yearning for change in my own life and I have made no steps in any direction.…
Yogini’s Path To Motherhood
Guest Post by Liat Pakes As of today, I have been practicing one year of motherhood. I never thought that this role would suit me or that I would find in it such contentment. We are a wandering family and currently we are living in Andalucía Spain. I would love to say that “I am a wandering yoga teacher” but honestly I am mainly a “wandering mother”. Here and there I teach but for the most part I am my own teacher. I am learning to let go of the “Yoga teacher” image and accept that my physical practice has changed. Today I practice Asanas 3-4 times a week for…
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What You Don’t Know, Makes You Dangerous
Before you make that statement on social media, before you write that blog post, stop. Ask yourself, do you have all the information? Do you understand the subject outside of your own cultural biases? Are you listening to only one side? Every day, I gain more of an understanding of why some teachers and Patanjali tell us to pick a method and stick with it. Reason 1-so we don’t dig shallow wells. Reason 2-so we don’t get confused. Yoga is not one long unfractured story where the facts perfectly follow one after the other. That is like saying that American history is White history and just following the line of…
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Yoga Will Not Keep Bad Things From Happening
Yoga is not an inoculation against bad things. It is the science of learning how to deal with bad things when they happen. If you are lucky, you start to view “bad” things as just events and you don’t label them at all. On my last post, someone commented and asked, “how can you hurt yourself when you are practicing Ahimsa?” Easy. Most people don’t wake up in the morning and say. “I feel like hurting myself today. I really want to get in a car accident, maybe get a cold, catch my husband in bed with his co-worker, rip my hamstring, and have to bail my son out of…
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Random Ashtanga Stuff That Has Been Driving Me Up The Wall
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Ashtanga Yoga For the Modern World
