One of my favourite blogs is called The Shift Has Hit the Fan. The latest post there (click link in first sentence to visit) begins like this:
As some of you may or may not know, my yoga article got picked up by Elephant Journal a few days ago and after a few thousand hits, several hundred FaceBook shares and many, many comments on EJ as well as Reddit, I think a few details need to be clarified.
Intrigued, I checked out the Elephant Journal comments, many of which defended the American version of yoga. The first time I visited, I was able to read the article and the comments, but when I returned just now, I was greeted by this:
I was unable to pull the comment that said something to the effect: “I am a yoga teacher in America. If I didn’t advertise, I couldn’t make any money,” but I was able to pull some of the sidebar ad illustrations off the site and have scattered them throughout this post. Sorry, I haven’t included links to the sites, but if you go to Elephant Journal, you can visit the sites, buy some hot yoga gear, join an American-style yoga group and attend an exciting yoga event. Hey, if you’re a guy, you might even score with one of those hot yoga chicks! If you’re a girl, you might meet a yogi with 6-pack yogi abs! If you’re bisexual, you can have a field day! No matter what your sexual orientation may be, you can score with yoga and become enlightened at the same time!
This is going to sound bloody self-righteous, but it’s the way I feel, so here goes:
Back in 1969, I dropped out of college and became a yoga instructor at a fledgling yoga retreat in the lower Sierra Mountains of California. I did that for two summers and then quit in disgust. I didn’t have a problem with people paying to attend the retreats, but I did have a problem with my growing awareness that the American “swami” who ran the retreat wasn’t all he pretended to be. I also had a problem with the growing awareness that I wasn’t all I thought I was. This hit me between the eyes one evening after I led a group meditation and someone bowed down to me and called me her guru. I was young, I was in terrific shape and I was dedicated to yoga, but I sure as hell wasn’t a guru.
I haven’t been posting here lately. That’s largely because I can’t find anything positive to share in the world of “higher consciousness.” Everywhere I look online, spirituality is mixed with sales hustle and in my opinion, the two just don’t mix.
Anyway, since I can’t in good conscience hustle sales on this site, I’ve been focusing my attention on my 2 other blogs, Sihanoukville Journal and Writing Resources. I’m in no position to preach to anybody, but I agree with the yoga teacher who posted a comment on another blog I like. They said they have a day job and teach yoga for free on weekends because they feel their practice would be tainted if they started thinking of it as a career. When I tried advertising here, I found myself thinking more about ad copy and less about spirituality, so I’ve removed all but the ads for Transparent Corp and some books I like. My writing career is my day job and the money I make from ads on my websites adds a little extra income and helps keep me up with the times in SEO.
Okay, I’ve had my say. If meeting hot chicks is your yoga goal, take it from me, it works. I could have scored with that girl who wanted me to be her guru, but an annoying tendency towards integrity prevented me from taking advantage of the opportunity.
I think for sincere seekers, it’s all but impossible to NOT get jaded or disgusted by the scene, yoga or otherwise. If you ever get the chance to read up on Derrick Jensen’s work, particularly “Endgame”, he really takes this faux-environmentalism and “conscious capitalism” to task, how it’s really corporations (again) who use the green (or spiritual) movements to target specific niche markets, that by convincing Jane Doe that these reusable maxi-pads ir really going to stop landfills and solve global poverty when all it does is make someone new some more money and the aforementioned problems continue to worsen.
Wow! I’m so glad I wrote this post. I’d never heard of Derrick Jensen before. I couldn’t watch any videos, but I read his “premises” just now and was blown away. He put it so clearly and succinctly. If I hadn’t written this, I may never have heard of him. Thanks!
I know your Youtube isn’t working but when it does:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtuxHVD4Srw
Jensen’s books, “Language Older Than Words”, “Endgame Vol I and II”, “What We Leave Behind” and “Culture of make Believe” are MUST-reads.
I’m finally watching the Jensen video now. It’s brilliant. Thanks!
Thanks for this post, Rob. My hope is that if enough of us keep repeating this truth, people who also know it, but are afraid to write about it, will declare themselves openly.
Thanks, Kris. You’re the person who has that beautiful Searching for Fernando site, aren’t you? Anyone who stumbles across this comment, here’s the url: http://searchingforfernando.wordpress.com/
This amazing documentary relates a lot to this topic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZX82wOM9lo&feature=player_embedded
My Youtube is glitchy at the moment, so I can’t watch this or any other video, but I look forward to watching it. Thanks so much for the link.
You have all the same benefits you have in a regularHot Yoga
practice. There’s benefits of
calming the mind, that mind body connection… With the hot, you get the added benefits of
detoxification for our body systems, all of our organs, our circulatory system, our
lymphatic system.practise are main way to developed hot yoga otherwise no man connot reached his hot yoga.