The downside of yoga and meditation
Posted by:
good enough
()
Date: September 04, 2013 11:38PM
Thought I would get this thread going again since it disappeared with the crash.
Re: The downside of yoga and meditation
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: September 05, 2013 01:57AM
Will transfer my essay here.
Thought Experiment -- what if yoga were run according to AA 12 Traditions -- "Principles before personalities?"
[forum.culteducation.com]
Thought Experiment -- what if yoga were run according to AA 12 Traditions -- "Principles before personalities?"
[forum.culteducation.com]
Re: The downside of yoga and meditation
Posted by:
openmindedsceptic
()
Date: September 05, 2013 02:38AM
One of the many articles available about Bikram Choudhury’s unsavoury side. Warning this piece is lengthy.
Inside the Bikram Yoga Scandals: Bikram Choudhury’s Accuser Speaks
by Scaachi Koul
August 13, 2013
How the case surrounding the founder of the popular hot yoga brand is intensifying with new allegations of harassment, discrimination, sexual assault and rape, which he denies. For the first time one of Bikram's accusers speaks to the media. The first article in a series.
Bikram Yoga, arguably the largest yoga organization in the world, is famous for its grueling sequence of poses—26 postures that require students to backward bend into teardrop-shapes, or balance their entire bodies on just a few toes—performed in a sweltering room dialed in at 40.6 degrees Celsius. But in recent months its leader, Bikram Choudhury, has been in the news for reasons altogether unrelated to the yoga training he founded in the ‘70s.
Between March and June, four complainants filed civil law suits variously accusing the 67-year-old guru of sexual assault, harassment, and sex-based discrimination. On Friday a fifth suit was filed against Choudhury, by Larissa Anderson, alleging sexual battery. The Los Angeles Police Department has confirmed that Choudhury is being investigated for sexual assault or rape in four of the five civil cases, and that the district attorney is reviewing the witness statements.
The latest charges stem from an incident in 2011, in which Anderson, a former Bikram instructor and studio owner, says that Choudhury sexually assaulted her during a teacher training seminar—and according to her, it wasn’t the first time. Anderson further alleges that, after she refused to have sex with Choudhury, his company, Bikram’s Yoga College of India, withheld the name of her affiliate studio from its main website (studios teaching Bikram’s methods must be licensed, at considerable expense), causing significant financial harm.
In an exclusive interview with Hazlitt—the first time any of the five complainants have spoken with the media—Anderson talked about her more than decade-long involvement with the Bikram community, which she described as cult-like; her personal relationship with Choudhury; and a previous alleged rape by the guru in 2006. “I struggle with the career that I’ve chosen and the yoga I’m passionate about,” she says. “At the same time, [because of] the cult culture, the community, the hierarchy at Bikram, it’s been tainted.”
*
Within the Bikram community, Choudhury has long been dogged by accusations of misconduct, including alleged harassment, sexual assault, racial slurs, and rape. Now, with five civil suits filed against him and multiple LAPD criminal investigations underway, the allegations have spilled beyond Bikram’s devoted network and into the news.
The legal challenges began in March, when Sarah Baughn, a former Bikram Yoga instructor and high-profile member of Choudhury’s inner circle, filed a civil suit against Choudhury for sex-based discrimination and sexual harassment. (At the time, Baughn’s allegations were reported on by The Telegraph, The New York Times, and the Daily Mail, among others.) Two months later, women identified as Jane Does 1 and 2 came forward with their own suits alleging Choudhury had raped them. In June, a former member of his legal team, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, filed a civil suit against him for sexual harassment, assault, and wrongful termination.
Jafa-Bodden’s suit, the fourth, could prove especially damaging to the guru; as Choudhury’s former head of legal affairs, many of the details in her statement appear to corroborate the other complainants’ accusations that he fostered an atmosphere of sex-based discrimination, harassment, racial bias, and intimidation. She claims that he also instructed her not to investigate incidents of alleged sexual assault. With the exception of Jafa-Bodden, all the complainants were at one time students or volunteers in Choudhury’s teacher training program. All the women filed their suits in California, home of Bikram’s Yoga College of India’s international headquarters.
Choudhury’s lawyer, Victor Sherman, tells Hazlitt that none of the claims—from Sarah Baughn, Jane Does 1 and 2, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, and Larissa Anderson—will hold up in court. “If anything had happened, this would have been with the police years ago, and nothing came until 2013,” he says. “These people think, aha, they’re going to jump on the gravy train. It’s not going to happen. He’s not going to pay anybody anything. He hasn’t done anything wrong, and he’s going to be exonerated.”
Sherman said that Choudhury’s legal team will be filing a response to Jafa-Bodden’s claim this week, and that they will be going to court for Jane Does 1 and 2 later this month. “These are malicious claims that are not going to stand up in court.”
Choudhury is at the helm of an international business empire with more than 600 studios, including 62 in Canada and more than 350 in the U.S. With earnings from speaking engagements, teacher training seminars, and franchising fees, his company’s annual revenues have been estimated from anywhere between $3.6 million US to—by Choudhury’s own estimation to The Guardian—”Millions of dollars a day, $10 million a month—who knows how much?”
Yet the statements filed by Larissa Anderson, Baughn, Jafa-Boden, and Jane Does 1 and 2 are remarkably similar, and, if proved true, remarkably damning. Beyond reports of sexual harassment and assault, what emerges from the affidavits is a picture of a powerful man, wielding significant influence over subjects who fear as much as they love him.
*
Larissa Anderson was 22 when she began attending classes at a Bikram yoga studio in 1998, hoping to break from a pattern of alcohol and drug abuse she blames on a sexual assault she suffered as a teenager. She credits Choudhury’s teachings, based on traditional hatha yoga, with initially helping to turn her life around after a troubled adolescence.
Anderson had always been physically active, but she says that the yoga provided a workout unlike any she’d experienced before. “I got a lot of stress relief, mentally and emotionally,” she says. “I was also looking to change some aspects of my life, and follow a path that was healthier. I felt that [Bikram] yoga was the right path for that.” She also appreciated the sense of belonging it gave her to a community with strongly shared values.
“When he says offensive things, a lot of people say that’s jut how Bikram is. ‘Don’t let him steal your peace,’” Anderson says.
In 2000, Anderson says she met the man behind the poses she had come to know by heart. Through her then-boyfriend—also a co-owner of the studio she practiced at in Seattle—Anderson says she was invited on a trip to Whistler, British Columbia, where she would spend time with Choudhury, his wife and business partner Rajashree, and their two adult-age children.
“He was waited on like a celebrity,” Anderson says of her first encounter with Choudhury. “He stayed up late, so people would rotate around spending time with him.” Choudhury asked her to make him a sandwich. Her first impression was that others only spoke in Choudhury’s company when spoken to. “He was treated god-like.”
According to Anderson, Choudhury was both intimidating and enticing. He talked loudly and with bravado, unafraid to sharply criticize or compliment those around him. He often told students he would “kill” them, meaning he’d transform their lives with the yoga. Even his laugh—a gentle chuckle—could feel familiar and warm.
She says she was already in love with the yoga but her meeting with Choudhury in Whistler left her with a profound impression of the man. Once she met the guru, she says, she knew she had found her calling. Eventually, she asked her parents to finance her Bikram teacher training in lieu of a college education.
In 2003, Anderson says she travelled from her native Washington State to La Cienega, in California, then the location of Bikram’s headquarters. (It has since moved to Los Angeles.) It was there, she says, that she witnessed Choudhury’s unorthodox teaching methods and the inappropriate atmosphere in which they were disseminated. “Boss,” as his students refer to Choudhury at teacher training, would make racist statements, and homophobic remarks about how all gay men get AIDS; Bikram devotees interviewed in the course of Hazlitt’s reporting, say that he also made disparaging remarks about biracial people and veterans of the U.S. army. Still, Anderson says, there was a sense at teacher training that it’s best to keep your head down and make it until the end of the nine-week program. Graduating, after all, was at the discretion of Choudhury and Choudhury alone. The threat of expulsion was ever-present, and there were no refunds. 1
“When he says offensive things, a lot of people say that’s jut how Bikram is. ‘Don’t let him steal your peace,’” Anderson says. “He talked a lot about religion, that he was more than Jesus Christ […] He would talk about gay people. He would talk about women. That they’re there to have sex with. That in order to keep a man, you have to keep your legs closed.”
Choudhury’s word is gospel. Anderson says that at his request, women brushed his hair and massaged his hands, legs, feet, and back, typically well into the early hours of the morning while he watched Bollywood movies. As multiple people have reported, this was a common scenario, something Choudhury asked of the women—rarely the men—who he wanted to be close to. Anderson says that he saw other women hoping to be picked by Choudhury. “Bikram said, ‘Oh I’m sore, my back hurts’ or ‘My hands hurt, I need somebody to brush my hair.’ Students—women—would be raising their hands, ‘Pick me, pick me.’”
Even with these intimate requests, Anderson says she didn’t have any truly negative interactions with the guru—she had already met him and his family, and was becoming a familiar face in Choudhury’s inner circle. Anderson successfully graduated at the end of the program, and went on to teach happily, at several studios in Washington, Colorado, and Chicago, where she also performed managerial duties.
In 2005, a year-and-a-half after Anderson’s graduation, Anderson’s then boyfriend—the studio owner who first introduced her to Choudhury—had a falling out with the guru. In the aftermath Choudhury demanded that Anderson pick a side in the dispute, calling her boyfriend a liar, manipulator, and “a bad person.” Anderson says she refused, and that for a time she felt shunned by the community that had once felt like family to her.
Choudhury’s lawyer, Victor Sherman, tells Hazlitt that none of the claims will hold up in court. “If anything had happened, this would have been with the police years ago, and nothing came until 2013. These people think, aha, they’re going to jump on the gravy train. It’s not going to happen.”
Anderson had designs on becoming a senior teacher, coaching in yoga competitions, even judging them. To do any of that, she needed Boss’s blessing. So, in 2006, Anderson called Choudhury to apologize and attempt to reconcile. According to Anderson, he said, “Okay, sweetheart.” He asked her to return to Los Angeles to spend some time with his family at their sprawling manor, reconnect, and take some yoga classes.
Anderson says that when she returned to headquarters, “it was like the last year and a half didn’t happen.” Everything was back to how it was before: staying at his home with his family, massaging his hands and feet as he requested, and taking advanced classes with former principal teacher and Choudhury’s right-hand-woman, Emmy Cleaves.
After dinner one evening in November 2006, Anderson says, Rajashree and the kids called it a night and went upstairs to bed. Choudhury allegedly asked Anderson to stay up with him on the main floor of the house to watch Indian movies. She says she agreed, but at around 1 a.m., exhausted from the day’s yoga training, said she wanted to go to bed. She says Choudhury asked her to stay a bit longer. He was seated on the couch; she sat on the floor in front of him, her back towards him.
Anderson alleges that Choudhury said something to her, she can’t remember what, but that when she turned to face him, Choudhury grabbed the back of her head and pulled her in for a kiss. She said no—”he did it again and I said no.” He tried a third time. “I pulled back and said I don’t want this kind of relationship with you,” Anderson says. “Then he got quiet and I thought, okay, that’s done.” But then he grabbed Anderson by the hand and took her into another room.
Anderson claims that she was so shocked by what was happening that she could hardly react. This was the home of her guru, a father figure who had enabled her to get beyond her difficult past: the sexual assault while a teenager, the drinking, the drugs. The alleged rape lasted for less than five minutes, was unprotected, and ended with Choudhury ejaculating inside of her. She says he then rose, pulled his underwear back up, and returned to the couch in the other room to watch the rest of the movie. “I was no longer in my body,” Larissa says. “I felt like I was watching it from above. I didn’t feel like I had a voice.”
She got up, adjusted her underwear and skirt, and went over to him to say she would be going to bed. “He said, ‘Okay, sweetheart.’” She climbed the stairs of his home and went into the bedroom she was staying in. “I did my best to fall asleep.”
*
As our subsequent stories will show, the apparent similarities between what Anderson says she experienced and the accounts of other complainants are striking the further you look into the legal documents. The women all allege they were drawn in by Choudhury’s charisma and magnetism—and the fact that he was the man behind a yoga they were passionate about—and they say they were torn by the prospect of leaving the community they were so deeply a part of.
Anderson says that even after her rape, she remained connected to the community, though to a lesser degree. She prepared to open her own Bikram studio in Kirkland, Washington, but no longer visited headquarters. Then in 2011, Choudhury offered her a job—her dream job: to work at Bikram headquarters. She says she couldn’t turn down the job she had been trying to get for almost 10 years. Besides, she was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from training to be a Bikram teacher and building her own studio, and she still believed strongly in his practice. She says she was doing what so many other people had done and told her to do: separating the man from the yoga.
Anderson agreed to come back to Los Angeles, and she says that shortly after Choudhury began to pursue an intimate relationship with her. “He wanted to get an apartment so we could be together,” she says, but she refused.
Then on October 31st, after a teacher training Halloween party, Anderson says she found herself alone with Choudhury in his hotel suite at around 1 a.m. while he was watching a Bollywood movie. According to the statement with her lawsuit, Choudhury asked Anderson to massage his feet, which she did. She alleges that Choudhury then asked her to massage higher on his leg, and asked if she wanted to touch him while gesturing at his penis, now visibly erect through his boxer shorts. Anderson claims she told him no. She alleges that Choudhury asked her, “Are you sure you don’t want to sleep with me tonight?” She was sure. When the movie ended, Anderson alleges that Choudhury tried to kiss her, but she said no again and got up to leave the room. According to Anderson, Bikram then forced her against a wall, pressed his penis against her, and attempted to kiss her more. He confined her to the room for 30 minutes.
At the time, Anderson says she had already received approval to start her affiliate studio, a process that is no easy feat: potential owners must pay a $10,000 non-refundable application fee, along with design and location plans, and then a slew of monthly fees that can total in the thousands. Anderson borrowed almost $250,000 from her parents’ home equity line of credit to pay for her studio. (The total cost was $211,619.)
Six months after the alleged assault, in May 2012, Anderson opened her studio. But despite its previous approval, and paying all the required fees, the studio never appeared on the list of accredited Bikram studios on the company’s website. Anderson claims this withholding negatively affected her business and she posted a loss of $58,617 in 2012.
Anderson talks about her allegations with conviction, never wavering on the details. Since the 2011 assault, she says, she’s been working with her doctor on symptoms of Posttraumatic stress disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. “I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been unable to work or interact with people,” she says. “I have anxiety triggers, I have to lock myself in my apartment and I cry for days. I have a hard time getting close to people. It’s pretty much affected every area in my life.” But in spite of everything she says happened to her, she’s still profoundly in love with the Bikram practice. She believes in it. She wants it in her life. She continues to run her studio, under the more general designation of hot yoga, though it still operates at a loss.
Anderson’s allegations appear to be consistent with rumours that many community members had been hearing for years. People interviewed for this story allege that Choudhury has sexually assaulted them, harassed them, broken up relationships, and generally abused his power. “If there was a CEO in this country that acted like Bikram,” says Elizabeth Winfield, who went through teacher training in 2011, and is well connected in the community, “he’d be run out of the country.”
Many in the Bikram community say they are afraid to comment on the allegations. Several sources interviewed for this story were hesitant to speak on the record. Some even believed that we were calling on behalf of Choudhury’s lawyers in an effort to solicit information regarding the pending lawsuits. Others simply refuse to acknowledge the allegations; they question the credibility of the complainants because, as in the case of Anderson and Jane Does 1 and 2, they stayed or returned to the community after the initial assaults or harassment allegedly took place.
As Winfield says, “They’re going to say, why did these girls go back? Why did Sarah [Baughn] go back after he tried to sexually assault her?” But to explain this, she says: “They loved the person. Bikram can be very endearing. There’s this dark side and the light side.”
An earlier version of this story stated that teachers were obligated to recertify every three years. Recertification is not mandatory, but studio owners decide whether they want their teachers to recertify or not. The story has been updated to reflect this change.
--
This is the first article in a multi-part investigative series looking at the Bikram empire and the scandals surrounding its founder.
To contact the writer email skoul@randomhouse.com
Find Hazlitt on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter
[www.randomhouse.ca]
Inside the Bikram Yoga Scandals: Bikram Choudhury’s Accuser Speaks
by Scaachi Koul
August 13, 2013
How the case surrounding the founder of the popular hot yoga brand is intensifying with new allegations of harassment, discrimination, sexual assault and rape, which he denies. For the first time one of Bikram's accusers speaks to the media. The first article in a series.
Bikram Yoga, arguably the largest yoga organization in the world, is famous for its grueling sequence of poses—26 postures that require students to backward bend into teardrop-shapes, or balance their entire bodies on just a few toes—performed in a sweltering room dialed in at 40.6 degrees Celsius. But in recent months its leader, Bikram Choudhury, has been in the news for reasons altogether unrelated to the yoga training he founded in the ‘70s.
Between March and June, four complainants filed civil law suits variously accusing the 67-year-old guru of sexual assault, harassment, and sex-based discrimination. On Friday a fifth suit was filed against Choudhury, by Larissa Anderson, alleging sexual battery. The Los Angeles Police Department has confirmed that Choudhury is being investigated for sexual assault or rape in four of the five civil cases, and that the district attorney is reviewing the witness statements.
The latest charges stem from an incident in 2011, in which Anderson, a former Bikram instructor and studio owner, says that Choudhury sexually assaulted her during a teacher training seminar—and according to her, it wasn’t the first time. Anderson further alleges that, after she refused to have sex with Choudhury, his company, Bikram’s Yoga College of India, withheld the name of her affiliate studio from its main website (studios teaching Bikram’s methods must be licensed, at considerable expense), causing significant financial harm.
In an exclusive interview with Hazlitt—the first time any of the five complainants have spoken with the media—Anderson talked about her more than decade-long involvement with the Bikram community, which she described as cult-like; her personal relationship with Choudhury; and a previous alleged rape by the guru in 2006. “I struggle with the career that I’ve chosen and the yoga I’m passionate about,” she says. “At the same time, [because of] the cult culture, the community, the hierarchy at Bikram, it’s been tainted.”
*
Within the Bikram community, Choudhury has long been dogged by accusations of misconduct, including alleged harassment, sexual assault, racial slurs, and rape. Now, with five civil suits filed against him and multiple LAPD criminal investigations underway, the allegations have spilled beyond Bikram’s devoted network and into the news.
The legal challenges began in March, when Sarah Baughn, a former Bikram Yoga instructor and high-profile member of Choudhury’s inner circle, filed a civil suit against Choudhury for sex-based discrimination and sexual harassment. (At the time, Baughn’s allegations were reported on by The Telegraph, The New York Times, and the Daily Mail, among others.) Two months later, women identified as Jane Does 1 and 2 came forward with their own suits alleging Choudhury had raped them. In June, a former member of his legal team, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, filed a civil suit against him for sexual harassment, assault, and wrongful termination.
Jafa-Bodden’s suit, the fourth, could prove especially damaging to the guru; as Choudhury’s former head of legal affairs, many of the details in her statement appear to corroborate the other complainants’ accusations that he fostered an atmosphere of sex-based discrimination, harassment, racial bias, and intimidation. She claims that he also instructed her not to investigate incidents of alleged sexual assault. With the exception of Jafa-Bodden, all the complainants were at one time students or volunteers in Choudhury’s teacher training program. All the women filed their suits in California, home of Bikram’s Yoga College of India’s international headquarters.
Choudhury’s lawyer, Victor Sherman, tells Hazlitt that none of the claims—from Sarah Baughn, Jane Does 1 and 2, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, and Larissa Anderson—will hold up in court. “If anything had happened, this would have been with the police years ago, and nothing came until 2013,” he says. “These people think, aha, they’re going to jump on the gravy train. It’s not going to happen. He’s not going to pay anybody anything. He hasn’t done anything wrong, and he’s going to be exonerated.”
Sherman said that Choudhury’s legal team will be filing a response to Jafa-Bodden’s claim this week, and that they will be going to court for Jane Does 1 and 2 later this month. “These are malicious claims that are not going to stand up in court.”
Choudhury is at the helm of an international business empire with more than 600 studios, including 62 in Canada and more than 350 in the U.S. With earnings from speaking engagements, teacher training seminars, and franchising fees, his company’s annual revenues have been estimated from anywhere between $3.6 million US to—by Choudhury’s own estimation to The Guardian—”Millions of dollars a day, $10 million a month—who knows how much?”
Yet the statements filed by Larissa Anderson, Baughn, Jafa-Boden, and Jane Does 1 and 2 are remarkably similar, and, if proved true, remarkably damning. Beyond reports of sexual harassment and assault, what emerges from the affidavits is a picture of a powerful man, wielding significant influence over subjects who fear as much as they love him.
*
Larissa Anderson was 22 when she began attending classes at a Bikram yoga studio in 1998, hoping to break from a pattern of alcohol and drug abuse she blames on a sexual assault she suffered as a teenager. She credits Choudhury’s teachings, based on traditional hatha yoga, with initially helping to turn her life around after a troubled adolescence.
Anderson had always been physically active, but she says that the yoga provided a workout unlike any she’d experienced before. “I got a lot of stress relief, mentally and emotionally,” she says. “I was also looking to change some aspects of my life, and follow a path that was healthier. I felt that [Bikram] yoga was the right path for that.” She also appreciated the sense of belonging it gave her to a community with strongly shared values.
“When he says offensive things, a lot of people say that’s jut how Bikram is. ‘Don’t let him steal your peace,’” Anderson says.
In 2000, Anderson says she met the man behind the poses she had come to know by heart. Through her then-boyfriend—also a co-owner of the studio she practiced at in Seattle—Anderson says she was invited on a trip to Whistler, British Columbia, where she would spend time with Choudhury, his wife and business partner Rajashree, and their two adult-age children.
“He was waited on like a celebrity,” Anderson says of her first encounter with Choudhury. “He stayed up late, so people would rotate around spending time with him.” Choudhury asked her to make him a sandwich. Her first impression was that others only spoke in Choudhury’s company when spoken to. “He was treated god-like.”
According to Anderson, Choudhury was both intimidating and enticing. He talked loudly and with bravado, unafraid to sharply criticize or compliment those around him. He often told students he would “kill” them, meaning he’d transform their lives with the yoga. Even his laugh—a gentle chuckle—could feel familiar and warm.
She says she was already in love with the yoga but her meeting with Choudhury in Whistler left her with a profound impression of the man. Once she met the guru, she says, she knew she had found her calling. Eventually, she asked her parents to finance her Bikram teacher training in lieu of a college education.
In 2003, Anderson says she travelled from her native Washington State to La Cienega, in California, then the location of Bikram’s headquarters. (It has since moved to Los Angeles.) It was there, she says, that she witnessed Choudhury’s unorthodox teaching methods and the inappropriate atmosphere in which they were disseminated. “Boss,” as his students refer to Choudhury at teacher training, would make racist statements, and homophobic remarks about how all gay men get AIDS; Bikram devotees interviewed in the course of Hazlitt’s reporting, say that he also made disparaging remarks about biracial people and veterans of the U.S. army. Still, Anderson says, there was a sense at teacher training that it’s best to keep your head down and make it until the end of the nine-week program. Graduating, after all, was at the discretion of Choudhury and Choudhury alone. The threat of expulsion was ever-present, and there were no refunds. 1
“When he says offensive things, a lot of people say that’s jut how Bikram is. ‘Don’t let him steal your peace,’” Anderson says. “He talked a lot about religion, that he was more than Jesus Christ […] He would talk about gay people. He would talk about women. That they’re there to have sex with. That in order to keep a man, you have to keep your legs closed.”
Choudhury’s word is gospel. Anderson says that at his request, women brushed his hair and massaged his hands, legs, feet, and back, typically well into the early hours of the morning while he watched Bollywood movies. As multiple people have reported, this was a common scenario, something Choudhury asked of the women—rarely the men—who he wanted to be close to. Anderson says that he saw other women hoping to be picked by Choudhury. “Bikram said, ‘Oh I’m sore, my back hurts’ or ‘My hands hurt, I need somebody to brush my hair.’ Students—women—would be raising their hands, ‘Pick me, pick me.’”
Even with these intimate requests, Anderson says she didn’t have any truly negative interactions with the guru—she had already met him and his family, and was becoming a familiar face in Choudhury’s inner circle. Anderson successfully graduated at the end of the program, and went on to teach happily, at several studios in Washington, Colorado, and Chicago, where she also performed managerial duties.
In 2005, a year-and-a-half after Anderson’s graduation, Anderson’s then boyfriend—the studio owner who first introduced her to Choudhury—had a falling out with the guru. In the aftermath Choudhury demanded that Anderson pick a side in the dispute, calling her boyfriend a liar, manipulator, and “a bad person.” Anderson says she refused, and that for a time she felt shunned by the community that had once felt like family to her.
Choudhury’s lawyer, Victor Sherman, tells Hazlitt that none of the claims will hold up in court. “If anything had happened, this would have been with the police years ago, and nothing came until 2013. These people think, aha, they’re going to jump on the gravy train. It’s not going to happen.”
Anderson had designs on becoming a senior teacher, coaching in yoga competitions, even judging them. To do any of that, she needed Boss’s blessing. So, in 2006, Anderson called Choudhury to apologize and attempt to reconcile. According to Anderson, he said, “Okay, sweetheart.” He asked her to return to Los Angeles to spend some time with his family at their sprawling manor, reconnect, and take some yoga classes.
Anderson says that when she returned to headquarters, “it was like the last year and a half didn’t happen.” Everything was back to how it was before: staying at his home with his family, massaging his hands and feet as he requested, and taking advanced classes with former principal teacher and Choudhury’s right-hand-woman, Emmy Cleaves.
After dinner one evening in November 2006, Anderson says, Rajashree and the kids called it a night and went upstairs to bed. Choudhury allegedly asked Anderson to stay up with him on the main floor of the house to watch Indian movies. She says she agreed, but at around 1 a.m., exhausted from the day’s yoga training, said she wanted to go to bed. She says Choudhury asked her to stay a bit longer. He was seated on the couch; she sat on the floor in front of him, her back towards him.
Anderson alleges that Choudhury said something to her, she can’t remember what, but that when she turned to face him, Choudhury grabbed the back of her head and pulled her in for a kiss. She said no—”he did it again and I said no.” He tried a third time. “I pulled back and said I don’t want this kind of relationship with you,” Anderson says. “Then he got quiet and I thought, okay, that’s done.” But then he grabbed Anderson by the hand and took her into another room.
Anderson claims that she was so shocked by what was happening that she could hardly react. This was the home of her guru, a father figure who had enabled her to get beyond her difficult past: the sexual assault while a teenager, the drinking, the drugs. The alleged rape lasted for less than five minutes, was unprotected, and ended with Choudhury ejaculating inside of her. She says he then rose, pulled his underwear back up, and returned to the couch in the other room to watch the rest of the movie. “I was no longer in my body,” Larissa says. “I felt like I was watching it from above. I didn’t feel like I had a voice.”
She got up, adjusted her underwear and skirt, and went over to him to say she would be going to bed. “He said, ‘Okay, sweetheart.’” She climbed the stairs of his home and went into the bedroom she was staying in. “I did my best to fall asleep.”
*
As our subsequent stories will show, the apparent similarities between what Anderson says she experienced and the accounts of other complainants are striking the further you look into the legal documents. The women all allege they were drawn in by Choudhury’s charisma and magnetism—and the fact that he was the man behind a yoga they were passionate about—and they say they were torn by the prospect of leaving the community they were so deeply a part of.
Anderson says that even after her rape, she remained connected to the community, though to a lesser degree. She prepared to open her own Bikram studio in Kirkland, Washington, but no longer visited headquarters. Then in 2011, Choudhury offered her a job—her dream job: to work at Bikram headquarters. She says she couldn’t turn down the job she had been trying to get for almost 10 years. Besides, she was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from training to be a Bikram teacher and building her own studio, and she still believed strongly in his practice. She says she was doing what so many other people had done and told her to do: separating the man from the yoga.
Anderson agreed to come back to Los Angeles, and she says that shortly after Choudhury began to pursue an intimate relationship with her. “He wanted to get an apartment so we could be together,” she says, but she refused.
Then on October 31st, after a teacher training Halloween party, Anderson says she found herself alone with Choudhury in his hotel suite at around 1 a.m. while he was watching a Bollywood movie. According to the statement with her lawsuit, Choudhury asked Anderson to massage his feet, which she did. She alleges that Choudhury then asked her to massage higher on his leg, and asked if she wanted to touch him while gesturing at his penis, now visibly erect through his boxer shorts. Anderson claims she told him no. She alleges that Choudhury asked her, “Are you sure you don’t want to sleep with me tonight?” She was sure. When the movie ended, Anderson alleges that Choudhury tried to kiss her, but she said no again and got up to leave the room. According to Anderson, Bikram then forced her against a wall, pressed his penis against her, and attempted to kiss her more. He confined her to the room for 30 minutes.
At the time, Anderson says she had already received approval to start her affiliate studio, a process that is no easy feat: potential owners must pay a $10,000 non-refundable application fee, along with design and location plans, and then a slew of monthly fees that can total in the thousands. Anderson borrowed almost $250,000 from her parents’ home equity line of credit to pay for her studio. (The total cost was $211,619.)
Six months after the alleged assault, in May 2012, Anderson opened her studio. But despite its previous approval, and paying all the required fees, the studio never appeared on the list of accredited Bikram studios on the company’s website. Anderson claims this withholding negatively affected her business and she posted a loss of $58,617 in 2012.
Anderson talks about her allegations with conviction, never wavering on the details. Since the 2011 assault, she says, she’s been working with her doctor on symptoms of Posttraumatic stress disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. “I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been unable to work or interact with people,” she says. “I have anxiety triggers, I have to lock myself in my apartment and I cry for days. I have a hard time getting close to people. It’s pretty much affected every area in my life.” But in spite of everything she says happened to her, she’s still profoundly in love with the Bikram practice. She believes in it. She wants it in her life. She continues to run her studio, under the more general designation of hot yoga, though it still operates at a loss.
Anderson’s allegations appear to be consistent with rumours that many community members had been hearing for years. People interviewed for this story allege that Choudhury has sexually assaulted them, harassed them, broken up relationships, and generally abused his power. “If there was a CEO in this country that acted like Bikram,” says Elizabeth Winfield, who went through teacher training in 2011, and is well connected in the community, “he’d be run out of the country.”
Many in the Bikram community say they are afraid to comment on the allegations. Several sources interviewed for this story were hesitant to speak on the record. Some even believed that we were calling on behalf of Choudhury’s lawyers in an effort to solicit information regarding the pending lawsuits. Others simply refuse to acknowledge the allegations; they question the credibility of the complainants because, as in the case of Anderson and Jane Does 1 and 2, they stayed or returned to the community after the initial assaults or harassment allegedly took place.
As Winfield says, “They’re going to say, why did these girls go back? Why did Sarah [Baughn] go back after he tried to sexually assault her?” But to explain this, she says: “They loved the person. Bikram can be very endearing. There’s this dark side and the light side.”
An earlier version of this story stated that teachers were obligated to recertify every three years. Recertification is not mandatory, but studio owners decide whether they want their teachers to recertify or not. The story has been updated to reflect this change.
--
This is the first article in a multi-part investigative series looking at the Bikram empire and the scandals surrounding its founder.
To contact the writer email skoul@randomhouse.com
Find Hazlitt on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter
[www.randomhouse.ca]
Re: The downside of yoga and meditation
Posted by:
openmindedsceptic
()
Date: September 05, 2013 02:51AM
Thinking of trying hot yoga? Read this first
DAKSHANA BASCARAMURTY
The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Jun. 19 2011, 4:00 PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Aug. 24 2012, 3:53 PM EDT
A group of 25 men and women fold their sweat-drenched bodies forward, clasping their heels with their hands. They're in a room set to about 41 C.
A young woman, her shoulders shaking, breaks from the pose and lies down on the yoga mat under her feet. Every inch of exposed skin is beaded with perspiration that won't evaporate. She looks overwhelmed.
The booming voice of a svelte yoga instructor cuts through the oppressive heat. "Maybe you feel a little bit nauseous sometimes. Maybe you feel a bit dizzy. Good. It's working. You're getting all the toxins out," she says.
At Bikram Yoga Bloor in downtown Toronto, students engage in what seems like athletic masochism (the practice's founder, Bikram Choudhury, refers to his studio as a "torture chamber") to "release their toxins" and treat myriad conditions including asthma, carpal tunnel syndrome and hypertension.
Students Ann Jervis, 57, and Hayley Dineen, 23, remember unpleasant first experiences with Bikram yoga, but stuck it out because of the perceived advantages of the practice.
But some health professionals question the efficacy of the trendy style of yoga, practised for 90 minutes in stifling heat.
"As a scientist, I wouldn't say there's a huge stock in sweating out your toxins," says Stephen Cheung, the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Ergonomics, whose area of expertise is heat stress. The body only releases them through sweat to a very limited extent, he says.
The extreme temperature and humidity in Bikram yoga and its less regimented spinoff Moksha yoga can be risky for those with heart conditions, as well as for those with low or high blood pressure in the normal range, says Nieca Goldberg, medical director of New York University's Women's Heart Program.
Review sites such as Yelp, yoga forums and Twitter are rife with tales of students feeling dizzy, passing out and being tended to by paramedics.
Bikram is no stranger to controversy: About six years ago, when it first gained popularity in North America, participants complained of injuries and pulled muscles. Doctors blamed the hot conditions, which sometimes allow students to stretch too deep.
But the dizziness and blackouts are of concern to Dr. Goldberg, a cardiologist, because hot yoga's proponents give students the impression that light-headedness is to be expected.
When Sheila Madsen attended her first Moksha yoga class in Toronto two years ago, she was overwhelmed by the heat and felt dizzy. She continued, because an instructor told her things would get easier. She says that since she could get through tennis practice and Pilates class without difficulty, she wondered why she was struggling so much at Moksha yoga.
"Some people do well in high levels of humidity. I do not," Ms. Madsen, 64, explains. "I couldn't get my heart rate down sometimes for half an hour, which is really dangerous."
She would go into "child's pose," a resting position, but the room's conditions made relaxing difficult. On four occasions, she left the 39 C room to recover. Then she quit.
The science behind fainting is simple. "Your blood vessels normally expand to go to your exercising muscles," Dr. Goldberg says. "There's an even magnified response when you're doing it in a very hot environment. That's taking blood away from the blood vessels that are going to your brain, so you faint."
She has treated otherwise healthy patients who fainted in hot yoga classes.
Dana Moore, co-owner of Bikram Yoga Bloor, says there have only been a few cases of fainting in the studio's two-year history. Instructors, trained in first aid, usually spot warning signs and guide students down onto their mats. And, as at all reputable studios, students must fill out a form disclosing any injuries, ailments or health conditions. Staff call new students to see how they're feeling within two days of their first class.
When a student faints, "we always recommend staying in the room and that is really more for the safety of the student," she says. "[Outside the room] no one's there to keep an eye on them."
But Dr. Cheung says, "That sounds completely counterintuitive to the whole point of fainting."
In a small study conducted at Dallas's University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 2002, researchers raised the body temperatures of nine test subjects and then tilted them upright to the point at which they'd faint. They conducted the same experiment again, but cooled participants' skin before and during the tilting, and found those subjects were able to tolerate standing.
In the case of fainting, Dr. Cheung says, "I would get them in a cooler room and … have cold towels to really cool their skin down."
Instructors say the body can tolerate the extreme heat of Bikram and Moksha yoga because sweating is its "natural air conditioner." It's not sweat itself, but evaporation of moisture off the skin, that cools the body down, Dr. Cheung explains. "If you're in a hot and humid environment, your ability to lose heat from sweating is hugely decreased because the air is already saturated," he says.
At Moksha Yoga Uptown in Toronto, manager Jen Blanko says variations in class size make it difficult to regulate humidity - which is supposed to be at 40 per cent. "If we have a class of 10 people, it's one thing. If it's 55 people, it's a totally different environment in there," she says.
At times the room's extensive exhaust system isn't enough, and instructors have to crack a window open, she says. But Ms. Blanko believes that on the odd occasion that a student has fainted, it has been the student's mistake - not eating before class or not properly hydrating. However, the studio does remove students from the room if they've fainted.
If a student mentions blood-pressure issues or heart disease, Ms. Blanko and her colleagues suggest they check with their doctors before they sign up for a class. Moksha Yoga Uptown's website notes that women in their first trimester of pregnancy should avoid the class if they haven't been practising hot yoga for at least six months. It also says children should not participate until their sweat glands have developed.
Dr. Cheung says that if patients feel dizzy in class, they should rest. "There's a fine line between what is discomfort and what is pain," he says. "This is supposed to be about health."
Hot yoga tips
- Don't starve yourself before class, but don't scarf down your lunch just before you go into the hot room. Avoid eating for two to three hours before class in order to give your body time to digest what you consumed earlier. If you forgot to eat, you can have something small (half a muffin or a banana).
- Avoid drinking coffee before class (it will dehydrate you).
- Drink plenty of water before and during class to make up for all the fluid your body will lose through sweat.
- You'll lose electrolytes (sodium and potassium, mostly) as you sweat, so add a pinch of salt, sugar and a squeeze of lemon (natural sources of electrolytes) to the water bottle you take to class. Coconut water and electrolyte tablets (which can be dissolved in water) are other good alternatives.
- If you have a history of irregular blood pressure or heart disease, talk to your doctor before you sign up for a class.
Sources: Bikram Yoga Bloor, Moksha Yoga Uptown, Bikram Yoga Hamilton Dundas
[www.theglobeandmail.com]
DAKSHANA BASCARAMURTY
The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Jun. 19 2011, 4:00 PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Aug. 24 2012, 3:53 PM EDT
A group of 25 men and women fold their sweat-drenched bodies forward, clasping their heels with their hands. They're in a room set to about 41 C.
A young woman, her shoulders shaking, breaks from the pose and lies down on the yoga mat under her feet. Every inch of exposed skin is beaded with perspiration that won't evaporate. She looks overwhelmed.
The booming voice of a svelte yoga instructor cuts through the oppressive heat. "Maybe you feel a little bit nauseous sometimes. Maybe you feel a bit dizzy. Good. It's working. You're getting all the toxins out," she says.
At Bikram Yoga Bloor in downtown Toronto, students engage in what seems like athletic masochism (the practice's founder, Bikram Choudhury, refers to his studio as a "torture chamber") to "release their toxins" and treat myriad conditions including asthma, carpal tunnel syndrome and hypertension.
Students Ann Jervis, 57, and Hayley Dineen, 23, remember unpleasant first experiences with Bikram yoga, but stuck it out because of the perceived advantages of the practice.
But some health professionals question the efficacy of the trendy style of yoga, practised for 90 minutes in stifling heat.
"As a scientist, I wouldn't say there's a huge stock in sweating out your toxins," says Stephen Cheung, the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Ergonomics, whose area of expertise is heat stress. The body only releases them through sweat to a very limited extent, he says.
The extreme temperature and humidity in Bikram yoga and its less regimented spinoff Moksha yoga can be risky for those with heart conditions, as well as for those with low or high blood pressure in the normal range, says Nieca Goldberg, medical director of New York University's Women's Heart Program.
Review sites such as Yelp, yoga forums and Twitter are rife with tales of students feeling dizzy, passing out and being tended to by paramedics.
Bikram is no stranger to controversy: About six years ago, when it first gained popularity in North America, participants complained of injuries and pulled muscles. Doctors blamed the hot conditions, which sometimes allow students to stretch too deep.
But the dizziness and blackouts are of concern to Dr. Goldberg, a cardiologist, because hot yoga's proponents give students the impression that light-headedness is to be expected.
When Sheila Madsen attended her first Moksha yoga class in Toronto two years ago, she was overwhelmed by the heat and felt dizzy. She continued, because an instructor told her things would get easier. She says that since she could get through tennis practice and Pilates class without difficulty, she wondered why she was struggling so much at Moksha yoga.
"Some people do well in high levels of humidity. I do not," Ms. Madsen, 64, explains. "I couldn't get my heart rate down sometimes for half an hour, which is really dangerous."
She would go into "child's pose," a resting position, but the room's conditions made relaxing difficult. On four occasions, she left the 39 C room to recover. Then she quit.
The science behind fainting is simple. "Your blood vessels normally expand to go to your exercising muscles," Dr. Goldberg says. "There's an even magnified response when you're doing it in a very hot environment. That's taking blood away from the blood vessels that are going to your brain, so you faint."
She has treated otherwise healthy patients who fainted in hot yoga classes.
Dana Moore, co-owner of Bikram Yoga Bloor, says there have only been a few cases of fainting in the studio's two-year history. Instructors, trained in first aid, usually spot warning signs and guide students down onto their mats. And, as at all reputable studios, students must fill out a form disclosing any injuries, ailments or health conditions. Staff call new students to see how they're feeling within two days of their first class.
When a student faints, "we always recommend staying in the room and that is really more for the safety of the student," she says. "[Outside the room] no one's there to keep an eye on them."
But Dr. Cheung says, "That sounds completely counterintuitive to the whole point of fainting."
In a small study conducted at Dallas's University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 2002, researchers raised the body temperatures of nine test subjects and then tilted them upright to the point at which they'd faint. They conducted the same experiment again, but cooled participants' skin before and during the tilting, and found those subjects were able to tolerate standing.
In the case of fainting, Dr. Cheung says, "I would get them in a cooler room and … have cold towels to really cool their skin down."
Instructors say the body can tolerate the extreme heat of Bikram and Moksha yoga because sweating is its "natural air conditioner." It's not sweat itself, but evaporation of moisture off the skin, that cools the body down, Dr. Cheung explains. "If you're in a hot and humid environment, your ability to lose heat from sweating is hugely decreased because the air is already saturated," he says.
At Moksha Yoga Uptown in Toronto, manager Jen Blanko says variations in class size make it difficult to regulate humidity - which is supposed to be at 40 per cent. "If we have a class of 10 people, it's one thing. If it's 55 people, it's a totally different environment in there," she says.
At times the room's extensive exhaust system isn't enough, and instructors have to crack a window open, she says. But Ms. Blanko believes that on the odd occasion that a student has fainted, it has been the student's mistake - not eating before class or not properly hydrating. However, the studio does remove students from the room if they've fainted.
If a student mentions blood-pressure issues or heart disease, Ms. Blanko and her colleagues suggest they check with their doctors before they sign up for a class. Moksha Yoga Uptown's website notes that women in their first trimester of pregnancy should avoid the class if they haven't been practising hot yoga for at least six months. It also says children should not participate until their sweat glands have developed.
Dr. Cheung says that if patients feel dizzy in class, they should rest. "There's a fine line between what is discomfort and what is pain," he says. "This is supposed to be about health."
Hot yoga tips
- Don't starve yourself before class, but don't scarf down your lunch just before you go into the hot room. Avoid eating for two to three hours before class in order to give your body time to digest what you consumed earlier. If you forgot to eat, you can have something small (half a muffin or a banana).
- Avoid drinking coffee before class (it will dehydrate you).
- Drink plenty of water before and during class to make up for all the fluid your body will lose through sweat.
- You'll lose electrolytes (sodium and potassium, mostly) as you sweat, so add a pinch of salt, sugar and a squeeze of lemon (natural sources of electrolytes) to the water bottle you take to class. Coconut water and electrolyte tablets (which can be dissolved in water) are other good alternatives.
- If you have a history of irregular blood pressure or heart disease, talk to your doctor before you sign up for a class.
Sources: Bikram Yoga Bloor, Moksha Yoga Uptown, Bikram Yoga Hamilton Dundas
[www.theglobeandmail.com]
Re: The downside of yoga and meditation
Posted by:
openmindedsceptic
()
Date: September 05, 2013 03:00AM
Covert Narcissists Hiding in Holiness–Yoga Divas–Spiritual Gurus
Posted on July 29, 2013 by Linda Martinez-Lewi, PhD
It has become much the trend to be “spiritual” these days. There are innumerable individuals who sincerely choose and follow a spiritual path that are genuine and sincere and work consistently to be more aware, more empathic and better human beings. I am not talking about these people. I am addressing those who play the role of spiritual teachers in many of its definitions today.
One phenomenon is the popular rise of the practice of yoga. There are studios popping up; special clothing and gear of every kind. Whole industries have arisen as a result of the popularity of this practice. This is not negative by itself but suddenly you have studios catering to the glamour and money side of yoga rather than the true practice. Among these are a number of what I call Yoga Divas. These are narcissists who teach and take yoga. There are yoga teachers and trainers of yoga students who present themselves as humble, genuine and holy. They may have studied the history, purpose and specific poses and understand this technically and teach their classes but their attention is not on the true purpose of yoga. Their aim is business and business only.
It is important for people to make a living if they are providing a valuable service. I am speaking about teachers who are charging astronomical amounts of money for classes and even more to those who want to become yoga teachers. Many teacher training programs are short on training and long on the expense. Beginners are not given enough hands on time or theoretical knowledge to learn the fundamentals of yoga. Hatha yoga is five thousand years old and requires a deep commitment on the part of the teacher and the student.They are not aware that there are narcissistic individuals who are waiting to offer them the full package–a few hours of training with a certificate at the end in exchange for high fees. The Yoga Diva is unconcerned about what her students are learning. She is rushing them through for the purpose of quick monetary reward for her. The idea is to get as many students as possible to increase her income not to teach the principles of this healing ancient practice.
As the Yoga Diva gains more and more recognition, her fees increase tremendously. Now she can command so much more money. Some yoga studios flourish on the backs of vulnerable underpaid employees. The Yoga Diva is extremely demanding and self entitled. She goes on vacations which she calls spiritual retreats (to let everyone know how holy she is), knowing she can leave her business in the hands of the her adoring followers.
Very similar are the attitudes, behaviors and actions of narcissistic spiritual gurus. These human embodied snakes take directly from the ideas of others, attractively package them and use the force and magnetism of their personalities to sell these goods. They offer a shortcut to reaching a higher consciousness over weekends often named “intensives.” The price tag on these “holy retreats” can cost in the thousands easily. I have known a number of individuals who have gotten into these unfortunate situations with phony yogis who are narcissists and even socialized sociopaths.
The manner, speech, gestures, choice of words of the covert narcissist are simultaneously cunning, clever and toxic, especially within this fake spiritual realm. Many individuals are psychologically desperate and emotionally starved and empty. They don’t know where to turn. Regular therapy has not worked for them. Now they turn to the spiritual world, thinking that those who follow these practices will help them to work through their psychological and emotional issues. They become victims of some of the worst covert narcissists–those who play the martyr, saintly role masterfully. They have been taking advantage of emotionally vulnerable and fragile individuals for decades. They know just how to play them. They look deeply into the spiritual neophyte’s eyes and draw them into their trust. That is the beginning of the hypnotic fusing that takes place. The new student becomes highly dependent on the guru and will spend any amount of money and time to be with this person whom he believes can free him from his emotional burdens and painful psychological symptoms, to experience a strong sense of self and personal confidence, to feel lovable. Empty promises are made but never met. The guru knows this going in each time. As long as spiritual guru plays his part well, he continues to attract followers who cast their hard earned money his way.
Learn from these tales of pseudo spirituality and covert narcissism. You will be prepared for whoever comes along and know immediately that he or she is wearing the costumes of holiness. Beneath the sacred robes and ingratiating mien is a snarling beast.
Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D.
[thenarcissistinyourlife.com]
Posted on July 29, 2013 by Linda Martinez-Lewi, PhD
It has become much the trend to be “spiritual” these days. There are innumerable individuals who sincerely choose and follow a spiritual path that are genuine and sincere and work consistently to be more aware, more empathic and better human beings. I am not talking about these people. I am addressing those who play the role of spiritual teachers in many of its definitions today.
One phenomenon is the popular rise of the practice of yoga. There are studios popping up; special clothing and gear of every kind. Whole industries have arisen as a result of the popularity of this practice. This is not negative by itself but suddenly you have studios catering to the glamour and money side of yoga rather than the true practice. Among these are a number of what I call Yoga Divas. These are narcissists who teach and take yoga. There are yoga teachers and trainers of yoga students who present themselves as humble, genuine and holy. They may have studied the history, purpose and specific poses and understand this technically and teach their classes but their attention is not on the true purpose of yoga. Their aim is business and business only.
It is important for people to make a living if they are providing a valuable service. I am speaking about teachers who are charging astronomical amounts of money for classes and even more to those who want to become yoga teachers. Many teacher training programs are short on training and long on the expense. Beginners are not given enough hands on time or theoretical knowledge to learn the fundamentals of yoga. Hatha yoga is five thousand years old and requires a deep commitment on the part of the teacher and the student.They are not aware that there are narcissistic individuals who are waiting to offer them the full package–a few hours of training with a certificate at the end in exchange for high fees. The Yoga Diva is unconcerned about what her students are learning. She is rushing them through for the purpose of quick monetary reward for her. The idea is to get as many students as possible to increase her income not to teach the principles of this healing ancient practice.
As the Yoga Diva gains more and more recognition, her fees increase tremendously. Now she can command so much more money. Some yoga studios flourish on the backs of vulnerable underpaid employees. The Yoga Diva is extremely demanding and self entitled. She goes on vacations which she calls spiritual retreats (to let everyone know how holy she is), knowing she can leave her business in the hands of the her adoring followers.
Very similar are the attitudes, behaviors and actions of narcissistic spiritual gurus. These human embodied snakes take directly from the ideas of others, attractively package them and use the force and magnetism of their personalities to sell these goods. They offer a shortcut to reaching a higher consciousness over weekends often named “intensives.” The price tag on these “holy retreats” can cost in the thousands easily. I have known a number of individuals who have gotten into these unfortunate situations with phony yogis who are narcissists and even socialized sociopaths.
The manner, speech, gestures, choice of words of the covert narcissist are simultaneously cunning, clever and toxic, especially within this fake spiritual realm. Many individuals are psychologically desperate and emotionally starved and empty. They don’t know where to turn. Regular therapy has not worked for them. Now they turn to the spiritual world, thinking that those who follow these practices will help them to work through their psychological and emotional issues. They become victims of some of the worst covert narcissists–those who play the martyr, saintly role masterfully. They have been taking advantage of emotionally vulnerable and fragile individuals for decades. They know just how to play them. They look deeply into the spiritual neophyte’s eyes and draw them into their trust. That is the beginning of the hypnotic fusing that takes place. The new student becomes highly dependent on the guru and will spend any amount of money and time to be with this person whom he believes can free him from his emotional burdens and painful psychological symptoms, to experience a strong sense of self and personal confidence, to feel lovable. Empty promises are made but never met. The guru knows this going in each time. As long as spiritual guru plays his part well, he continues to attract followers who cast their hard earned money his way.
Learn from these tales of pseudo spirituality and covert narcissism. You will be prepared for whoever comes along and know immediately that he or she is wearing the costumes of holiness. Beneath the sacred robes and ingratiating mien is a snarling beast.
Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D.
[thenarcissistinyourlife.com]
Re: The downside of yoga and meditation
Posted by:
openmindedsceptic
()
Date: September 05, 2013 03:08AM
Be Wary of the Master
Joslyn Hamilton, a former yoga teacher, is the co-founder of Recovering Yogi, a Web site forum for the spiritually disenfranchised.
Updated January 12, 2012, 10:33 PM
I’ve been practicing yoga for about 15 years and have worked in the yoga industry for 10. After reaching the point of jaded burnout, I co-founded the website Recovering Yogi with two fellow refugees of the yoga scene. I still practice yoga, but with my eyes open.
Worse than our narcissism as students is our willingness to cede our authority over ourselves to a yoga teacher.
I once worked for a popular “master teacher.” He ran a booming business selling yoga products, owned studios and led countless teacher training programs. I met thousands of sycophantic students who were completely enamored of his charisma. The starry-eyed deference with which they treated him belied the fact that he was, at heart, just a guy. He was a very good yoga teacher, but he wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. He had his own issues and blind spots, and sometimes these came out in his interactions with students and his staff. Some of his behavior was actually pretty unethical and, yes, narcissistic. Unfortunately, he’s not an anomaly in the world of big-name teachers.
It’s just another facet of our litigation-happy culture that we don’t like to take responsibility for ourselves. We choose deities to worship, whether they are Hindu gods or modern-day yoga celebrities. We think of yoga teachers as being perfect, regardless of their level of training or experience. It’s true that yogis can be competitive and vain, and that’s where a lot of injury happens. But worse than our narcissism as students is our willingness to cede our authority over ourselves to a yoga teacher or to group-think. That’s when we get hurt. When we listen to the teacher — instead of to our knee. There’s a complete lack of critical thinking.
One of my favorite teachers, Rusty Wells, has a mantra I love: “If it feels wrong; it is wrong.” At the end of the day, yoga is just a tool. It’s up to us to use it wisely.
[www.nytimes.com]
Joslyn Hamilton, a former yoga teacher, is the co-founder of Recovering Yogi, a Web site forum for the spiritually disenfranchised.
Updated January 12, 2012, 10:33 PM
I’ve been practicing yoga for about 15 years and have worked in the yoga industry for 10. After reaching the point of jaded burnout, I co-founded the website Recovering Yogi with two fellow refugees of the yoga scene. I still practice yoga, but with my eyes open.
Worse than our narcissism as students is our willingness to cede our authority over ourselves to a yoga teacher.
I once worked for a popular “master teacher.” He ran a booming business selling yoga products, owned studios and led countless teacher training programs. I met thousands of sycophantic students who were completely enamored of his charisma. The starry-eyed deference with which they treated him belied the fact that he was, at heart, just a guy. He was a very good yoga teacher, but he wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. He had his own issues and blind spots, and sometimes these came out in his interactions with students and his staff. Some of his behavior was actually pretty unethical and, yes, narcissistic. Unfortunately, he’s not an anomaly in the world of big-name teachers.
It’s just another facet of our litigation-happy culture that we don’t like to take responsibility for ourselves. We choose deities to worship, whether they are Hindu gods or modern-day yoga celebrities. We think of yoga teachers as being perfect, regardless of their level of training or experience. It’s true that yogis can be competitive and vain, and that’s where a lot of injury happens. But worse than our narcissism as students is our willingness to cede our authority over ourselves to a yoga teacher or to group-think. That’s when we get hurt. When we listen to the teacher — instead of to our knee. There’s a complete lack of critical thinking.
One of my favorite teachers, Rusty Wells, has a mantra I love: “If it feels wrong; it is wrong.” At the end of the day, yoga is just a tool. It’s up to us to use it wisely.
[www.nytimes.com]
Re: The downside of yoga and meditation
Posted by:
openmindedsceptic
()
Date: September 05, 2013 03:13AM
Bow Down to the Yoga Teacher
Feb 20, 2011 12:00 AM EST
Marco, the tattooed instructor at the front of the room, is all charisma. He stalks; he pounces; he perches on my back as he corrects my Janu Sirsasana pose (otherwise known as a forward bend). “If you tell it to me from your mind, I’m not interested,” he announces, to begin the class. “That’s just drama. I’ve got my own drama.” It can be difficult to exit the studio when Marco’s class is over: people lingering to talk to him block the door.
Do yoga, transcend your ego, and discover your inner humility—at least that’s the idea behind this ancient spiritual practice. The enlightened person is “friendly and compassionate, free from self-regard and vanity,” promises the Bhagavad-Gita. But in the recent past, around the time that $100 yoga pants became as common as designer jeans, the once inconspicuous yoga instructor has morphed into something more grandiose. Now certain teachers display all the monkishness of Keith Richards cooling his heels in the greenroom as adoring fans reach a peak of anticipation.
The aura of high priest surrounds not just celebrity instructors like Marco, who teaches at Pure Yoga, and is known throughout the New York yoga scene for his godlike presence, but the ranks of proletarian instructors as well. The New York City–based filmmaker Ariel Schulman goes to a weekly class at Kula in Greenwich Village. He knows the instructor is in the building when he arrives. “But she comes into class late. She waits for the room to fill up—I feel the drumroll, sitting cross-legged waiting for her—and she makes her grand entrance.” The lights dim, and her patter begins: “Who don’t I know?” she asks. “Who haven’t I met?”
In America, yoga has become a mainstream and marketable cult—20 million people practice regularly, according to some estimates—and its teachers are, in a sense, performers. That’s why the narcissistically inclined can be drawn to the job, says Miles Neale, a Buddhist psychotherapist based in New York. Becoming a yoga teacher allows an insecure person to act spiritually superior. But the dynamic is two-sided. For the yoga teacher to become inflated, the student must inflate. Yoga acolytes, like rock-band groupies, hang on the approval of their favorite gurus—thus allowing that narcissism to flourish. “People elevate because they want to be accepted by the one that’s elevated,” Neale says. “That makes them feel good.”
Some yoga-diva antics would be considered bad manners even in Hollywood. Jennifer Needleman, a film editor, woke up before dawn recently to attend a new class at her local Venice, Calif., yoga studio. So few students showed up that the teacher declined to teach. It simply wasn’t worth her time, she said. Matt White, a member of the L.A.-based band Earl Greyhound, remembers resting on his back at the end of one class when the instructor seized the chance to burst into song. “I could be wrong, but I swear to God, he was singing something from a musical, like from Pippin,” says White. Carrie Campbell, a Pilates instructor in New York, was midpose at the notoriously purist Jivamukti studio, when her instructor approached, paused, and sniffed. “I can tell by the smell of your sweat that you’re not a vegetarian,” she announced for the whole class to hear. Campbell has not returned since.
Instructors concede that there’s a lure to giving in to their egotistical impulses. “When I start to feel powerful—that’s a dangerous place to be,” says Emily Wolf, a yoga instructor who is also studying to be a psychologist. When she begins to feel that way, she remembers her own teachers “who continue to put me in my place,” she says. The megalomaniacs, she believes, have lost sight of the fact that they were ever students themselves.
[www.thedailybeast.com]
Feb 20, 2011 12:00 AM EST
Marco, the tattooed instructor at the front of the room, is all charisma. He stalks; he pounces; he perches on my back as he corrects my Janu Sirsasana pose (otherwise known as a forward bend). “If you tell it to me from your mind, I’m not interested,” he announces, to begin the class. “That’s just drama. I’ve got my own drama.” It can be difficult to exit the studio when Marco’s class is over: people lingering to talk to him block the door.
Do yoga, transcend your ego, and discover your inner humility—at least that’s the idea behind this ancient spiritual practice. The enlightened person is “friendly and compassionate, free from self-regard and vanity,” promises the Bhagavad-Gita. But in the recent past, around the time that $100 yoga pants became as common as designer jeans, the once inconspicuous yoga instructor has morphed into something more grandiose. Now certain teachers display all the monkishness of Keith Richards cooling his heels in the greenroom as adoring fans reach a peak of anticipation.
The aura of high priest surrounds not just celebrity instructors like Marco, who teaches at Pure Yoga, and is known throughout the New York yoga scene for his godlike presence, but the ranks of proletarian instructors as well. The New York City–based filmmaker Ariel Schulman goes to a weekly class at Kula in Greenwich Village. He knows the instructor is in the building when he arrives. “But she comes into class late. She waits for the room to fill up—I feel the drumroll, sitting cross-legged waiting for her—and she makes her grand entrance.” The lights dim, and her patter begins: “Who don’t I know?” she asks. “Who haven’t I met?”
In America, yoga has become a mainstream and marketable cult—20 million people practice regularly, according to some estimates—and its teachers are, in a sense, performers. That’s why the narcissistically inclined can be drawn to the job, says Miles Neale, a Buddhist psychotherapist based in New York. Becoming a yoga teacher allows an insecure person to act spiritually superior. But the dynamic is two-sided. For the yoga teacher to become inflated, the student must inflate. Yoga acolytes, like rock-band groupies, hang on the approval of their favorite gurus—thus allowing that narcissism to flourish. “People elevate because they want to be accepted by the one that’s elevated,” Neale says. “That makes them feel good.”
Some yoga-diva antics would be considered bad manners even in Hollywood. Jennifer Needleman, a film editor, woke up before dawn recently to attend a new class at her local Venice, Calif., yoga studio. So few students showed up that the teacher declined to teach. It simply wasn’t worth her time, she said. Matt White, a member of the L.A.-based band Earl Greyhound, remembers resting on his back at the end of one class when the instructor seized the chance to burst into song. “I could be wrong, but I swear to God, he was singing something from a musical, like from Pippin,” says White. Carrie Campbell, a Pilates instructor in New York, was midpose at the notoriously purist Jivamukti studio, when her instructor approached, paused, and sniffed. “I can tell by the smell of your sweat that you’re not a vegetarian,” she announced for the whole class to hear. Campbell has not returned since.
Instructors concede that there’s a lure to giving in to their egotistical impulses. “When I start to feel powerful—that’s a dangerous place to be,” says Emily Wolf, a yoga instructor who is also studying to be a psychologist. When she begins to feel that way, she remembers her own teachers “who continue to put me in my place,” she says. The megalomaniacs, she believes, have lost sight of the fact that they were ever students themselves.
[www.thedailybeast.com]
Re: The downside of yoga and meditation
Posted by:
openmindedsceptic
()
Date: September 05, 2013 03:20AM
Sura.
Public Speaker, Author, Creator of Sura Flow
..
The Dark Side of Yoga
I was working on Wall Street when I first started practicing yoga. During that time I suffered from severe neck and back pain, so I thought yoga would help me. Being a novice at the time, I had no idea what the different styles of yoga were. Perhaps it was karma or a twist of fate, but the first yoga classes I took were Ashtanga-based. Ashtanga yoga, as introduced by Pattabi Jois, is one of the most rigorous and physically challenging yoga practices in the West.
Often times I'd show up to class while a svelte, nimble ex-dancer yoga teacher would direct the yoga sequence, effortlessly demonstrating complicated yoga poses. I applied my "no pain, no gain" mindset and would grit my teeth and bear the incredible amount of discomfort and pain through the entire class. It would take me about an hour of total strain and effort that ultimately exhausted me, but allowed me to fully relax in corpse pose in the last five minutes of class.
Even though I was pretty athletic, I found yoga to be somewhat awkward and strangely difficult. I wasn't sure if yoga was actually causing me more body pain, since I was so disconnected from my own body. Sports injuries and stress from work had me tied up in knots. I trusted the teacher's instructions, but often wondered why my joints hurt so bad after class. Paradoxically, I often felt worse after practicing yoga. It seemed like everyone but me could do the yoga postures. What was I doing something wrong? I practiced all the time and I still couldn't touch my toes. It made me feel inadequate. Yoga class was not a place where I felt good about myself.
It took me years for me to slough off my competitive approach to yoga. After plenty of self-flagellating classes, I started to learn how to listen to my body and respect my body's limits. It wasn't till I started meditating did I stop being so hard on myself. That's when my yoga practice started to transform. I would have never dreamed of teaching yoga myself, that is, until I left Wall Street to take yoga training at Nosara Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. That's where I got to experience both the yin and yang of yoga and fell in love with gentle yoga. It really helped me to release my Type A. Now I know the hardcore yogis when I see them: a strong jaw, a hardened body and a fierce look of determination. They like their yoga fast and hard.
The way people approach life is the way people show up on their yoga mat. And yoga teachers are no exception. Some yoga teachers may lead with a sense of aggression and competition while others will promote a feeling of safety and peace. I've noticed that depending on your own personality type you'll be attracted to a teacher or style that tends to emulate your own tendencies, i.e., if you are hard core, you will like hardcore yoga.
But in the practice of Ayurveda, a Hindu system of alternative health and medicine, people who have core characteristics in their personality, like intensity and fire, should work on balancing their energy by engaging in activities that promote the opposite effect. If you are competitive and ambitious, a gentler, softer practice would benefit you. If you are sluggish and tend to be more sedentary, you should work toward a more active or fiery yoga practice. It is about creating balance. In Ayurveda yoga, the intention is to adapt the yoga to the individual, not the other way around, as you may be unconsciously reinforcing negative tendencies.
Yoga is a bag of mixed nuts. You never know what you're going to get, and not all yogic experiences are created equal. There are some darker aspects of yoga that people often don't talk about, what I call the negative side effects of yoga. Here are some to be aware of and how you can remediate them.
Negative Side Effects from Yoga:
1) Injuries: In 2010, the Consumer Products Safety Commission reported that yoga-related injuries in emergency rooms and doctor's offices rose to 7,369. Yoga injuries are very common. The most common yoga injuries include neck, back, knee and shoulder injuries. This includes torn muscles, herniated disks and carpal tunnel. Poses like Chaturanga, an upward push-up with bent elbows, can cause extensive damage to wrists, elbows and shoulders.
Remedy: Listen to your own body. Don't assume that the yoga instructor knows your body better than you do. If you experience pain or extreme discomfort, modify your pose or tell the instructor. Don't be afraid to ask questions. If you have any body pain or injuries, inform the teacher at the beginning of class so that he/she is aware and can help you modify. Remember that the teacher is there for your health and safety.
2) Exhaustion: Do you feel like you need a coffee or nap after yoga? You may be exerting too much effort and strain during your yoga class. Heat exhaustion from hot or power yoga classes may be stripping your body of electrolytes and sodium. If you experience dizziness, fatigue, weakness, or nausea, you could very well be suffering from heat exhaustion. Fatigue is a sign that you could be over-working your body or doing too much yoga.
Remedy: Move at your own pace. Hero's pose or child's pose are excellent restorative postures to recoup your energy. Don't be afraid to take breaks or even leave the studio room if you need to recover your breath or energy. If you have soreness or lactic acid build up, take some days off yoga to rest and recover. Drink plenty of water and be sure to get enough rest and sleep.
3) Competition: People come to yoga class for different reasons; some people want six pack abs while others want inner peace. Many people come to yoga as a form of exercise and approach it with the mentality of competition. If you feel pressure in your yoga class to perform or over-exert yourself, you may be picking up on the competitive energy in the yoga room. This kind of environment does not feel safe or nurturing. Competitive environments are conducive to over-exertion, injury and exhaustion. It is often influenced by the tone the yoga teacher sets in class.
Remedy: Fortunately or unfortunately, anyone can become a yoga teacher these days. A few thousand dollars is all one needs to become certified. Teachers are human too. Yoga instructors can over-assume by over-adjusting or pushing their students beyond their boundaries. You're not there to please the teacher. If you feel you are being pushed into pain or strain, it's important to speak up and communicate what you're experiencing. Saying something as simple as "that hurts" is enough to get a teacher's attention.
4) Rigidity and stagnation: Do you practice the exact same sequence over and over again? Or possibly the same yoga DVD? If so, you may be limiting your ability to grow and gain flexibility in other areas that aren't being exercised. It's possible to stagnate or even create rigidity in your body due to repetitive movement. Albert Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Remedy: Mix it up. Challenge yourself by moving out of your comfort zone. If you like a fiery practice, combine it with a gentle practice every now and then. While discipline and commitment can pay off in your yoga practice, don't get stuck on a particular yoga style. Some people get very rigid and harsh in their practice. People get so hung up on alignment, they cut off the vital chi of flow through the body. Be careful about being a yoga nazi. A true yoga practice promotes an attitude of fluidity, flexibility and harmony.
5) Spiritual delusion: Do you sometimes show up to yoga class wondering if it's really about yoga? Or do you question the teacher's integrity? Shit New Age Girls Say got 1.4 million views on YouTube. It's a parody on spiritual "fake-ism." Anyone can use spirituality to justify their actions. It's called spiritual ego. Yoga teachers and sex scandals are infamously common. Some teachers have been known to abuse their power by touching their students inappropriately and getting involved with them sexually.
Remedy: Use your intuition to see if a teacher or class rings true for you. Refrain from putting your teacher on a pedestal. Ask yourself what you most want to receive from your yoga practice. If your B.S. meter is going off, pay attention to it. Is your yoga teacher being honest, and living in integrity with what he/she is saying? Does your yoga practice add to your life or subtract in some way? Follow what feels right for you.
The purpose of yoga is liberation, not bondage. The postures prepare you for meditation so that you can sit in stillness and realize the truth of your being. Staying in your truth and practicing integrity is essential to having a balanced yoga practice. Try out different styles and teachers until you find one that most resonates with you. Be mindful. Listen to yourself, and trust in your own experience. If you feel negativity, pressure or pain, take time to examine it and see what loving actions you can take to create a healthy yoga experience.
[www.huffingtonpost.com]
Public Speaker, Author, Creator of Sura Flow
..
The Dark Side of Yoga
I was working on Wall Street when I first started practicing yoga. During that time I suffered from severe neck and back pain, so I thought yoga would help me. Being a novice at the time, I had no idea what the different styles of yoga were. Perhaps it was karma or a twist of fate, but the first yoga classes I took were Ashtanga-based. Ashtanga yoga, as introduced by Pattabi Jois, is one of the most rigorous and physically challenging yoga practices in the West.
Often times I'd show up to class while a svelte, nimble ex-dancer yoga teacher would direct the yoga sequence, effortlessly demonstrating complicated yoga poses. I applied my "no pain, no gain" mindset and would grit my teeth and bear the incredible amount of discomfort and pain through the entire class. It would take me about an hour of total strain and effort that ultimately exhausted me, but allowed me to fully relax in corpse pose in the last five minutes of class.
Even though I was pretty athletic, I found yoga to be somewhat awkward and strangely difficult. I wasn't sure if yoga was actually causing me more body pain, since I was so disconnected from my own body. Sports injuries and stress from work had me tied up in knots. I trusted the teacher's instructions, but often wondered why my joints hurt so bad after class. Paradoxically, I often felt worse after practicing yoga. It seemed like everyone but me could do the yoga postures. What was I doing something wrong? I practiced all the time and I still couldn't touch my toes. It made me feel inadequate. Yoga class was not a place where I felt good about myself.
It took me years for me to slough off my competitive approach to yoga. After plenty of self-flagellating classes, I started to learn how to listen to my body and respect my body's limits. It wasn't till I started meditating did I stop being so hard on myself. That's when my yoga practice started to transform. I would have never dreamed of teaching yoga myself, that is, until I left Wall Street to take yoga training at Nosara Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. That's where I got to experience both the yin and yang of yoga and fell in love with gentle yoga. It really helped me to release my Type A. Now I know the hardcore yogis when I see them: a strong jaw, a hardened body and a fierce look of determination. They like their yoga fast and hard.
The way people approach life is the way people show up on their yoga mat. And yoga teachers are no exception. Some yoga teachers may lead with a sense of aggression and competition while others will promote a feeling of safety and peace. I've noticed that depending on your own personality type you'll be attracted to a teacher or style that tends to emulate your own tendencies, i.e., if you are hard core, you will like hardcore yoga.
But in the practice of Ayurveda, a Hindu system of alternative health and medicine, people who have core characteristics in their personality, like intensity and fire, should work on balancing their energy by engaging in activities that promote the opposite effect. If you are competitive and ambitious, a gentler, softer practice would benefit you. If you are sluggish and tend to be more sedentary, you should work toward a more active or fiery yoga practice. It is about creating balance. In Ayurveda yoga, the intention is to adapt the yoga to the individual, not the other way around, as you may be unconsciously reinforcing negative tendencies.
Yoga is a bag of mixed nuts. You never know what you're going to get, and not all yogic experiences are created equal. There are some darker aspects of yoga that people often don't talk about, what I call the negative side effects of yoga. Here are some to be aware of and how you can remediate them.
Negative Side Effects from Yoga:
1) Injuries: In 2010, the Consumer Products Safety Commission reported that yoga-related injuries in emergency rooms and doctor's offices rose to 7,369. Yoga injuries are very common. The most common yoga injuries include neck, back, knee and shoulder injuries. This includes torn muscles, herniated disks and carpal tunnel. Poses like Chaturanga, an upward push-up with bent elbows, can cause extensive damage to wrists, elbows and shoulders.
Remedy: Listen to your own body. Don't assume that the yoga instructor knows your body better than you do. If you experience pain or extreme discomfort, modify your pose or tell the instructor. Don't be afraid to ask questions. If you have any body pain or injuries, inform the teacher at the beginning of class so that he/she is aware and can help you modify. Remember that the teacher is there for your health and safety.
2) Exhaustion: Do you feel like you need a coffee or nap after yoga? You may be exerting too much effort and strain during your yoga class. Heat exhaustion from hot or power yoga classes may be stripping your body of electrolytes and sodium. If you experience dizziness, fatigue, weakness, or nausea, you could very well be suffering from heat exhaustion. Fatigue is a sign that you could be over-working your body or doing too much yoga.
Remedy: Move at your own pace. Hero's pose or child's pose are excellent restorative postures to recoup your energy. Don't be afraid to take breaks or even leave the studio room if you need to recover your breath or energy. If you have soreness or lactic acid build up, take some days off yoga to rest and recover. Drink plenty of water and be sure to get enough rest and sleep.
3) Competition: People come to yoga class for different reasons; some people want six pack abs while others want inner peace. Many people come to yoga as a form of exercise and approach it with the mentality of competition. If you feel pressure in your yoga class to perform or over-exert yourself, you may be picking up on the competitive energy in the yoga room. This kind of environment does not feel safe or nurturing. Competitive environments are conducive to over-exertion, injury and exhaustion. It is often influenced by the tone the yoga teacher sets in class.
Remedy: Fortunately or unfortunately, anyone can become a yoga teacher these days. A few thousand dollars is all one needs to become certified. Teachers are human too. Yoga instructors can over-assume by over-adjusting or pushing their students beyond their boundaries. You're not there to please the teacher. If you feel you are being pushed into pain or strain, it's important to speak up and communicate what you're experiencing. Saying something as simple as "that hurts" is enough to get a teacher's attention.
4) Rigidity and stagnation: Do you practice the exact same sequence over and over again? Or possibly the same yoga DVD? If so, you may be limiting your ability to grow and gain flexibility in other areas that aren't being exercised. It's possible to stagnate or even create rigidity in your body due to repetitive movement. Albert Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Remedy: Mix it up. Challenge yourself by moving out of your comfort zone. If you like a fiery practice, combine it with a gentle practice every now and then. While discipline and commitment can pay off in your yoga practice, don't get stuck on a particular yoga style. Some people get very rigid and harsh in their practice. People get so hung up on alignment, they cut off the vital chi of flow through the body. Be careful about being a yoga nazi. A true yoga practice promotes an attitude of fluidity, flexibility and harmony.
5) Spiritual delusion: Do you sometimes show up to yoga class wondering if it's really about yoga? Or do you question the teacher's integrity? Shit New Age Girls Say got 1.4 million views on YouTube. It's a parody on spiritual "fake-ism." Anyone can use spirituality to justify their actions. It's called spiritual ego. Yoga teachers and sex scandals are infamously common. Some teachers have been known to abuse their power by touching their students inappropriately and getting involved with them sexually.
Remedy: Use your intuition to see if a teacher or class rings true for you. Refrain from putting your teacher on a pedestal. Ask yourself what you most want to receive from your yoga practice. If your B.S. meter is going off, pay attention to it. Is your yoga teacher being honest, and living in integrity with what he/she is saying? Does your yoga practice add to your life or subtract in some way? Follow what feels right for you.
The purpose of yoga is liberation, not bondage. The postures prepare you for meditation so that you can sit in stillness and realize the truth of your being. Staying in your truth and practicing integrity is essential to having a balanced yoga practice. Try out different styles and teachers until you find one that most resonates with you. Be mindful. Listen to yourself, and trust in your own experience. If you feel negativity, pressure or pain, take time to examine it and see what loving actions you can take to create a healthy yoga experience.
[www.huffingtonpost.com]
Re: The downside of yoga and meditation
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: September 05, 2013 08:15AM
Quote
"“But she comes into class late. She waits for the room to fill up.."
That by itself is an early warning sign.
A friend who was at a Zen Center whose abbot dragged it through a catastrophic scandal, said that years before the trouble broke, this person did not adhere to the schedule.
He would arrive late at lectures. He would keep his jisha (attendant) waiting, waiting, waiting.
Got so bad that many people began to refuse to attend him at all.
And this pattern took place years before the events came down that nearly ruined the place.
When someone is using forms and ceremonies to serve their personalities, rather than bringing their personalities to serve the practice community, that's where the trouble begins.
One man who taught a class at our gym (it was powerbicycling), found himself unwillingly at the center of a charisma fiesta. He did nothing to cause it. I remember being fascinated that this 'scene energy' was condensing around him - the man had a fine physique and excellent teaching approach, but was humble.
But to his dismay, he found that people were getting nasty and competitive for spots in his class -- even to the point of being snotty to the desk clerks, when they reported that his class was full.
Finally, the man told his classes he didn't want to hear any more reports about the desk clerks being abused.
He stated he would stop teaching all classes, period, rather than permit this unhealthy scene mentality to continue.
Perhaps what helped was that it was powerbiking classes. The gym had several excellent teachers. If X had resigned from teaching, he would continue to manage the gym; other teachers would fill his slots.
The other advantage was that there were no pretensions to mystical attainment in doing powerbiking.
We lost weight, developed and augmented our aerobic and (for those who chose) lactate threshold fitness.
But no one kidded themselves that they were gaining any sort of Special Knowledge or enlightenment, and no one figured the instructors had any inside route to enlightenment, either.
Ditto for Pilates, which, BTW, was the most popular, 'hottest' class at that gym, before the yoga craze took hold in the mid 1990s.
Re: The downside of yoga and meditation
Posted by:
The Anticult
()
Date: September 05, 2013 11:47AM
Search Google for this phrase, and then press CACHE arrow beside the result, and the old thread is still there to be copied.
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The downside of yoga - Cult Education
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The downside of yoga - Cult Education
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