Something rubbed me the wrong way the other day after my yoga practice to the point where I went from peaceful bliss to increase blood pressure because my blood was boiling at the audacity of the yoga instructors “teaching” after class. I almost got off of my mat and walked out and had an awfully uncomfortable time sitting there and finishing out the final moments of the class where we generally bow and honor the divine in one another by saying, “Namaste.” Namaste in Hindu means, “”I bow to the divine in you.”
I found it incredibly uncomfortable because moments before this closure of class, the yoga instructor was attempting to teach “Isvara Pranidhana,” which represents devotion to God. My problem with her teaching was that she took this teaching and royally spit on God’s name as far as I am concerned. In her attempt to be “politically correct,” she began by stating the actual meaning of this, which again is “devotion to God.” I was on board and excited for this teaching because, as you know, I am a HUGE FAN of God.
The problem for me came when immediately after stating the definition she went into a diatribe about how this niyama doesn’t really need to mean devotion to God, but can be devotion to anything… like “Harry Potter” for example. I sat there visibly cringing with my eyes now wide open and just staring at her like, “What the f%%%EDITORCONTENT%%amp; are you teaching?!!!” Then as if that wasn’t bad enough, she then starts going on a tangent and reads some poem that talks about how idol worship is ok and that the poet’s practice is love.
I felt myself boiling at this point, yet still bowed and said “Namaste” from my heart because I 100% believe the light of the divine is what ignites life within every living being and that all living beings should be honored regardless of their beliefs, which is ultimately what I think she was trying to state. However, the way that she taught this was not pointing people to the divine presence, but away from it in my opinion. Like a child who is protective of their parent, I immediately went into protective mode, though I didn’t act on it.
I pondered my feelings about this the whole car ride home and was so lost in my thought that I didn’t immediately notice the homeless man walking with the cup over to his normal place of work (the intersection that I stop at every time I leave my yoga class). When I noticed, he was talking seemingly to himself while looking at me, I felt a little tense and then rolled down my window initially saying I didn’t have cash because I didn’t think I did. I don’t usually carry cash, but decided to look in my wallet for some change or a few bucks in the off chance I had some. After finding some, I apologized for fibbing and gave him a bit of cash. He wished me a Happy Easter and I wished him one as well and off I went.
At this point, while still caught up in my head about the yoga class I’d just left, I started realizing how being in my head almost caused me to negate the presence of someone who was seeking help. How being irritated about something that had just happened in my immediate past was preventing me from being fully present in the moment that I was in. Nevertheless, I was still hooked on what had just happened. I realize it is not my place to “protect God” because God is large and in charge, but I think praying all of the prayers to “break my heart for what breaks His” are working and I felt like I just got punched in the face in that yoga class.
I’ve never watched Harry Potter and while he is loved by many, I would never in my life compare enjoying Harry Potter to devotion of God and I thought it was utterly distasteful and disgusting. Especially when the point of yoga is to find “union” between the individual and the divine consciousness. The whole practice is a spiritual practice, but it seems that she missed the point. Now normally, I wouldn’t be as irritated about someone making this type of misstep, but I hold people in roles of spiritual teachers in a higher standard. Teaching yoga is not just teaching a series of poses and telling people when and how to breath. It is a spiritual practice intended to bring you closer and closer to oneness with the creator. I don’t know what school she did her RYT training with, but I felt that taking one of the more important teachings and turning it on it’s head was really poor on her part.
I take spiritual teaching very seriously as does the Bible,
and so I’ve begun praying for her paraphrasing Jesus, “Forgive her, for she knows not what she does.” I’ve been releasing the frustration at this incident because I don’t want to harbor animosity or judgment, though I really felt let down by that class and felt that she completely missed the point (sinned).
My fiancé balances me out. He did bring out the point that not everyone who practices yoga is there for the spiritual component and some might just be there for the good workout. However, I feel that while that may very well be true, those individuals had the opportunity to discover the added spiritual component if their practice is nurtured and cultivated by teachers who are in tune with the divine/spiritually mature and teach from a place of love and truth, yet they were robbed of it in that moment. The fact that she led people away from the divine while teaching one of the core niyamas and the reason for the entire practice was extremely disappointing.
I was, however, grateful that she at least closed out with honoring love because love is a big piece of who God is. In working on becoming love, it’s imperative that I address my own emotions and choose love and mercy rather than bitterness, annoyance, and judgment. In doing my own work, I can see that this incident triggered me quite deeply and brought up my protective instinct to defend God. Then in doing my work, I realized it is not my place to defend God because God can defend himself, though it does push me harder in the direction of leading others to honor themselves, others, and God in this world because I’m seeing that even in establishments that are supposed to be about honoring the sacred relationship of humans with God, this is not always being done.
How do you feel? What does yoga mean to you?