Beware the Guru and the Governing Body

I came across an interesting blog post (to be more accurate, it's a long rant about yoga) today. It's a little over a year old, but it contains some interesting thoughts about yoga in the world today. It's funny that I found this post when I did. You see, I've been thinking a lot about gurus and teacher certification lately. Odd combination, eh?

I suppose these thoughts sprang from my experiences at the intensive session at eOmega's Yoga conference and from my rereading of Stephen Cope's fantastic book, Yoga and the Quest for the True Self.

Frankly, the thought of having a guru unsettles me a bit. I suppose I'm wary of idolization. Let's face it - there's no shortage of guru horror stories out there (gotta love the tales of sexual indiscretion, greed, and the like). Of course, having a teacher is important. It's the placing the teacher on the pedestal that bothers me.

As for teacher certification -- I find myself wondering how everyone gets so focused on who one learned from (Again, let's remember that gurus ARE fallible. A good portion of the "big name" yogis out there have had a scandal of some sort, whether sexual or monetary.) or what training program one graduated from. It reminds me of the months leading up to high school graduation when everyone starts bragging about what college they got into. Is it a competitive or highly competitive school? The bigger the name -- and the tuition -- the better. Of course now years later, we read about how marketing practically takes precedence over education with a lot of highly desirable colleges.

Now there are a lot of folks out there calling themselves yoga teachers who don't have enough knowledge about yoga and/or body mechanics to safely teach others. I've run into a few of those. I've seen teachers make some awful -- and dangerous -- adjustments on students. I suppose things like this spawned the rise of the Yoga Alliance. Ah, another certification institution that gets monetary gain from...what exactly? I'm not saying that YA isn't doing a good thing by creating standards, but sometimes I wonder about who's driving the bus, so to speak.

Reading this post just served to remind me that questioning is not a bad thing and the importance of recognizing when you're being caught up in the "group think" (I need to be YA certified, I'm not a good yoga teacher if I haven't trained with a "big" name, I need a guru, etc.).

Just some food for thought. I send a big thanks to Colette for raising some good points.

Namaste!

Comments

[Narayan Kaur]

bottom line? as far as "certifications", teacher trainings, etc.? IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY, HONEY!

I truly hate to say this, believe me, but in the West, it's all about the Benjamins....

In the West, it's all about having that piece of paper in your hand. I have over 500 hours of training, but it was not from a specific school, just a load of workshops and STUDY IN INDIA (!!!), but I have to prove to the Yoga Alliance that I am a "legit" yoga teacher...