I have revisited this thought in a recently when I took a class and the teacher qued us into camel, and explained only how this pose would open our hearts to love and help us communicate better. Now this seems to be standard yoga teacher lingo, only talking about the energetics of a pose rather than the anatomy, physiology, and function of a pose. I get it. It's flowery, it sounds beautiful. And most teachers seem easily pulled away from the physicality of postures, defaulting into false promises of energetic changes that will happen such as "You will love easier" or "you will communicate better".
Sure these qualities eventually happen, but they do not come through the perfection or depth of a posture. They arise from a deep awareness of ones self, a solid connection to how we feel, a drama-free honesty of where we are in our bodies, hearts, and minds. This knowledge then affords us the power to progress in our lives. The postures offer awareness and opportunity to peel away the layers of physical stress, injury, tension, and disassociation to our body. OUR BODY... That which is the vessel of spirit into reality. That which keeps us here, on planet earth. That which makes us human. We slowly progress from physivcal to energetic by the practice of pranayama, which moves us through the layers of the mental and emotional tension we experience, then enabling us to sit in meditation for longer periods of time.
So perhaps the que of opening your heart or improving your communication is true, but there is a giant gap of explanation from the posture to the end result, failing to discuss how it does that in a human way. The pose itself is not the creation of these openings. Instead it is the catalyst to deeper knowledge of ones self that allows us to access our strength as we move through the physical blockages that keep us disconnected.
Many teachers are not teaching about this gap, in fact many TEACHERS are not TEACHING much at all about being a human in a human body, (and please know that the asanas are physical and therefore directed towards the human body). Teachers are instead providing a safe place for us to remain comfortable and focused on an end result using poetic words and perfect phrases that tell us we are energetic beings. Which we are of course. There is spirit. But there is human too and we can and should be humans. Because if we deny the reality that we are humans on this earth and instead focus on etherics and what comes after this life, we are not being present, and we will struggle to address human issues. An example of this is that we live on earth but continually look to the ethers for assurance and comfort, therefore denying to some extent that the earths destruction is our own fault and responsibility.
I'd love to see people get more authentically into their bodies, inspire themselves with strength to be better humans, connect to the truth of how they see themselves and how they're living their lives. And I don't really see that happening when all we discuss is rainbows and butterflies and how yoga, or anything really, will fix us.
We fix ourselves. We make the choices on how to react, accept, deny, empower, or blame. We are in charge when things happens to us, we can lie victim or we can step up and face it. If we want to love better or communicate clearer we just do it. We decide to change. We educate ourselves. We recognize that nothing outside of us will fix what is within us.
A teacher should aim to inspire and teach accountability, rather than offer reasons why things are not the way we want them to be, (such as the implied my heart isn't open enough because I cannot get deep enough into camel). I would rather students walk out educated on their bodies and how it functions to bridge the gap between spirit and human. I would like to see humans be civilized and care for themselves and for the world. I would like to save the world.
It relieves the pressure when we turn around and face what it is that intimidates us. It frees us when we recognize that we are in charge, we can make the choices, we can change the world. To do this we have to be honest, forthright, and fearless about the true state of things, ourselves and this world. We must demand this honesty from those aorund us and those that we ask to teach us. Bringing us more into the present moment of humanity will allow us to address the problems that are arising. We can do this. We must do this. And we can use yoga to help with this.
No comments:
Post a Comment