The Faustian shadow of abuse in Ashtanga yoga

This entry is painful and I write it because I’ve had it in the inkwell for months, anticipating the moment when I would feel finally ready. 

I have also been receiving messages from students of mine concerned about the rumors and more than detailed information about the sexual assaults of Pattabhi Jois and the impact of his actions on us, the following generations and all those who will come to yoga for healing. 

The meaning of the practice of yoga goes far beyond the skill in physical postures. The positions in my lineage are beautiful and striking and therefore attractive and highly aesthetic. Ashtanga yoga became popular since the 80s and it was this yoga that revived the practice worldwide and renewed it up to the boom it is today.

Just as yoga promises joy, awareness and awakening for the devout practitioner, for others it is a hook that anticipates admiration, economic benefits and also, media popularity.

I must take a step back and before referring to the topic itself, talk about a place hidden behind all the paraphernalia of modern yoga, not only from the point of view as a student but also as a teacher of the lineage that I represent. 

There is a secret place rarely visited by practitioners and that is not found in the crowds or in the photos with the Guru or in the feeds. Yoga is vast and everything is part of a larger whole. It is a system which undoubtedly detonates personal power and charisma.  Focusing on only a part of the whole without connection to the rest causes delusions of grandiosity, violations of the leader's ethics, undermining of the delicate system of checks and balances and lack of transparency.

The patriarchal culture as an external authority may slap us in the face. Its so deeply ingrained in our psyche and its hard not give our personal power to The Man and even more if he is a Guru and its treated as such by many others. The path of yoga is the path of discernment and a fierce encounter with our own independence and the awakening of our consciousness.  The ¨yoga¨ whose roots lie rather in the poisons of the soul is a contradiction:  the practice becomes itself the poison we are seeking to eradicate.

An oxymoron. 

The task of those of us who practice this ancient art and science is to sustain the chain of wisdom in an industry saturated by superficiality and hedonism the best we can. 

For me,  it has been about periodically responding intimately to three questions, whether we are teachers or students: 

1. What do we want to experience in this life?

2. How do we want to grow and develop?

3. How are we going to contribute to the world?

Only by answering these questions in the intimacy of our sadhana can we balance the bombing of the yogas that are not such, of practitioners who teach imitating others and of packet yogis that are produced massively and sold to the highest bidder. We will also eradicate corrupt teachers, abusers, pedophiles and the whole range of unhealed healers who also yearn to be part of a highly popular phenomenon that promises redemption.

The essential experiences for a yogi are those authentic ones, those that she or he chooses within all the present possibilities. We aspire to choose that which fills our soul and heart, that is beneficial for us and others and that also affirms life.

We grow in the going against the grain of our practices and also in the constant friction of life. The obstacles cannot stop a seeker, however impossible they may seem. The higher the mountain, the more devotion and dedication we need. And of course, follow in the footsteps of our teachers. Without their energetic support we are lost in the jungle of samsara. Without their protection, we are leaves in the Mayan wind that can destroy us against the cement of our own resistances.

There can be no spiritual practice disconnected from the teacher. They go hand in hand.  Yoga is not a self prescribed medicine.  

Its a Shaktipat.  

It would be as dangerous and risky as entering the Amazon without help or climbing Mount Everest without a sherpa.

Our practice necessarily implies becoming elements of change for those around us. Whether families and friends, everyone will be touched by our transformation. For those of us who know that our destiny is to help, we must double the tapas:  our personal practice, source of everything we long to share, and our teaching. 

Since Yoga is a flower that was born in India and was transplanted to the West, it is essential to visit the subcontinent.  Yoga takes the form of the culture where it is practiced and the teachings are diluted once they leave their source. It is important and necessary to live and experience the origin and connect to a teacher in India that touches our hearts and to whom we return continuously.

As teachers, our function is to be mirrors of the goodness and wisdom inherent in every student. A sample of the success of our teachings is when our student decides to share yoga as well. Thus, it could be said that the most successful teacher is the one who ends up without students: all have flown to teach, they have been taught to be independent, to take action, to be creative and to go out into the world.

Even when there is no physical connection, the presence of our teachers always accompanies us. When I teach, wherever I am, I know that my teacher Sharath is there with me holding the sacred circle where the transformation happens.This practice beats us inside and removes and scrambles thoughts, beliefs and emotions. We practice to be more empathetic with ourselves and others, to develop compassion for all living beings.  Developing empathy in practice and in teaching means trying to understand and forgive ourselves constantly. 

In the midst of the bleak panorama that has affected my lineage for more than a year due to the actions of Pattabhi Jois, I see the evolution that has happened in my own personal path since I arrived to my school of Ashtanga yoga in 2003 in Mysore, India. I came to a very old teacher who I did not know much about. I reached for his grandson who gave me all the energy and sweetness that this practice requires. 

I never had any idea of ​the abuses that were happening. My approach was totally focused and my closest teacher Sharath. Yes, I was with Pattabhi Jois on several of his tours in North America but I never saw or heard anything, no rumor, no one complaining. For me, the shock of reading the testimonies of many women in recent months has been painful and poignant, especially since I am also a survivor of sexual abuse.

I can say that my teacher Sharath has given me a safe space to open my Pandora's box. I have felt his presence and dedication full of integrity and devotion. Many of us have to break with heavy family karmas and straighten the crooked boat. I think that Sharath has shown with his own life an example of a teacher who is very different from his grandfather and his actions speak for themselves. 

I can not speak on this subject from my own experience.  I cannot assure these women are not lying or that Guruji did something unseemly - I never saw or heard anything about it. The shala in Mysore for me has always been a container of love at the highest level in this world of plastic yoga, in this wave of mass yoga. My best moments in my spiritual quest have happened in this place and I never felt any kind of harassment, fear or distrust.

The facts ultimately invite us to reflect on the importance of being with a teacher that does not inflate our ego, but someone who we trust and guide us effectively. The argument of these women that they stayed and consciously became victims of abuse for years simply because they wanted to learn the method, or because there are predators everywhere anyways does not convince me. The space to develop spiritually must be clean and this is not negotiable: otherwise, staying in it is an intrinsic complicity and a senseless self-immolation that speaks a lot about our own beliefs and values.

I cannot understand how they could remain so many years under the watchful eye of someone who was publicly attacking them.

Yes, I know from my own experience that there is a period of denial of abuse and that it is very hard to come out of the closet. But to remain years under the scaffold of someone who does not respect us for the status that means to belong to a group or receive recognition for our physical skills,  I cannot understand no matter how much I think about it.   Not only as a student but as a woman who has also been a victim of sexual abuse. I sincerely feel that it was their own ambition for practice surpassed even their personal integrity to extreme levels. I do not judge them, but their painful example gives light to the following generations so as not to make the same painful mistake.

If to progress on our way we have to sell our soul to the devil, Faustus sticks out his ugly head and we are undoing with our elbows what we write with our hands. We would be practicing with darkness and for darkness with a hidden agenda that has nothing to do with devotion or serious commitment. 

May these examples of so many who lowered their heads before the Guru to not be expelled from the group, who kept silence so they were awarded advanced positions or suffered vexations to advance in their professional careers remind us that personal well-being and integrity is not negotiable anywhere and much less, in the sacred space of our spiritual practice.

Without it, there is no yoga.  

Without it,  there is not even life. 

Vande Gurunam