Why I don't train Yoga teachers.

Swami Vishnu - he flew over war zones in this plane throwing flowers out the window. A true hero.

As a child my heroes were the khaki-clad men and women who gave their lives in WW2 (for a cause greater than themselves). I was completely in awe of anyone who put their own comfort and safety aside in order to ‘fight the good fight’. I believed there was no greater life to be lived.

Many years later I travelled to India for an intensive Yoga Teachers Training course. It was the most challenging thing I’d ever done – physically, emotionally, mentally, and above all, spiritually. I wrote about it here.

On that course, I found new heroes.

The ochre-clad men and women who gave their lives, day after day, for a cause greater than themselves.

The Swamis are the people we may thank for the access that we now enjoy to the ancient wisdom of Yoga. For thousands of years they have taken vows of brahmacharya – mastery of the senses, and renunciation of the fruits of the senses  – as they put their personal comfort and ego safety to one side in order to transform the world. There is no greater sacrifice.

Towards the end of my time in India I resolved that I would one day be a Swami. 5 years later I did indeed give away all my ‘stuff’: my old man got my ipod. My brother got my Raybans. A recent TTC graduate got my small yoga business including 20 yoga mats, my classes, students and mailing list… and with just a small bag of clothes I entered an Ashram and began training. Why am I not there today? The fist person I met in the Ashram that day was the beautiful Goddess who is now my wife. But that’s another story…

Altogether I taught Yoga full time for almost a decade.

I taught Yoga in exclusive hotels and gyms, hostels, schools, and festivals, to Hollywood celebrities and millionaires and old age pensioners. I once taught a guy who’d (to coin the wonderful Ram Dass expression) ‘been stroked’. The whole left side of his body was paralyzed. So in Sun Salutations he would grab his left leg with his right hand, and put it into position. It took a long time, but he did them, and he loved every minute of it. I’ve never met a more smiley and determined person in my life, and it was a great privilege teaching him. The classes he was in were some of the most memorable I’ve ever taught.

I must have taught many thousands of people during those 10 years.

I never had a single student get injured. Not one.

And my style of Asana teaching is dynamic and physical! So how is it that some people believe Yoga to be ‘dangerous’?! Many times over the years I’ve been asked this question:

“Why don’t you run your own Yoga Teacher Training Course?”

In our materialistic society it seems to be a real no-brainer! After all, that’s where the money is in Yoga! We all know that. So why not do it? I’ll tell you why:

I won’t pee in the well.

The well of pristine ancient wisdom kept by countless generations of Swamis.

Swami Sivananda - a Hero

Swami Vishnu-Devananda had a vision in meditation of the world in flames. It was that vision that led him to create the Sivananda Yoga Teachers Training Course (the oldest TTC in the West – around 15,000 graduates over 40 years). His main intention was not so much to create yoga teachers – rather, he intended to create world leaders with integrity. He wanted to create a generation of yogis who would be able to steer the world away from its current crisis with integrity, compassion, and service.

In India, before I realized I wanted to one day be a Swami, I knew without a doubt that I would try to honor Swami Vishnu’s intention – I would do my best to repay the debt I owed him.

So when I’m asked why I don’t run TTC’s what I say is this: there are places I can send my Yoga students to become Yoga teachers. Places run by people who are completely dedicated to doing just that. People who haven’t got kids, aren’t in relationships, and don’t go on vacation. They just train Yoga teachers. Day in, day out, all year round. Total heroes.

So how could I take it upon myself to train other people to be yoga teachers, when I know that I would be depriving them of the best training available? I would feel that I was cheating my students, and betraying the lineage that I am honored to be a tiny part of.

That lineage comes from a land whose entire culture is founded on spirituality.

Our entire culture is founded upon materialism.

Different worlds.

So I understand completely what has gone wrong – people who lack a profound understanding of the spiritual essence of Yoga are running TTC’s.

So the graduates of those TTC’s are even further removed from the lineage. The pond is polluted further and further.

No wonder there is endless controversy in the Yoga ‘blogosphere’. No wonder there are articles suggesting that Yoga may be dangerous. No wonder people really are injuring themselves!

I’ve seen many suggestions that the reason yoga has become dangerous is that not enough attention is paid to anatomy.

That’s a side issue. It’s also something that householder Yoga teachers who run TTC’s will say to justify what they do (“I teach good anatomy so that my student teachers are safe”). But in reality, to teach Yoga properly only a basic understanding of anatomy is required. You don’t need a degree in anatomy to teach yoga, because

Yoga is not gymnastics.

Yogasana is intended primarily to prepare the body to be comfortable sitting for meditation. If it’s taught as such, with emphasis on breath and inner awareness rather than physical ‘shape’ and external competition then it’s totally, 100% ‘safe’. Actually, it’s more than safe, it’s healing.

It is also, of course, a wonderful physical exercise – but that is a secondary benefit.

Yoga is a spiritual practice.

There are true heroes on this planet.

Find them.

Because the world  needs one more.

If you feel it, share it. Please leave a comment. Spread the love!

3 steps to profound healing (broken heart, bones, spirit)

I bleed. 

My heart bleeds out into the lonely night, and only the yearning for daylight; only the memory of a better day gives me hope...

Do you know what I mean? I know you do.

At least on some level, you do.

I’m a healer. I work as a therapist, I counsel people, and I heal their wounds (mostly emotional, but also physical). I didn’t ever desire to do this. I wanted to do many things, but never this…

When it came on me though, I knew it was my calling.

Healing is the simplest, most natural thing in the world. There are just 3 simple steps that you have to take to heal almost anything.

Of course, not everything can be healed. But even most things that are thought incurable can be.

And these are the 3 steps:

Simplicity. Because the revolution will not be televised.

When my wife and I first moved into our hilltop home / retreat center amongst the farmland and forests of Eastern Slovenia, we left our T.V. behind.

Hills, forest, farmland; no tsunami!

We’d decided to simplify...

Our courtship was in an ashram, and the austerity of our lives there brought us face to face and heart to heart and soul to soul in ways that I had dreamt of, yet had not dared dream of.

Our courtship was unlike any other I had experienced – and I’d experienced many; mostly fast and furious, and without real substance. But meeting Petra was like tasting a fruit that I’d never heard of before; it was a totally new, fresh experience, that burst into my senses and spread through my body, mind, and spirit.

We spent 6 months getting to know each other the old fashioned way. Surrounded as we were by Swamis who had taken vows of renunciation (my intention on coming there was to become a Swami myself!) we couldn’t express our feelings for each other in a physical way; we couldn’t even hold hands there!

So we talked when we could, but mostly just ‘tuned in’ to each other’s energy, bathing in the electric awareness of loving presence that seemed to surround us whenever we happened to be in the same room.

'Auschwitz Dancing' video: love or fear... a choice we make, every moment.

Do you believe in the possibility of peace on Earth?

I do...

***
This article was inspired by a video sent to me by a friend. That video is at the end of this piece, and if you haven’t already seen it, great! I ask you to read first, and watch later. Then, come back and leave a comment expressing what you felt about the video.

If you have seen the video, great! If you liked it, you’ll get what I have to say. If you didn’t – I ask you to read first, then watch the video again, and see if you still feel the same way...

EGO 2 - don't fight it!

Ok, so in the first article on ego (EGO 1) I said that the ego is not real. I said that ego is really an illusion. I also said that "much of the spiritual 'work' that many people do and have done for many years, is almost a waste of time."

I have to qualify my statement that the ego is not real. So first, I need to speak about reality:


Reality is subjective. But it's also absolute!
What do I mean?
I mean that there is a subjective reality, and an absolute reality.
Two people experience one event and remember differently what happened - memory is subjective. But it doesn't mean that two different things happened does it? It means that in reality, experience is subjective.
The reason for this subjectivity is that we don't experience reality as it is - we filter it. We have a filter between the world and our brain called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). It literally filters the information that comes to us from the outside world.


If you have never heard of a car called a Saab before, then you don't see Saabs. As soon as you hear of it - as soon as it enters your awareness, you begin to see them!
How is this possible? One minute (in your experience) the car doesn't exist - the next minute they're everywhere!!...

A TRIBUTE to my Father

2 years ago today, my Father died.

I don't like looking back - I too much enjoy being present to this momentary NOW, and it took me a long time to get here!

But sometimes it's necessary to acknowledge (to recognize and to accept) that part of the present is our connection with the past. Sometimes it's necessary to look back and reflect upon where we came from. Today feels like one of those times...

My Old Man died of a rare neurological disease called Motor Neurone Disease (or ALS if you're American, or sometimes it's known as Lou Gehrig's disease - that's how rare it is: no one can agree what to call it!)

It's a particularly bad disease to get (in case you're planning on getting a disease) because it's basically a slow burning death sentence. Bit by bit, the body stops working. And the medical establishments have no idea what causes it, and less idea what to do about it.

My Dad's disease first showed up in his throat - one day his speech started slurring. He told me about a phone call he’d had from an old work colleague - who asked him if he'd been drinking. He wasn't a big drinker - actually, he was one of the most sober people you could ever meet. So this old work colleague was surprised! But he hadn't been drinking. It's just that his vocal chords were wasting away.

In the end, his body packed in completely. I had a phone call one day from my Mother - if I wanted to see him again while he was still alive I should come home soon. So I got on a plane the next day, and spent the weekend with him. It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen in my life - the man who when I was a child, seemed super-human; my hero, reduced to a skeletal 'bag of bones'.

I've seen footage of the American G.I.'s who liberated the Nazi concentration camps, and they were crying like babies: those men who'd fought their way through the second world war, openly crying their eyes out at the sight of the camp prisoners. That's how I felt. But this was a man I knew. My Father.

I spent the weekend with him. He couldn't speak, so there wasn't much communication. He couldn't even hold eye contact, because his neck muscles couldn't support the weight of his head. He was very weak. But when the time came for me to leave, he made a huge effort to sit up, and we hugged. I whispered in his ear,

"I love you Pops".

He looked at me for a long moment, and gave me a 'gesture', like a nod, that I'll never forget. That simple gesture expressed all at once encouragement, love, and respect. And in his eyes I saw that he was at peace.

We both knew, He and I, that we would never see each other again.

Seeing the peace in his eyes that day was one of the most beautiful moments of my life!

The saddest and most beautiful moments of my life, in one weekend. What a rollercoaster ride!

Why was that moment beautiful? Because for years he'd been fighting with life. He was quite a fighter too - he would fight on and on until the bitter end (which is exactly what he did then), and never admit defeat. There were only two choices for him - victory or defeat, success or failure.

In life, he couldn't see another way - it was only in the manner of his death that he knew peace and acceptance.

I'd been trying for years to get him to see that sometimes we have to accept life on it's own terms. Sometimes we have to bow down to a higher power: god; destiny; spirit; a deeper wisdom - call it what you will. Sometimes, LIFE has plans for us, and the only way to be happy and healthy is to YIELD to those plans. To ‘go with the flow’.

I'd been trying for years, and of course my trying mirrored his fighting! My Father's son! So the more I tried, the more he fought, and the more frustrated I became. And we grew apart a little...

But in that moment, when he looked into my eyes and I saw that serenity, peace, acceptance... in that moment he taught me what I had been trying all along, in my vanity and ego, to teach him!

It's not easy - to surrender control. To surrender. But it's so important. I believe that the disease my Father had (Motor Neurone / ALS / Lou Gehrig’s disease) is caused by that refusal to surrender. I believe that it probably happens mostly to people who want to CONTROL life, and can't stand to admit defeat.

(I would love to have the opportunity to work with someone who has MND – I’m a healer – to see if I'm right: to see if I can heal them. If you know anyone who has it, and has the courage to fight it in an alternative way, to try something new, point them in my direction please.)

Nothing is incurable if you know the cause.

So here's my tribute to my Father: my first hero, and a wonderful man. He taught me in life the importance of honesty and integrity; and in his death he taught me the importance of surrender and acceptance. What a great teacher!

He died two years ago today, but he lives on in my heart.

If you enjoyed this post, you might particularly like this – the story of what happened after I hugged him goodbye, got in a taxi, and went to the airport. The story of the longest, hardest day of my life, and probably also the single biggest lesson I ever learnt.

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