The Seven Shibbeloths of Yoga (or how yoga sold us a spiritual dream)

1. Yoga teachers don’t wear knickers.

OK, this one is true. Go to a hot yoga class. Check it out.

2. Yoga is a spiritual path.

If yoga was a guidebook to spirituality then meditation would be an integral part of the practice. Many people claim yoga to be a moving meditaton. True: but if you want an overview of how to meditate then head to your nearest Buddhist centre. The difference is immediately apparent (see my post on yoga and meditation).

3. I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I’ve been practicing yoga for thirteen years. I work with yoga teachers on a daily basis (see my website: www.yogatravel.co.uk). I am neither a teacher nor am I a spiritual adept. I enjoy yoga - it makes me physically strong and it makes me think about things I wouldn’t otherwise consider. What do you want?

3. Yoga teachers are profound.

Yoga teachers can be profound. But most likely they are vain. One of the immutable truths about human nature is that power corrupts. Imagine: you stand in front of people for a living who, at the end of the class, tell you how wonderful you are. Repeat every day for ten years. How would you feel?

4. Yoga teachers are vain.

Ah: now we’re getting there. A yoga teacher of my aquaintance recently described herself as the ‘female Christ’.  Why? See (3).

5. Yoga is about inner development.

This might be true of yoga in India. However, this sort of stuff is hard to take for a Western audience. A pioneering yoga teacher (Swami Vishnu Devananda or Sivananda yoga fame) discovered this when trying to introduce breathing practices at the end of his New York classes. Students simply left after the physical bit. Vishnu Devananda subsquently shifted his breathword to the beginning of the class where his students were still captive.

6. Yoga is an equal opportunities employer.

In fact, yoga is a great place for men to work. It’s 90% women; the women involved are guaranteed to be dissatisfied with their current situation; men in yoga classes are always the exotic exception.

7. A particular yoga style is right or wrong.

An Ashtanga student will tell you that there’s only one way to do the sun salutations. A Bikram student will tell you that there are only 26 positions requried to know yoga. In fact contemporary western yoga is often an excuse to join a gang; a feeling that is often missing in contemporary western society. You pay your class fees, you’re in. There are no right ways to do yoga, just as there are as many variations on it as there are people who do it. Here Sivananda teachers score highly: because its gurus are long dead, the style is more open to interpretation than more modern styles.