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"Also, yoga teachers are not supposed to do it for money. Read up on how Gurukuls worked." Yeah I suppose you'll want to practice guruseva instead -- work for
by opinali 13y ago
"Also, yoga teachers are not supposed to do it for money. Read up on how Gurukuls worked."
Yeah I suppose you'll want to practice guruseva instead -- work for your instructor, such as cleaning his restroom, cooking, or going to the street begging for money on his behalf. No thanks, as much a traditionalist that I can be wrt yoga, some things are better the modern/western way.
"Yoga removed from its spiritual context is just a kitschy low grade thing"
No, yoga can be an awesome practice removed from any religion/spirituality. There's support from that even in traditional practices and texts. And if you get all dogmatic about this, I think you're doing it wrong unless you're practicing yoga associated with some form of Hinduism (most mantras are Vedantic chants, etc.). Get off my atheistic yoga mat :))
But I agree with the general stupidity of many commercial yogas. For one thing, heated rooms are a no-no, yoga has a purist approach as a biological and self-sufficient practice so it doesn't use any artificial support: no weights, stands, Pilates balls, etc., the ONLY thing you need is your own body (not just for the physical exercises / asanas, but all practices including meditation).
- cscurmudgeon 13y ago> Yeah I suppose you'll want to practice guruseva instead -- work for your instructor, such as cleaning his restroom, cooking, or going to the street begging for money on his behalf. No thanks, as much a traditionalist that I can be wrt yoga, some things are better the modern/western way. Why do you assume that? I learnt yoga for free without doing any of that. If you can't find a reasonable person to teach you, all the source material is available for free. There are some benefits to doing those kind of activities. People nowadays are too egotistic. Those things are a nice way of curbing that. Yoga was developed for spiritual reasons. That can't be denied. There have been people trying to remove its spiritual dimension through the ages. That can't be denied too. You can always use a church for just shelter. That does not make false that it was built for another purpose. You have a finite life span. Do you want to use yoga to get a better body to increase your chances of finding a mate (or something equally trivial) or do you want to transcend finiteness? I thought all this was drivel too, till I got terribly fat and sick and was forced to do yoga. The caution about being dogmatic applies to you too. Approach yoga with an open mindset while not thinking that the founders were complete morons when it came to spirituality. An analogy: just a few decades back almost everyone in the mainstream thought yoga had nil benefits. Nobody is stopping you from doing yoga on your atheistic mat. Don't belittle us by assuming so :)