On my way back to San Diego, I was checking my email and saw a message from a former employee from Yoga Journal who had been laid off and was now starting his own yoga business to business networking site, as well as promoting a new magazine in San Francisco, and a yoga conference in Texas. He was offering me all sorts of ways to advertise with the magazine or participate in the conference, all which would cost money and assure me new business, but it was one line at the end of the email that struck me. It was "...conferences help yoga grow exponentially. The people that come to the conferences are your target demographic."
I sat in the presence of a Lama, directly connected to thousands of years of teachings passed to him through the oral and written transmission of his teachers and was asked for nothing, except to open my heart and embrace the wisdom falling from his lips... and then hours later, asked to pony up to the great American yoga machine to "help yoga grow exponentially" and reach my "target demographic."
The whole planet is my target demographic. The teachings I've received are gifts that can only be given, not sold, not solicited. The greatest conflict in my life is how to make my money. The teachings and practices of the ancients, of the wise, of the persecuted, are so precious, so profound that to somehow justify my own needs in exchange for spreading the dharma seems absurd. In the age of the superstar yogi, of teacher training programs more expensive than a college education, of yoga resorts in Costa Rica, I find myself adjusting the ideals that hold me to myself. Is it more important to do what I love and allow it to pay my rent, or find a way to be abundant and spread the teachings with no other motive than to change the course of humankind before we drop the executioner's axe on our own heads?
While passing through Fairfax I'd been having a conversation with my friend about how at one time the teachings of yoga, meditation, tai chi, and the martial arts had all been very secret. It was only in the last fifty years that many of these teachings had been released, and now they were saturating our society. We discussed whether or not they were somehow losing potency or value. She talked about how she was explicitly directed by a mutual friend of ours, a Hawaiian Energetics Healer, to not discuss various element of her recent training. I talked about how I had recieved Reiki transmissions awhile back, and how the sacred symbols taught to the level II practitioner were supposed to be secret, passed on only from teacher to student, and yet were all over the internet, tattooed on Pacific Beach yuppies or circus performers, and essentially just another image of modern interior design. These profound symbols, whose names were only spoken at a whisper as they were traced over the body of a patient; sigils of power perfectly debunked by the modern world...
I've received teachings on the practices of dream yoga, of ejecting the consciousness from the body at the time of death, of guiding one through the bardo, of dissolving all emotional negativity. I received them orally and was given the methods to perfect them through practice, and yet the method in which I received them did not stress their profundity, did not inspire me to embed them into my psyche, to hold them close to my heart like the diamonds of wisdom they are. I certainly was not instructed to keep them secret. I was once contacted by my teacher for having posted on my website that I taught some of the Bon Tibetan practices, and asked to take them off my schedule of classes. Our root teacher, a Bon Tibetan Lama, had received word that I was teaching them and explained that I was not authorized to teach them, and therefore should cease. I was instructed to "share my practice" on many occasions, to simply not call myself a teacher, but I have never been asked to keep the teachings to myself. In retrospect I can appreciate the lineage holders of these traditions working to ensure their integrity.
This concept of doing what you love for money is becoming increasingly difficult. Specifically because in theory there may not be enough market shares to go around for everyone to do what they want. I look around San Diego, and I know hundreds of Yoga Practitioners, most of which are teachers, most of which are putting on classes and workshops, overlapping each other. I get two dozen invitations a week via the various social networks to these events, and usually do not attend because I am too busy planning my own events, working to manifest my own studio and retreat center. I work hard because at the end of the day it is what is required.
This might sound like scarcity, or inability to manifest infinite time and space, and that’s because it is. I am not enlightened. I am not a master of my universe. In most ways I am still trying to make sense of my world and my place in it, the nature of my mind, of the shakti, of the divine. I am learning to witness my mind and emotions, and learning how to be in love all the time. Most importantly, I’m having a lot of fun ninety-five percent of the time. The other five percent is still spent worrying, doubting, fearing... but that is a remarkable improvement from even three years ago.
And most of my friends and partners are in the same boat. We have been programmed to fend for ourselves, to be individuals, to carve out a niche in society that will comfortably support us and provide us the opportunity to do what we love all the time. To “do what you love” for a living wage requires specialization, a refined strength in one area that sets you apart from your competitors. This refined specialization often requires training that is expensive and time consuming and often pigeon holes us into a career-mind orientation. I never wanted to be a yoga superstar, but more importantly, I have never wanted to make money from teaching the Dharma. I have always had an aversion to paying teachers exorbitant amounts of money, regardless of their lineage or ability. I know dear friends who may at one point have felt the same way, but after investing $4000 and two years of training toward their “certification,” they now expect to get paid, or rather they feel they “deserve” to get paid. And why not? In the monetary system they have every right to get paid for teaching their practice. Except that the teachings we are receiving do not belong to anyone living on this planet. They are divine in right, they are the pathway to our own divinity. The fact that we desire to make money off the very thing that will liberate us from desires, war, poverty, and money itself show how sick we are. It shows that we are simply weaving yoga, meditation, and the esoteric arts into our already corrupted social structure. We are de-mistifying the teachings, we are diluting them, prostituting them, and most I know have little reverence for their power.
The United States in particular has branded “styles” of yoga, most of which disseminate from Hatha, which in turn is a form of Raja Yoga or the path of self control. The other three paths are Jana; the path of knowledge and wisdom, Bhakti; the path of devotion, and Karma; the path of action. Yoga by definition is union with the absolute, known as Brahman or Atman, “the true self.” Yoga is a philosophy that can be interpreted in many was, and this is a basic understanding. The practice of yoga is infinitely deep, a way of life, and extends far beyond the physical postures, breath, or even meditation. It is a form of witnessing yourself, the inconsistencies, the negative patterns, the bullshit that has built up through conditioning over the course of a lifetime. All the impressions we take on from our lifetime build up like soot in the chimney, and yoga is a process of sweeping out the chimney, clearing the soot. Of course, the longer you go without cleaning it, the longer it takes to get it clean. There is no formula, only dedication, patience, persistence, and a clear understanding of the essence of the teachings. Yoga in not unlike any other esoteric path. Much like the Tao, the Sufi, the Kabbala, or the wicca, the goal of the spiritual practice is to return to the source, to discover divinity within, to let our true light shine through the darkness. What is the darkness? It is every moment when you feel alone, depressed, needy, despondent, angry, or completely disconnected from everything around you. These moments are not constant, but rear their ugly heads moment to moment, when you least expect it.