What to Look for in a Yoga Teacher | Mark Whitwell
By Mark Whitwell Yoga Teacher at Heart of Yoga
This article is part of a series in which Mark Whitwell tackles humanity’s dysfunction around intimate relationship and the root cause of sexual abuse in societal patterns of separateness, conflict, fear of commitment, and co-dependency. He explains how the real pleasure of intimacy that Yoga gives is the social solution that vanishes the duplication of limiting beliefs and transforms life into intimate participation in Life as it actually as, for everyOne.
“I never call my student, student. I alway say he is my friend. This called mittra, loving care. I want to offer loving-care and that makes a huge difference” — T.K.V. Desikachar
This unassuming statement from my teacher Desikachar contains an essential principle of wisdom culture: the absolute recognition that the teacher is not a seniority, not a ‘knower,’ not a person who is above, regarding someone who is beneath them. Real spiritual transmission happens only in a relationship of mutual affection between two equals, no more than friends, no less.
Why? Because true spiritual realisation is the simple understanding that every person is already the Truth of life happening, every person is the Radiance, and that life itself does not come in the form of a chain of being. Nobody has anything that you don’t already have yourself. Such a recognition is modeled in the guru-sirsya relationship.
The great Siddha tradition of North India had this beautiful statement, “The Self is already attained.” God is given, in other words, the eternal nurturing power of the cosmos is arising as you and me. End of story. Likewise, my friend U.G. would say, “Nobody need give this to you and nobody can take it away.”
If that loving friendship between equals is not there, then what is transmitted is the problem itself: the social dynamic of disempowerment; the positioning of the knower and the one who does not know; the one who ‘has it’ and the one who is trying to get it. If we find ourselves in this paradigm then sooner or later we will have to rebel against it or simply walk away.
So rarely in our world is the principle of equality between teacher and student observed — in Yoga as in any other area of society. Many teachers pay lip service to the principle of no hierarchy whilst all the while maintaining a social position of authority: wearing special clothes, sitting on a special chair, receiving money, and the likes.
And sadly, some of the 20th century’s most well-known teachers only deepened the patterning of patriarchal mold. Krishnamacharya, for example, was dismayed to hear of the aggression and bullying behaviour that his brother-in-law B.K.S Iyengar dished out to his students. Many teachers have been brought to their knees as allegations of psychological manipulation to verbal, physical, and sexual abuse have surfaced. Pattabhi Jois and Bikram Choudhury are just the latest in a long line of sexual abuse stories arising from unequal, seeking relationships.
In the Bhakti cultures of India, we find a different model of the teacher. In these cultures it’s inherently understood that just to be a follower is everything. The teacher is a follower within the guru parampara. Yoga knowledge is not to be used as a power mechanism. Similarly, my teacher Desikachar would describe the teacher as a messenger passing on what they had received.
Desikachar also taught that it was the teacher’s responsibility to actively dismantle the presumption of hierarchy that will be brought to the relationship by the student. The teacher must attain ordinariness. He would advise his students to “always hold the teacher at arms length” so you can determine if there is any self-serving agenda going on.
For those in the world looking for a teacher, know that they are rare but they do exist. They will possess three main qualifications: 1) They practice themselves, and so are linked to the fact of unity, the fact of the inherent equality of all in the all; 2) They have a good teacher; they have experienced what a non-hierarchical, teacher-student relationship is and so can enact them themselves with others; and 3) They care about others; they are a decent person.
If you find a person who meets these requirements, then you have stumbled across pure gold. A few years ago I published an important blog post titled, ‘The Urgent Need for Standards in Yoga Teaching.’ As the patriarchal model collapses all around us, a new model of relating is emerging: one of ordinary humanity, mutual affection, and nurturing support in local community. Thank you to all the dear hearts around the world who are bringing this world into existence as we speak.
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