Vol 6: Serenity Scaffolding: Contortion, Masks, and Showmanship
A few years ago, I tripped over and broke my shoulder. What was surprising, after the initial impact, was the response from a couple of my yoga students. They were shocked. “Weren’t you being mindful?” or “I would have thought your body could have withstood that?”. I had got my ankle caught in an almost invisible line tied at ankle level. On my way down, I extended an arm to break my fall. Of course, I broke my shoulder. It got me thinking about the unrealistic expectations people pin on yoga, and, by extension on yoga teachers.
Kudos of the Super-Bendy
Of course, a lot of this stems from how yoga is portrayed. When I first started out as a yoga teacher there was a certain kudos to it. Men would wink and say “ooh you must be really bendy”. Others would exclaim “you must be calm all the time”. (These days all I get is “you must be un-vaccinated”). There was a mystique to it, an exoticness, and I will admit that I played up to it. Practitioners of yoga, pre QAnon days, were seen as healthy, blissful and possessing bodily prowess.
If you skim through Instagram, you will find endless photographs of yogis propagating this. Radiant, serene, performing acts of contortion or claiming to have powers based on the way they breathe or the latest supplement they’re taking. They seem to waft effortlessly through the world as free spirits, not remotely touched by the horrors of the world. They exude only good vibes; they have risen above anger, fear, and all the other negative emotions. They manifest their desires because they are in tune with the cosmos, vibrating at a more evolved frequency and with such mind control, they can manipulate the world around them with their magical thinking. Is it any wonder yoga is often seen as something akin to the old TV show “Monkey”?
From Downward Dog to Omnipotence
On my teacher trainings, we learned how to teach the postures, breath and meditation. There was no instruction about levitation, bending reality or emotional control (although I suspect the majority of the tutors believed they had these abilities). Yogi Bhajan, figurehead behind one of the styles of yoga I studied, spoke of his powers or “Siddhis”; he claimed to be able to control the weather like some modern day King Cnut. There is of course no evidence of this, and was undoubtedly mentioned for effect – you can’t be a guru without some genie-like showmanship shazam. We were expressly forbidden from trying to develop our own Siddhis (or, handily, from asking our trainers to demonstrate that they exist) as this would be a misuse of the spiritual teachings. But the idea is still active today, that for those who master yoga, supernatural powers are available.
Yoga as Spectacle
Mark Singleton writes in Yoga Body about the development of yoga as spectacle. He believes some of this would have arisen from the early yogis need to survive. Like early buskers, they learned from the fakirs or magicians, that if they contorted themselves into impossible postures or lay on a bed of nails, they would attract attention and reward. This was the start of the visual element of yoga, early Instagram as it were. Once when I was on holiday in Greece, I had to stand on the head of a fakir who lay face down in broken glass. It was super impressive but I’m not sure it had much to do with his spiritual abilities. He swore like a bastard and was not unmarked when he got up. I also once walked on hot coals at London Zoo – in the hour-long pre-event talk, the only instruction we were given was to not stop walking.
Of course, there are well documented cases of yogis being able to spectacularly control bodily functions such as temperature, immune response and even things like tumor growth. I find this easier to believe than feats of controlling reality. I can see how a truly embodied yoga practice, with an intimate developed awareness of the internal workings of the body, might arrive here. But this takes considerable time and commitment to master, as evidenced by the current slew of yoga practitioners who claimed Covid could never touch them, now having to admit they have tested positive.
Anger is for the Unenlightened
Far easier to bluff than physical prowess, is the ability to control emotions. How many yogis have I met that claim they have transcended anger? Now I haven’t transcended anger – I am quite often found ranting about politics or triggered by a member of my family or even just pissed-off by the weather. For a long time, I thought there was something wrong with me, I seemed to have a defective amount of anger. I would look at my fellow yoga teachers and marvel at their beatific faces, full of goodness and compassion. They’d bring their hands together in prayer pose and say “love and light” in an angelic soft voice. I’d ask, “how have you achieved this level of transcendence?” and answers would vary from don’t take things personally, to stay away from negativity. Stop watching the news, Suzanne. Stay away from toxic people.
Now I’ve tried a lot of this but without a great deal of success. No matter how much I try to block out anything that might make me feel angry, it seeps in. I always take things personally. If everyone is doing the best they can then frankly, some people should try harder. But still the pressure to be an unresponsive yoga teacher is huge. I’ve had some really shocking things happen in my yoga classes from people walking out to the roof coming off the building. And through it all I felt I had to show no emotion. For to be a truly great yoga teacher, you must have transcended the emotions. Everything happens for a reason. It’s okay that you have treated me badly for I am loving kindness.
Spiritual Keeping Up Appearances
It has of course dawned on me that there is nothing wrong with me. Anger and the other so-called “negative” emotions are natural, useful, and instructive. When I stopped beating myself up for my shortcomings, I saw the truth. That the people claiming to feel no emotions in fact were very much feeling them but had somehow managed to disguise them or suppress them or to dissociate completely. We had one trainer on a teacher training who was particularly angelic, softly spoken, compassionate, resplendent in her white robes and turban. Everyone used to gasp at how spiritual she was, how elevated and expansive. One time I accidentally came across her talking to another trainer. She was anger in full flow, face twisted, swearing and anything but compassionate. I couldn’t have been more shocked had she ripped off her face to reveal a lizard. Away from her gullible audience, the mask was removed.
Why can’t we as yoga teachers accept all parts of our self and be authentic, show who we are? Why do we have to put on this pretense? To teach with any credibility do we all have to behave like the Dalai Lama, even if we’ve only done 200 hours training over Zoom? The lead trainer on my teacher training is considered one of the modern spiritual masters. I remember being at his ashram and two of my fellow students had taken it upon themselves to explore his private apartment, a clear boundary violation. As he reacted, I remember seeing anger in his eyes fleetingly, before that was replaced by something softer. A gently spoken, that’s okay, I forgive you, my children. At the time I thought this was remarkable. With hindsight, it was control, pure and simple, a show of inauthentic serenity. Spiritual keeping up appearances.
The Messy Business of Healing
Are we doing our yoga students any favours by calling anger, fear and guilt negative emotions, something to be avoided and hidden? Are these false performances of excessive positivity and niceness helpful? Absolutely not. All it did for me was make me feel really awful about myself and try to hide elements of my personality. It taught only avoidance, suppression and disconnect. I get angry. I am full of doubt and fear. I have a family that offers far more than its fair share of challenges. I get triggered constantly. When I sit in meditation, I’m not floating on a cloud. I’m in my body, dealing with rage held in my belly, or self-doubt crippling my throat.
Spiritual practice is a messy business. It’s not a band-aid for a tumor, a magic wand that makes all your torment go away. In fact, it makes it worse before it gets better, uncovering previously hidden trauma and memories we would prefer to forget. To progress in yoga and meditation you have to work consistently and be brave enough to explore your pain and to acknowledge your darkness as well as the light. And I think that the fact that I’m doing this, that I’m now honest about who I am and the challenges that my experiences have given me, make me better able to help others through it. There is no requirement to be “spiritually perfect” to teach others. True wisdom is found in imperfection. Compassion for others only comes when we can be compassionate towards our self, warts and all. We don’t need the smoke and mirrors of gurus anymore; an authentic human seeking mastery and liberation will do.