The Dangers of Yoga Revisited

(11/11/2013)

I hurt myself getting out of bed today. It was a freak accident. I wasn’t fully awake yet and rolled over to step onto the floor, but miscalculated and instead stubbed the toes of my left foot on the wooden frame of my waterbed, causing extreme pain and fairly profuse bleeding. I had previously broken two of those same toes while playing soccer on the beach. I felt foolish for managing to injure myself while getting out of bed – what a klutz!

And it wasn’t the first time I've been injured in bed, but not for the fun reason you are probably thinking. I have a “wonky” right shoulder which I have hurt severely enough to require narcotics, merely by “sleeping wrong,” either on my side or with the arm over my head. I don’t know how the shoulder was originally hurt; it first came to my attention when I sent the requested photograph for enrollment in Self Realization Fellowship yoga program at age 17, and they commented that my right shoulder was lower than my left. Maybe I was born that way, or maybe the shoulder was originally injured during one of my many high-speed buck- or bail-offs from a galloping horse during childhood. In any case, now that I am 50 all I need to do is “sleep wrong” to aggravate it severely.

But as it turns out, bed injuries are far more common than I had imagined and in fact, beds are a major source of injury in America! “There were an estimated 218,619 bed or bedframe-related emergency-room visits from people aged 17 to 70 in 2010 alone, according to NEISS (National Electronic Injury Surveillance System).”

I ran across this surprising fact while doing research subsequent to an argument with one of my friends and fellow yoga teachers after reading yet another alarmist NY Times article by William Broad, whose now-famous article from 2012, “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body” has since been analyzed by many yogis and doctors and has been found, to put it politely, “lacking from a factual standpoint.” ** I have previously responded to that article in my blog post, “How Fear Can Wreck Your Fun.”

Broad’s latest article addresses specifically the dangers of yoga for flexible women who allegedly, because of yoga, ended up needing hip replacements. The factual content of this article, too, has already come into question because, for one thing, the women referenced had a preexisting hip abnormality.

I said, “Oh, here goes the NY Times with more fear-mongering about yoga!” My friend took offense at my words, but as I explained, the level of alarm being raised is way out of proportion to the actual amount of danger involved. Statistically yoga is one of the least dangerous activities. Danger, after all, is relative; if you tell me something is “dangerous,” the next logical question is, “Compared to what?”

My friend responded, “First of all, yoga is not a ‘physical activity.’ And you can’t say it is less dangerous than other activities. Statistics can be manipulated. We have no way of knowing because nobody is keeping track of it.” My friend is convinced that “literally millions” of people have been hurt by “yoga.”

With regard to the first objection, you’ll get no argument from me, as I have discussed at some length in my blog and my website. Real Yoga as taught by the traditional schools like Heart of Yoga and Advanced Yoga Practices is a spiritual discipline of which asana is just one branch which, when practiced correctly, involves pranayama, bandha and mindfulness and leads to meditation. We are in perfect agreement that the activity in question which is being called “yoga” is not Real Yoga. The activity labeled “yoga” by NEISS as the source of the injuries is asana as physical exercise, practiced out of context and often incorrectly. The “yoga” statistics don’t include straining your brain while contemplating nonduality, or damage to your self-esteem from being taught that you’re not ok just the way you are, or a swollen ego from successfully doing a difficult pose. We are only talking about the physical activity and consequences of asana here. And yes, I actually can say with some confidence that it is a “relatively safe activity” (even when done incorrectly) because in fact somebody is keeping track of it!

Every time you go to the doctor, alphanumerical codes are assigned to your medical record. There are basically three different codes corresponding to: the nature of your illness or injury, the treatment given, and if an injury, how it happened. These codes are entered on a computer and they are analyzed on a yearly basis. The medical code for “yoga” (i.e. asana) as a cause of injury is E005.1. The number of injuries documented with this code in 2010 was 7948, while the total number of people practicing “yoga” was around 22,000,000. Therefore, while we certainly are not happy that 7948 people were injured, it is a very tiny percentage compared to the number of people doing the activity (less than 0.04%), ranking well below golf. And as far as “literally millions” being injured, even if we assume the statistics are “off” by 100 times, that’s still fewer than one million. And, what happened to all their medical records?

NEISS may not be a perfect system but it’s the best we have, and it is good enough for the insurance companies. Now, knowing how cynical I am, you may well ask, why would I take their word for it? Greed. We can trust the insurance companies to act in their own best interest. They exist to make a profit, and the only way to do that is by making sure the premiums charged are more than the claims paid out. They look at the NEISS report and calculate their rates according to the per capita number of injuries for any given activity. This is why, for example, my liability insurance for teaching horseback riding was $100/month, whereas my yoga teacher liability insurance is about $10/month – because horseback riding actually is dangerous compared to a lot of other activities, as the injury statistics clearly demonstrate.

I was worried that my yoga liability premium would go up after the NY Times published all those alarming articles, but it didn’t. Not one cent. This is because the insurance companies don’t base their rates on fear-mongering articles or sensationalist books; they use the 2012 NEISS data which did not support the Times’ allegations of increased dangers from yoga.

Which again, as my dear friend correctly points out, is not Real Yoga anyway. The Yoga that we teach, from Krishnamacharya, is all about the breath, which contains and guides the movement; the asana exists for the breath, and the asana is adapted to the needs of the individual – not the other way around, as it is too often taught in many “yoga” studios. But this only makes my case stronger, because despite the fact that “yoga” or “asana” is being taught incorrectly, without the proper safeguards, the number of injuries resulting from even this Faux- or Pseudo-yoga remains quite low relative to other activities!

My friend said that if yoga were taught according to the principles of Krishnamacharya there would be no injuries. I don’t believe that, based on my own experience. I managed to re-injure my wonky shoulder while attending a teacher training intensive by Mark Whitwell, IMO the best yoga teacher alive today. The old injury had been exacerbated a few weeks previously by carrying too many bags of groceries at once, and then I “slept wrong” on it and awoke in horrible pain, unable to even lift my arm above shoulder level. It had begun to heal when we attended the training, where I was trying to hold Down Dog for 4 breaths. Turns out 4 was too many; 2 would have been fine; partway through the third breath my shoulder suddenly collapsed. Mark was quite alarmed but it wasn’t his fault; I told him it was just an old injury and it would be ok. And eventually it was, until the next time I carried something too heavy and then “slept wrong.”

Stuff happens. We live in a perfectly imperfect world and as I’ve pointed out before, existence is inherently unsafe. Being born is dangerous and it only goes downhill from there. And some of us are born klutzes. So yes, caution is recommended in all our activities, including sleeping, getting out of bed and doing asana. But let’s keep things in perspective.

**
My 2 Cents about “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body by Leslie Kaminoff

PUTTING YOGA-RELATED INJURY RISKS IN CONTEXT OR YES, I SAW THE ARTICLE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES by Jason Amis

Yoga, Truthiness and the New York Times by Dr. Timothy McCall

Yoga, Injuries, and William J. Broad’s Trainwreck by Karen Macklin

How Fear Can Wreck Your Fun

(January 2012) The NY Times recently published an article, “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,” which has resulted in a great deal of discussion and controversy. Is yoga dangerous? Well, all activity is potentially dangerous. Life is inherently unsafe. People used to understand that. Forgive me for being skeptical about the modern obsession with safety, which I suspect has more to do with protecting revenue than protecting the public.

As a teacher I do endeavor to make yoga as safe as possible for my students. I practice and teach according to the principles of Krishnamacharya, that the postures exist for the breath and the breath guides the movement. Yoga is adapted to the individual. Each person must listen to their own body and breath. I tell my students that yoga done correctly feels GOOD; if a posture hurts, don’t do it. A big part of my job is teaching them how to listen to their body, both to experience ecstasy and also to avoid injury.

This is NOT what is taught in gymnastics-oriented “yoga” classes where students are encouraged to push their physical limits and forced into inappropriate postures. It could be argued that such a practice is not, in fact, yoga. Historically yoga is a spiritual discipline of which asana is just one part. And for me personally, yoga is a devotional practice. But I am reluctant to impose my own definition on everybody else, considering that approximately 20 million Americans are doing “yoga” just for exercise.

I started doing yoga at age 13 and I am now 48, and yes, in my youth I did go for the more difficult poses like handstand and dropping back into backbend, which were very doable at age 15 but which now I only attempt at the beach or on very soft grass. Has 35 years of serious yoga practice – including headstand and shoulder stand, in that order, as part of my daily routine – wrecked my body? On the contrary, my body is in awesome shape! Thanks mostly to yoga I am flexible and strong, ripped, even, and weigh the same as I did in high school, and I have not incurred any injuries.

I do have a “wonky” knee which can no longer slip easily into full lotus; I have to be careful with it to avoid pain. I don’t know whether this was caused by the many hours spent sitting in lotus over the years. My father also has bad knees, had one replaced recently, and has never done yoga at all, so it might be genetic. I can tell you, though, if this minor occasional knee pain was in fact caused by sitting in lotus all those years, it was well worth it, as I will explain later.

Now as to the question of “danger,” if I seem blasé, it is because compared to all the dangerous activities in my life, yoga is the least of these. I rode my first pony at about age 3. In adolescence my friends and I would gallop our horses across dunes and down the beach, jumping over anything in our path – lawn chairs, driftwood – in our bikinis, the sun on our brown bodies (without sunscreen), laughing, the wind in our hair; we didn’t wear helmets. At times the horses would decide they’d had enough, and bolt for home. Then, you could either hold on for dear life or, depending on how much bucking was involved, pick a relatively soft spot to bail off before being bucked off at high speeds. No big deal; you learn how to fall. In the course of my equine activities I have been bitten, kicked, stepped on, bucked off and even had my horse fall on top of me and knock me out cold, none of which ever resulted in an ER visit and only made me realize how amazingly sturdy our bodies really are.

My other dangerous childhood activities included ballet, which as we know is harmful to the feet and ankles, but we do it for the sheer joy of dance, and gymnastics, with uneven bars and balance beam. If you think postures are dangerous on the floor, try doing them on a 4-inch wide beam several feet off the ground. As a child I also spent plenty of time roller-skating on cement, and ice-skating, and had my share of falls. My parents taught me to swim in the ocean at 18 months and I’ve been swimming and surfing, sometimes in big waves or sharky waters, ever since. As a teenager I had a dirt bike that I consistently crashed. Also in my teens on more than one occasion I hiked off-trail across a mountainside on loose shale in my flip-flops with a thousand-foot drop below. In hindsight that probably was not safe. Nor was racing my horse against cars. But anyway, the point is, yoga pales in comparison with the other dangerous stuff I have been doing.

But, just how dangerous IS yoga, in its popular form? According to the Consumer Products Safety Commission, the number of yoga injuries treated in ER or doctor’s offices was about 5500 in 2007, at which time there were an estimated 15.8 million practitioners, or 0.035 percent of participants. By contrast, weight training injuries were at 0.12-0.15 percent, and golf injuries were 0.39 percent. Note, these are all well below 1% of participants. No doubt the numbers are much higher for activities such as football, soccer, skateboarding, skiing, etc. Running or even walking can result in injuries. Like I said, activity is inherently dangerous.

On the other hand, sitting on your ass is dangerous! I say this humorously but the fact is, there is an epidemic of obesity in the U.S., with about 33% of adults and 17% of children being obese. In association, the incidence of type 2 diabetes is now double what it was 25 years ago and is now striking younger people, as is cardiovascular disease. This is largely due to a lack of physical activity, and therefore it could well be argued that statistically, NOT doing yoga is actually more dangerous than doing yoga, even the poorly taught variety.

But what if, in fact, the classical yoga that I have been doing since childhood really WAS that dangerous - if I had it to do over, would I? Hell yeah, and no regrets. Yoga made big promises and it more than delivered. Being ripped and having great abs and sometimes being carded buying booze at 48 is just a fringe benefit of the practice. All those years doing asana and pranayama and sitting in lotus allowed for meditation, something that is difficult to put into words because of the dualistic nature of language, but which my teacher calls our “natural state.” At first it was only for a moment, brief glimpses of peace and bliss, a fleeting sense of oneness. As the years went by the moments became hours, sitting completely immersed in Bliss, divine Love and Oneness, free from attachment and fear, the chattering of the monkey-mind silenced. Then one day the meditative state suddenly overflowed and became my entire reality, which is way better than anything I could have imagined. Had I been injured in the process it would have been totally worth it.

Of course, this is NOT the type of “yoga” that is resulting in the 0.035 percent of students being injured. Or, is it? I do, after all, include headstand and shoulder stand in my daily practice, which apparently can cause stroke from “arterial dissection,” an extremely rare condition which if a person is predisposed, can also happen from whiplash, head-banging, vigorous coughing or sneezing, orgasm, or even tilting one’s head back for a shampoo at the beauty parlor. I figure if doing headstand was going to kill me, it probably would have by now. It doesn’t feel like my neck is being compressed; it feels like the universe is dangling me by the feet and my head just happens to be touching the ground. It feels good, comfortable, peaceful.

As for my students, I’m not that concerned about yoga wrecking their bodies because most of them have done a bang-up job of it already, thanks to activities like horseback riding, ballet and running, and/or a poor diet, and often with the help of doctors, especially bad drugs and botched surgeries. They come to me to fix the existing wreckage. We rarely do anything that is very exciting or scary. I do have two young, strong, athletic students who practice headstand and backbend, but for the most part we just stretch and move gently, all the while listening to our body and breathing in the Bliss.

So, what is all this fear-mongering about? As we have seen, the incidence of injury from yoga (even badly taught) is statistically quite low, compared to other activities. But if even a few people are injured, then clearly something must be done! More regulation, more stringent certification is needed because, after all, it’s really about protecting the public, isn’t it?!

No, it is not. It is about protecting the income of those who are promoting the regulations. There is indeed an over-abundance of yoga teachers from an economic standpoint. I know this because students used to cheerfully pay me $20 an hour in Berkeley in the 1980s, and now they are telling me $10 is too much and I really ought to charge $7 because it’s cheaper at the gym. The public awareness of yoga injuries (however rare) has suddenly become a big deal because it provides the perfect excuse to enforce new regulations that may or may not make anyone safer but will certainly eliminate a lot of teachers from the field and thereby make others richer.

Those who become certified under the new regulations will not be teachers like myself and my friends, or Glenn Black, those of us who have decades of experience, who specialize in teaching one-on-one, but lack the existing Alliance certification. It will be the people who are already Alliance-certified and/or who can afford to go back to school to get the new certification, who will then be able to charge more due to decreased competition. The government will make money off the licensing fees. And the liability insurance companies will raise their premiums to reflect the newly discovered dangers of yoga, thereby increasing their profits. Everybody wins! Except, of course, for the teachers who will be out of work, and the students who will have to pay more while being subjected to an impersonal, one-size-fits-all approach to yoga under the new rules. Regulation by its very nature seeks to enforce the same standards on everyone, which is exactly the opposite of the individualized approach which is so needed in yoga.

You probably think I am just being cynical, but wait and see.

The Babe and the Bathwater

(December 2011)

The Holiday season can be an uneasy time if we have had a negative experience with religion. The family get-togethers, decorating, gift giving and festivities are one thing, but when we look at the Babe in the manger, what is that all about? Did the Infinite really come to earth as a human baby? And if so, for what reason? Depending on what religious tradition we were raised in, our next thought might be of sin and redemption, i.e. GUILT, which is why many of us long ago threw out the Babe along with the bathwater. Maybe we want to celebrate Christ but religion has ruined that for us! Anyway, God is in everyone, right? so what’s the big deal about the Avatar myth, the Incarnation, Mithras, Jesus, Krishna, etc.? And for my atheist friends, it’s all a bunch of made-up stuff, sheer fantasy, and therefore moot. Now, at this point we could go into theological arguments about “original sin” and stuff, but let’s not, ok?*

Two of my favorite** yoga students, a mom and her 3-year-old daughter, were at Lothlorien for their private lesson today and afterwards we were talking about Christmas and the whole religious “guilt trip.” She told me her daughter one day recited: “God is good and we are bad.” ?! She apparently picked this up at her religious preschool. A fundamentalist relative, on hearing this, said, “Oh, wisdom from the mouths of babes!” Mom and I agreed, no, NOT wisdom – false and hurtful indoctrination. We need to nip this in the bud! Mom explained to the child, “No, honey, we are good; but sometimes we do bad things.” The child had been just a wee bit rowdy today – very mildly so, based on my limited experience of 3-year-olds – and the little angel, Heaven shining in her innocent blue eyes, turned to me and asked, “Am I bad??” I took her in my arms and said, “No, no, my dear, you are very, very GOOD!!”

What to do?! The best way to protect yourself, and your children, from damaging religious dogma is to have a very deep, solid, intimate relationship with the Divine yourself. When you know in your heart of hearts that you are perfectly loved, perfectly cared for, and you feel secure, rooted and grounded in that Love, then nothing anybody can say is going to hurt or confuse you. Of course, if you are an atheist all you need to do is say it’s just made up stories and not to worry about it, which is much easier. But most of us, like this student, do have some kind of spiritual inclination which has unfortunately been tarnished or totally ruined by the religious indoctrination we received in our childhood. The images, such as the Babe in the manger, have become associated with unhealthy thought patterns like, “God is good and I am bad.” How do we replace those negative patterns?

We replace them with direct experience of the Divine. Throw out the dogma and do your yoga! As my teacher Mark Whitwell says, “Yoga is your direct participation in Source Reality.” When we breathe we are participating in That which is breathing us. If you are religious, the breath is the Holy Spirit filling you. Every one of us can experience that intimate connection, that re-linking with the Divine – the same Love which manifested the universe and called it “good.” The Love that took specific human form and lived among us as Avatar. The same Love that lives in our heart, expressing as you and me. Whatever language you use for It, allow yourself to be embraced by that Love, moved, animated, sustained by It. When you have a consistent daily yoga practice and you live in that relationship of Love your children will feel it, too. Bad theology will naturally be repelled like dirty bathwater off a duck’s back. And then we need not throw out the Babe with the bathwater. Merry Christmas.

* I've already addressed some of the theological arguments in my previous blog posts.

** Am I allowed to have favorites? oh, but I love every one of them so much; I have the best students in the world; I guess they are all my favorites!!

Christmas is a Pagan Holiday - Let's Celebrate!

[from December 2011]

This was originally published last year and being lazy, I decided to re-publish it.
***

I decided to post this entry from my other blog ("Heresy and Political Incorrectness") because it pertains to spirituality and thus is relevant to yoga.  Wishing everyone a very Happy Holiday!
***

Once again it’s that time of the year – Chrismahanukwanzakah, or more simply, the Winter Solstice – a time when people of different faiths are brought together by something that we all have in common:  whining.   “Oh, the humanity!”  How unfair it is, and how oppressed we are by people of other faiths not respecting our particular interpretation of the Holiday.  Pagans complain that they are being subjected to “Christian” indoctrination by the holiday music and decorations found in malls and other public places, and also that Christians “stole” their Holiday.  Many Christians, on the other hand, object to the mere phrase “Happy Holidays” as being anti-Christian (apparently not having noticed that “holiday” = “holy day”) and want to “put Christ back in Christmas.”  Meanwhile some other Christians, such as the Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, refuse to celebrate Christmas at all, on the basis that it is a pagan holiday, a view that was also held by many Protestants in the past, including the Pilgrims.   They assert, correctly, that the symbolism of the evergreen tree, mistletoe, holly, the star on the tree, the candles, etc., as well as the date itself, are purely pagan in origin.  While this is quite true, it is, in my opinion, no reason not to celebrate!

On the contrary, we should cherish our pagan spiritual roots, especially in light of the fact that “Christmas” as it is being promoted in modern society is purely secular and nothing but an unabashed orgy of commercialism, a feeding frenzy of capitalism.  Where a nativity scene is still present in public, it is almost certainly not there to commemorate God Incarnate, His Mother, or even, for that matter, the Sun, but rather, the 3 Wise Men bringing – what? – GIFTS, of course!!   While it has been argued that “3 wise men” per se might be an oxymoron, they are undeniably bearing gifts, which is after all the secular Reason for the Season.  The (alleged) birth of Jesus at the Winter Solstice has become merely an advertising tool to induce people to spend huge amounts of money.  Among non-Christians, including atheists and Jews, the religious theme is easily ignored and substituted by “good will towards mankind” which nearly everyone can accept and, of course, results in the same thing:  buying lots of gifts.  Thus, the modern god Money is served by all, regardless of religion.

But Jesus was not even born in December, since the story involves shepherds being out in the open field with their flocks at night.  December in Palestine is quite chilly and the sheep and shepherds, to this day, would be indoors at that time.  The flocks were turned out to pasture in March and brought back in the beginning of November.  

We don’t know exactly when Jesus was born; some say midsummer or perhaps September, but in any event the early Christians did not celebrate His birthday.  “Christmas” did not even exist until about the fourth century A.D., when the Roman emperor Constantine established the celebration of Jesus’ birthday at the Winter Solstice which was on December 25, during the Roman holiday known as “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun” which celebrated the return of light and life after the darkest day of the year.  “Coincidentally,” December 25 was also the birthday of the solar deity Horus, son of Isis, the Queen of Heaven, and Mithras, also born of a virgin and also called “the Sun of Righteousness,” a title shared by Jesus.  None of this was by mistake.  The Emperor Constantine, a convert to Christianity, felt that it was in the best interest of Roman society that everybody could celebrate together.  He sought to merge Christianity with the pagan traditions.  Since Jesus was obviously an incarnation of the Dying and Reborn God, Sun of Righteousness and son of Mary, the Queen of Heaven, it made perfect sense to celebrate Him along with the other solar deities at the Winter Solstice.  While modern pagans may cry that this was a cruel hoax, an attempt to trick the pagans and “steal” their holiday, the pagans in ancient Rome didn’t mind at all.  Romans were very cosmopolitan and they were accustomed to learning new names for their gods and/or meeting new gods.

Meanwhile in ancient Europe they were also celebrating the Winter Solstice by bringing indoors holly, ivy, evergreen trees and mistletoe – sacred to Balder, another Dying and Reborn Sun God – and lighting candles and burning the Yule log to encourage the return of the Sun.  Later, Santa Claus joined the festivities as the Stag King amidst his reindeer.  All of these pagan elements are central to Christmas celebrations today.  The red berries of the holly also represent drops of Christ’s blood shed for the world.

While some Christians may find these pagan parallels disturbing, I rejoice in them.  A former pagan, I find the modern rivalry between pagans and Christians unnecessary and absurd.  According to the faith of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, which I share, paganism is “the elder sister of Christianity.”  In their view, the pagan myths inspire us and plant the seeds in our consciousness to be able to understand and appreciate the Dying and Reborn God when He incarnates in human history in Bethlehem.  Jesus is not the adversary of the pagan myths – He is their fulfillment.  Like Lewis, I can relate to this personally, because as recounted elsewhere in another blog, I rejected Christianity at the age of 12 and it was the pagan myths that many years later as an adult enabled me to appreciate Jesus.    

Indeed, from a theological standpoint pagans and Christians have more in common than one might initially realize.  Although Christianity has been  referred to along with Judaism and Islam as, “the religions of the book,” which share the Old Testament or the “Abrahamic tradition,” the theology of Christianity stands in stark contrast to the other two.  According to Judaism and Islam, the Incarnation of God is blasphemy, and the Trinity is polytheism!  They assert that God is One and God does not beget children nor come to earth in human form nor, of course, ever die.  

It is only in the pagan traditions that we find a God who is born of a woman in order to be here on earth among us – Immanuel, “God With Us,” to teach us, to love us, to play with us, even to die for us, and by rising again to defeat death.  He has appeared in the ancient myths as Krishna, Mithras, Apollo, Hercules – born of a woman, half human, half divine.  Others, such as Balder and the modern literary character Raiden (of “Mortal Kombat”) have divine parents but are willing to sacrifice their immortality, or at least temporarily set aside their infinite powers, on our behalf.  Out of undying love for us, the Divine personally intervenes so that the Sun will return, warmth and light will vanquish the cold darkness, love will conquer hate, nature will bloom again and life will triumph over death.  And that is what Christmas is about.  It is appropriate that pagans and Christians put aside our pointless bickering and celebrate the deeper meaning of the Holiday together.

Did The Vatican Say Yoga is Satanic?

[from December 2011]

The other day I saw an article, “Vatican says:  The Devil Does Yoga” with a subheading, “The Vatican's chief exorcist says that yoga is the work of the Devil as, it leads to Hinduism and a false belief in reincarnation.”  The video featured Father Gabriele Amorth, who stated that not only yoga, but also Harry Potter, are Satanic tools.  The video also showed a yoga class in which people were doing asana in the specific style of Heart of Yoga – of which I am a practitioner and teacher!

I suppose I needn’t have taken it personally.  After all, I am Episcopalian and therefore don’t have to worry about what the Vatican says.  On the other hand, some of my relatives, friends, fellow teachers and potential students are Catholic and I wondered how this might affect them.  But I do take it personally.  As a Christian this is just one more instance of a sadly misinformed person claiming to speak on behalf of the rest of us, thereby giving non-Christians that much more reason to believe that we are all a bunch of ignorant bigots.  Moreover, if Harry Potter is satanic then I would assume Lord of the Rings is now also satanic (both written by Christians, by the way), and my studio is named “Lothlorien.”  Finally, the music I use in my Rockin’ Yoga and Pilates class includes Ozzy Osbourne, the alleged “Prince of Darkness,” a title bestowed on him by a fundie preacher which Ozzy affectionately kept, as he found it amusing.  So according to the Church, I am satanic on several counts.  I can live with that.  But, how dare he call yoga – a sacred gift from God, a devotional practice – satanic?!

I debated whether I should even write this blog.  “Just let it go, James,” I said to myself.  Nobody but me and a handful of other bhakti-crazed, God-intoxicated people even CARE about this – yoga practitioners who are Christian and/or who give a shit what the Vatican says.

Let’s face it, bhakti yoga – devotion to and relationship with a personal God – has become rather passe’ in our sophisticated modern culture.  It’s just not hip anymore.  As one of my fellow yoga teachers put it, “Screw union with the divine.”  Modern people are awfully busy with their jobs, families, mortgages, stock markets, and such, and don’t have time for God anyway.  Most people do yoga simply to get in shape, feel better and be able to enjoy their life.  Well, as a former monastic, personally I need union with God more than ever now that I am a householder dealing with a relationship, a mortgage, taxes, insurance and all that stuff.  But maybe I’m just old fashioned.

Anyway, after reading the article I posted to Facebook, “On my way to Rockin’ Yoga and Pilates Class at City Arts Cooperative.  The Vatican can kiss my ass!”

I have no particular grudge against Catholicism.  In fact, many years ago, I seriously considered joining the Catholic Church, primarily for the Sacrament and Liturgy, the frequent opportunities for Mass, and its support of vocations, as I felt called to the contemplative life.  I did have serious disagreements with the Vatican regarding sexuality, but I would have been willing to overlook that and just agree to disagree, since I was going to be celibate anyway and I figured it didn’t concern me.  However, I learned that applicants for conversion to Catholicism (as opposed to cradle Catholics) are required to agree with its doctrinal positions.  “But what if I simply don’t agree?”  I asked.  “I mean, I can’t go against my own conscience and make myself believe something I don’t believe.”  I was told that your own conscience cannot be trusted unless it is “formed” – which is to say, you have been brainwashed to agree with the Church.  It was this untenable requirement, even more than the particular issues in dispute, which prevented my becoming Catholic.  Thankfully, I soon discovered that I could have the same Liturgy and Sacrament, and support for vocations, in the Episcopal Church – without all the strange rules.
 

I guess I owe the Vatican an apology.  OMG, I never in a million years imagined myself saying those words!  LOL!  But, at the suggestion of a Catholic friend (thank you, Thomas), I looked into this further and discovered to my great surprise and relief that no, Father Amorth was NOT in fact speaking as a representative of the Vatican.  He had retired years ago.  The article did not make that clear.  I decided to go to the source and find out what the Vatican actually had to say about yoga.

There was not a whole lot.  I found essentially 2 official documents which address yoga:

“Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life, A Christian Reflection on the New Age” 2003, and
“Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation,” 1989.

The former did not discuss yoga specifically, but only lumped it together with other practices popular with the New Age.  Frankly my eyes glazed over reading this document, as I find the New Age rather boring and tedious, and the arguments refuting it equally so.  I also feel that yoga, being a most ancient tradition, has little relevance to the (perhaps legitimate) concerns about the New Age.  The latter document, however, was a great read and actually covered many technical considerations about spiritual practices which we also address in the yoga tradition such as body postures, breath control, energy phenomena, grace, and keeping one’s focus.  There was also some theological discussion reminiscent of the Personalist versus Impersonalist debate in Hinduism, but I will not go into these technical discussions here.  The upshot of the document is that such practices as yoga can, indeed, when used wisely and carefully, promote intimacy with God in the context of Christian contemplative prayer!  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the tone of the document was, at worst, neutral and cautious about such practices.  So, the Vatican does NOT say yoga is satanic.  Not at all.

HOWEVER – when I did a Google search on “Catholic Church position on yoga,” the results were overwhelmingly negative and much more consistent with Father Amorth’s view, not only on the part of laypeople, but also, from priests who ought to know better. 

For example, an article in Our Sunday Visitor “Is It Too Much of a Stretch?”   Nov. 2003, Marianna Bartholomew states:  “Like St. Teresa, Catholics seek union with God in each moment, whether paying bills, visiting a neighbor or flexing in an exercise class…” 

But, yogis do exactly that!  She goes on to say,
“The Church is calling Catholics to firm up their faith and consider whether New Age influences like those in yoga are subtly eroding their intimacy with God.” 

Eroding?  Yoga IS intimacy with God!  Interestingly, Bartholomew refers to the above-mentioned Letter, which does not, in fact, support her position.

Another article, “Are Yoga and Catholicism Compatible?” is by a Catholic mom and yoga practitioner who undertakes the same research that I did, including these same Vatican documents, and likewise finds no problem.  Her article was aggressively attacked by many laypeople and priests alike who scolded her for daring to challenge the Church’s wisdom and guidance in this matter and warned her against all manner of dangers including demonic possession. 

The most “positive” Catholic commentators said that it was ok to do the physical postures for exercise so long as you do NOT involve the spiritual aspects.  Which, of course, kind of defeats the whole purpose, IMO.

The harshest critique of yoga that I found comes from “Most Holy Family Monastery” which equates yoga with idolatry in that it involves union with a god other than the Christian God.  Interestingly, this is on the basis that the god in yoga is omnipresent, both in ourselves and in nature, which they state the Christian God is NOT.  I found this peculiar since I was sure I remembered in my theology classes that one of the attributes of God is omnipresence – that God is both immanent and transcendent.  Not according to the Most Holy Family, in whose opinion God is distant, separate and aloof, having created the world and then left us to our own devices.  How sad.  On reading further, I also learned that the MHF considers Vatican II an abomination and Pope John Paul II “the antipope” and a “pantheist.”  They equate “the omnipresence of God” with “pantheism” and say that John Paul II’s teachings about Christ lifting all of creation into divinity is blasphemy…

I have already addressed this, and related issues, in my previous blog post, “Is Yoga Un-Christian?” which was a response to a fundie preacher whose main objection to yoga – which surprisingly never came up in the Catholic arguments! – was that yoga is “sexual.”  But let me again touch on the omnipresence issue, because I think it is important theologically.  First of all, “omnipresence” is NOT the same as “pantheism.”   We’re not saying that God is one and the same as the physical universe, but merely that God is present throughout the creation; and this is supported by scripture (“where can I go to hide from Thy presence?”... etc.)  If anything, the creation is in God and nothing can exist apart from God.  But all created things could disappear (be resorbed back into God) and God, the Source Reality, would still exist.
 

Ok, I hear the yawns, nobody cares about these nit-picky theological distinctions.  But here’s how it relates to yoga and the above arguments:  The MHF as well as most Christian opponents of yoga argue that you can’t commune with God within yourself because God is not in you.  Never mind that “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.”  Let’s look at something very concrete here:  the most holy Sacrament of Communion.  Catholics believe (as do I and many other Episcopalians) that the bread and wine are in fact the body and blood of Christ.  Ok.  You have just attended Mass and received the Sacrament – at this moment in time, if at no other point, God is definitely in you.  There is no way around it!  So if you do yoga and meditation after Mass you most certainly can commune with God in yourself.

What about the other argument – that yoga leads to Hinduism which leads to a false belief in reincarnation and worshipping other gods?

First of all, let’s be clear, yoga does not belong to Hinduism or any other particular religion.  Yoga is a physical/spiritual technology, a devotional practice, whole body prayer, which can be used by persons of ANY faith.  If you are a Christian your yoga is devotion to Christ.  Doing the asana and pranayama is not going to turn you into a Hindu or cause you to be possessed by “other gods,” especially since you are praying to Christ.  Do you really think He would let them do that?

By the way, IMO there are no other gods.  There is only one God having, perhaps, many manifestations; same God, different costumes.  Like when I was a child, my parents left me with a babysitter and went out to a Halloween party.  I was awakened late at night by a pirate and a gypsy who came in to kiss me goodnight, but I knew it was my parents.  Hindus understand this.  All the Hindus I have ever met believe in God and most regard Jesus as avatar.

Secondly, if you really DID believe in the Hindu version of reincarnation it would have you on your knees begging for Jesus to save you, because inexorable karma will bring you back again and again, like Purgatory only millions of times over, to endure the suffering of existence until you become enlightened, i.e. until your desire for God is greater than your desire for worldly things.  You cannot pull yourself up by your bootstraps; it is a gift of grace.  Only God can liberate you.  Fortunately, He has already done so, as Krishna states in the Gita:  “The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone’s heart and is directing the wanderings of all living entities… Surrender unto Him utterly and by His grace you will achieve transcendental peace and the supreme and eternal abode.”

Finally, I ought to mention that when I began doing yoga 35 years ago I was an atheist, having rejected the church due to my fundie mis-education.  Yoga enabled me to experience something “divine.”  But I never would have become a Christian were it not for Hinduism.  I thought the idea of a personal God was really lame until my Hare Krishna friends helped me to appreciate God in a new light.  In fundamentalist Christianity and also in Catholicism we too often get the impression of an angry God ready to smite us for our many sins.  And Jesus is sweet but he’s suffering – for our sins.  So we feel guilty.  He loves us, kind of because he has to.  It’s his job.  We focus so much on sin and redemption that we forget the beauty of creation; God created us out of love, and took on our human nature and became one of us, and even died, for love.  The Hindu scriptures remind us that God enjoys our company.  This was a new concept for me and one which totally transformed my relationship with the divine and allowed me to appreciate Christ.

So, yoga is not satanic.  Nor is Hinduism.  We have nothing to fear from other religions.  But, nowadays I’m not that concerned about religion as such.  I just love God.  And do my yoga.

Our Equestrian Program at Lothlorien

Note:  This post is from January 2013.  We have since discontinued our equestrian program due to the high cost of liability insurance combined with utter lack of interest on the part of the local community.

*******

We offer Equine Assisted Learning here at Lothlorien and people have asked, "What is that all about, and what do horses have to do with yoga?"

Our program includes basic riding lessons for children, "pony rides" for toddlers, and what we are calling "yoga with horses" which can be anything from simply interacting with the horses on the ground, to mounted exercises on lead line, to bareback dressage, depending on your level of riding experience.

What do horses have to do with yoga?  In the classical sense, technically, nothing.  Nor do dogs, SUPs, swimming pools, rooms heated to 105 degrees, raves, hula hoops, hanging from slings, or any number of other modern "yoga"-related activities.

Traditionally, yoga is "union," particularly union with the Divine and/or your special human partner. This is not something that can be achieved with our nonhuman friends.  In the broader sense, however, yoga is about relationship - with oneself, God, the universe, the natural world, other people and other beings including animals.  If we believe that Consciousness is manifesting through every one of us, what can we learn by interacting with another creature and trying to appreciate their own unique perspective on existence?

Horses are good "mirrors" in that they are very sensitive to energy and will respond to you accordingly.  So, our first exercise is simply to do our yoga practice - maybe just some standing ujjayi with arms lifting - in the round pen with the horse and see how he or she responds.  It has been my experience that horses are very much drawn to the energy in yoga.  My mare tends to be indifferent unless you have food or drink, but whenever I do yoga in the pasture she cannot leave me alone!  She will be right there in my face, nuzzling me.  So you can experience how your energy affects the horses.  If you walk around will they follow you?  If you sit quietly in meditation and invite them only with your mind, will they come to you?  That is the "energy" aspect of the practice.

The physical or asana aspect involves interacting first with the horse on the ground, such as leaning against the horse and feeling them breathe, breathing with the horse, feeling the horse's heartbeat.  This is very calming and helps us become more aware of our own breathing and heartbeat.  We can also explore balance by pursuading the horse to lift a hoof off of the ground and observing the shift of weight which occurs to make this possible.

The next step is mounted exercises.  If you have ever watched an upper level dressage team, or a child riding a pony bareback on the beach, the horse and rider move as one!  So there is that "union," in a sense, when you get to the very advanced stages (and/or, the natural unschooled affection) where the horse and rider can practically read each other's minds and their movements are coordinated in harmony with each other.

Now, my friends from PETA may object, "But isn't it cruel to make the horse carry you on its back?!"  No, it is not.  For one thing, the horse is about 10 times your size, which is like you carrying a 15-pound backpack.  More importantly, however, you cannot "make" a horse carry you on its back.  In fact it is quite difficult to "make" a 1400-pound animal do anything.  If the horse does not want you on its back, trust me, you won't be up there for long.  You can't "make" a horse obey you; rather, you either gain the horse's cooperation, or you don't.  This requires communication and sensitivity.  And courage.

If you do not have much riding experience, merely sitting on a horse bareback, standing still, can be challenging.  As we walk on the leadline you will feel the horse's motion and learn to move with the horse.  Then, if you are comfortable, you can experiment with balance, lifting your arms, touching your toes, turning to look around you, etc.  This is not nearly as easy as it may sound.

The more advanced rider will proceed to basic dressage, where you will explore exactly how the horse responds to your most subtle movements and cues.  You might be amazed to find, for example, that the horse will turn in the direction that you turn your head, or that a slight shift of your weight to one side will move the horse sideways.  You will achieve a level of communication with the horse that is almost like telepathy.  This is both educational and lots of fun.

Unfortunately, we won't be offering the Equestrian Program much longer due to lack of interest.  We built this lovely round pen and began advertising last summer and have had no riders, and therefore cannot afford to keep paying the liability insurance, which will expire in June of 2013.  The reason the liability insurance is so expensive is because, quite frankly, horseback riding is dangerous.  If you participate in the bareback dressage exercises you are virtually guaranteed to fall off at least once!  Of course, for those of us who are accustomed to riding, falling off is no big deal, but in our increasingly litigious society, it can be.  So perhaps it is just as well, that nobody is interested.  When we open our new studio in the summer, however, you will still be welcome to meet the horses and interact with them on the ground. 

Yoga, Brahmacharya and Relationships

(March 2013)

The role of celibacy in spiritual practice is something that is largely misunderstood, even by advanced yogis who should presumably know better.  As a tantrika and former celibate, maybe I can shed some light on this.

In classical mainstream yoga, celibacy has been regarded as superior to married life for a couple of reasons.  On the one hand, the practice has its roots in the insidious influence of gnostic dualism, “spirit is good, flesh is evil.”  This negative view of sex and bodily incarnation has unfortunately managed to corrupt the spiritual traditions of both east and west.  The yoga tradition that I began practicing as a teenager (SRF/Kriya) advocated celibacy even for married people, on the basis that sex is un-spiritual.  Even in my youth I found this doctrine quite dubious, always having intuitively felt that sex is sacred.

“Brahmacharya,” the fourth ethical rule in yoga, is most often interpreted as “celibacy” by the sex-negative mainstream tradition.  In fact, however, brahmacharya is the preservation and cultivation of sexual energy for spiritual purposes.  The ordinary biological function of sex is an outward flow of energy, a release of tension, aimed at reproduction.  The spiritual function of sex is the awakening of kundalini, where the energy is drawn inward and upward by means of tantric technique.  This latter function has been considered scandalous by the religious mainstream, which insists that the only morally acceptable purpose of sex is to make babies.  Brahmacharya prevents conception when practiced carefully and competently, but the technique has not been widely known.

Hence the other, purely practical, reason for celibacy:  To have more time and energy for spiritual study and practice.  Until fairly recently in human history, before the advent of modern birth control technology, sex usually resulted in children – lots of them.  Women married young and had no control over whether, when or how many children they would have.  Monasticism was the only viable alternative if you wanted to devote your life to prayer, study, and meditation, rather than raising a large family.  In the Anglican tradition, as my priest explained, “Celibacy is not about saying no to sex; it is saying yes to God.”  It is the opportunity, being free from worldly responsibilities, to spend undistracted time alone with God, to immerse oneself in Divine Union.

                            

Of course, not everyone is interested in that.  In fact, most people do yoga simply to help them survive, or at best, enjoy their ordinary life.  That is why my teacher Mark Whitwell introduced The Promise practice, yoga for everyone: just 7 minutes of yoga every morning will make you feel better and enjoy your busy life!   And that’s great, but some of us live for yoga.  It’s the subtle difference between working to live and living to work.

At this point no doubt one of my yogini friends will object, “Family doesn’t interfere with my practice!  I do yoga with my 4 children, pack up their organic lunches and send them off to school, then I go to the gym and work out before I go to the office, then come home & fix dinner, clean house, bathe the children, and still have energy for great tantric sex with my husband, then I study the Yoga Sutras and meditate before going to sleep.”  Well, good for you, Superwoman.  But, the other 99% of working women with children tell me they are lucky if they can find time for a shower – or a moment, or 7 minutes, never mind an hour! – to themselves for personal practice or anything else.

Modern society tells women that we can, and should, have it all, which I think is unrealistic.  And from the feminist standpoint, it is a step backwards.  Weren’t we supposed to have a choice?

In the early 1980s I belonged to Ananda Yoga Fellowship, which had a ministry teaching Kriya Yoga to Franciscan [Catholic] monks and nuns in Assisi.  Even more radical, Ananda also founded communities of “householder yogis,” serious yoga practitioners with partners and children!  At the time it was believed to be a bold new idea and many were skeptical that it could work, although we now know that T. Krishnamacharya, the “father of modern yoga,” was a married yogi with children back in the 1930s.

Today partnerships and family are all the rage and celibacy has become passe’ at least in the west.  Tantric sex is no longer scandalous; it is out in the open, even discussed in watered-down terms on popular t.v. shows.  More and more people are jumping on the bandwagon, declaring celibacy dysfunctional and family life preferable in terms of spiritual practice.  Mark Whitwell, who lived and studied in the home of Krishnamacharya and is himself unmarried, says that celibacy can be a “gift,” but only when it “arises naturally” as an incidental phase of life, and not voluntarily chosen.*

Yes, the recognition of family and relationship as a valuable part of spiritual life is long overdue.  However, the modern overemphasis on relationship may have given rise to a popular belief that merely being a couple, or having a baby, automatically qualifies as “yoga.”  If this were the case, there would be no need for asana and pranayama.  All moms would be instant buddhas, and I would not need to counsel so many depressed, lonely women trapped in toxic relationships, struggling to raise children conceived by accident.

While teenage girls believe the Hollywood (or Bollywood) myth that romantic love is Nirvana, most adults eventually realize that it is not.  Yes, God is Love!  But, if you can’t find that Love within yourself, you will not find it in somebody else.  And that is the potential pitfall of relationships:  Seeking happiness outside of ourselves creates a duality, projecting our deep need for Love onto another person and expecting them to fulfill us, to make us whole.  In reality, it takes two reasonably whole people to form a healthy relationship.  A private yoga practice is necessary to unite the duality within ourselves so that we do not project it onto our relationships.  One must already know Love in oneself, in order to share it.

In my youth I was exploring that Love through yoga and wanted to share it, but could not find a willing partner.  In college I learned tantric sex from an older graduate student who had studied in Tibet.  After being together for a year, I thought we were in a relationship. One day I went to his house and found a scantily clad woman there, frying chicken for him.  I’m not sure whether I was more upset about the woman, or the chicken; the woman seemed very nice, but I was a strict vegetarian at that time and he supposedly was, too.  My apparently carnivorous non-boyfriend calmly explained to me that we were not in a relationship.  He said relationships are bad because they involve emotional attachment, which prevents enlightenment.  This is a claim I heard many times over the years, and later I wrote my Master’s thesis on “The Psychology of Non-Attachment in the Bhagavad Gita” to address this common misunderstanding.  And I continued to search and pray for a partner.  The men I liked best were celibate yogis; I loved that they loved God, but unfortunately they didn’t want to share Him with a woman.
  

I did make a serious effort at dating several non-yogis, with disappointing results for everyone involved.  Romance which is not rooted in divine Love is fickle and uncommitted, a transitory state of emotional and hormonal arousal always seeking new sources of excitement at the urging of genetic instinct.  For the non-yogi, sex was just a form of entertainment.  As my spiritual practice deepened, I completely lost interest in pursuing sexual relationships with men who could not relate.  I decided I was happier being celibate.

Now, what most people don’t understand is that there are different kinds of celibacy.  The traditional mainstream religious approach is to repress, ignore or attempt to transcend your sexuality, based on the flawed premise that doing so will bring you closer to God.  By contrast, tantric celibacy, or brahmacharya, embraces and offers up sexual energy in devotional practice, which can be very fulfilling.  Motivated by bhakti, with enough time and undistracted focus, you can go places in meditation by comparison with which, ordinary sex is a pale shadow.  There is a place in the heart where God lives, where Shiva and Shakti are united in Love, which can be experienced by means of various advanced yogic practices.**  When you experience that Love, there is absolutely nothing like it.  Nothing!  It is pure bliss consciousness.  You suddenly realize that the Love you were seeking out there, in a husband or wife or baby, was right in here all along.  You are never lonely again, because you are One with every other yogi on earth, an intimacy unbounded by time and space.  It is incomparable, unimaginable ecstasy.

One could argue that this ecstatic meditation which provides utter fulfillment is “dysfunctional” if it replaces the desire for a “normal” life, i.e. marriage and family.  But, this argument imposes an arbitrary definition of “normal” which for me would have been a living hell, namely, to marry a non-yogi and give up my spiritual practice in order to keep his house and raise his offspring.

So, having found no suitable incarnate lover to join me in that Love, at age 28 I “chose” the lifestyle which was apparently already happening.  When I became a Sister, perfect strangers scolded that I was shirking my God-given duty as a woman.  My mother, who grew up believing that sex is an unpleasant activity which a woman must endure to please her husband and to have babies, said my choice was selfish, because women don’t exist for our own happiness, we exist to serve a man and bear his children.

I reject the idea that biology is destiny.  I assert that our bodies belong to ourselves, and that every person, male or female, straight, gay, bi or transgender, has a right to be happy in the life that they choose.

And for 14 years, I was very happy!  I enjoyed my life.  I enjoyed being free of family responsibilities and having plenty of time and energy to devote to my ministry, hanging out with people, listening to their stories, praying with them, letting them cry on my shoulder, encouraging, advising, and comforting them until 4:00 a.m. if need be, having no curfew.  I was everybody’s sister, and Mom to the younger people.  I loved each of them dearly.  And I loved coming home to my quiet sanctuary where I lived alone with the Lord in His indescribable ecstasy, in intimate communion with every other yogi on earth.  It was Bliss.

But, practical concerns made me reevaluate the situation.  I had inherited this 9-acre farm and found that I could not take care of it myself.  I said to the Lord, “You know I only want You, but You’re not mowing the grass or fixing the fences, and You’re not making money fall from the trees.  What do You want to do about it?”

Soon thereafter Hawk, one of my friends at karaoke, was encouraged by a mutual friend to confess that he loved me.  We went surfing together and then sat on the beach talking about theology and comparative religions.  He asked if I wanted to date.  I replied, “I don’t date; I’m already in Love.”  Hawk said the magic words: “I want to be in that Love with you.”  We held hands and sat together for a long time in meditation, and he was right There.

We had dinner by the sea, and shared wine at sunset, while 3 small clouds arranged themselves over the sun to look like a Hopi Sunface (which we had discussed earlier), smiling and winking at us.  Hawk begged to come to my place to meet my horses.  There was strong mutual attraction between us and I said, “You probably shouldn’t come to my house.  I don’t want my life to get complicated.”  He replied, “Don’t worry, I only complicate my own life,” (which turned out to be completely untrue).  Against my better judgement, I allowed him to talk me into visiting, which was a good thing because my El Camino broke down on the way home, not in the best part of town.  At that time I didn’t have a cell phone and he called the tow truck for me.

When we finally arrived at my farm, the horses, who are normally quite suspicious of male strangers, immediately ran up and kissed Hawk and followed him around.  My very shy cat leaped into his arms.  It became quite late and I offered him the guest room.  When I asked if the waterbed was comfortable, he said, “I don’t know, why don’t you come help me find out?”  Which I did, and it was.  In the morning he fixed my El Camino.  He moved in a few months later to help me take care of the farm, and we have been together nearly 8 years now.

I do sometimes miss the peace and quiet and simplicity of my celibate life.  I no longer have all the free time and energy to spend on my larger “family” and ministry, and I hardly ever get to see my friends anymore.  Hawk’s family and financial “complications” demand most of my attention, and I also manage his business.  The rare nights that we both have off from work, we try to devote to our tantric practice.  But, despite what I have given up, I am very happy to be in this relationship, because as tantric yogis know, there is nothing, NOTHING better than the incredible ecstatic Love of God – except for bodily sharing It with someone.  And it was well worth the wait.  I’m really glad I didn’t settle for a “normal” life.

* I question the authority of any man, whether a celibate old priest in the Vatican, or my own beloved teacher whom I respect deeply, to dictate what is and is not a valid lifestyle choice for me as a woman.

** The Promise is by far the simplest, quickest and most powerful of these techniques.  Here is a series of videos of Mark Whitwell demonstrating it.  An extensive listing of many other classical yoga practices, including tantric sex, and detailed instructions on how to do them can be found at Advanced Yoga Practices.