I was sitting in a juice bar the other day sipping on my GreenEarth B-plus Energizer with Wheatgrass, and I overheard 2 stylish young urbanites kinda railing a bit on their yoga teacher. Actually, they weren’t complaining about the teacher per se, but they were definitely perturbed about the 16 dollars that she was charging for a yoga class. If I remember correctly, I heard one of them say “yoga teachers are getting rich these days!”

Exqueeze me? …. Rich? … Yeah right!

I know a lot of yoga teachers, and let me tell you, “rich” is not the word I would generally use to describe their financial status! In fact, the majority of the 70,000 yoga teachers in America (yeah, 70k according to a Yoga Journal report!) are struggling to just keep their doors open.

But the average person has never taken out a lease on a 3,000 square foot commercial space downtown to know just how expensive it is to run that yoga class. On top of that, yoga teachers have families to feed and clothe too (I know, it’s shocking!).

Rich? … No, not exactly the word I would use.

But does that mean yoga students are getting a good deal? I sure doubt it. I mean really, dropping 16 bucks two or three times a week can add up pretty darn fast, can’t it?

It’s really a bad situation all around … and as yoga studios are being forced to steadily increase their rates and add more and more classes to pay their overheads (which can often mean bringing on more inexperienced yoga teachers to pick up the workload), the situation is only going to go from bad to worse.

I’m not a doomsayer, but I’ve known for a long time that the modern yoga class model was not a sustainable one. I’m afraid it’s heading for a long-overdue overhaul … which may be painful for a lot of yoga teachers in the short term, but in the long run it might not be such a bad thing.

For decades now we yoga teachers have been trying to teach a comprehensive science of self-transformation within the narrow confines of 60 or 90 minute sessions to groups of people that just come and go as they please. Even the best of teachers can’t hope to achieve much with that approach.

But somewhere along the line, it somehow got settled that this is the way to teach yoga … and new yoga teacher after new yoga teacher just keeps arriving on the scene following this same, painfully insufficient model of yoga instruction.

The revolution in yoga learning may not quite happen next week, but it is, at some point inevitable. More and more yoga teachers are starting to take notice … they are frustrated not only with the limitations they face with trying to effectively teach yoga in the modern yoga class setting, but also with the financial hurdles it presents to a growing number of folks who really want to learn yoga, but can’t bend their finances as much as their spines.

Anyways, that’s some yogic food for thought. In the end, all I can really say is that at $6.49 for an 8oz GreenEarth B-plus Energizer with Wheatgrass, these juice shop owners must be getting rich!
———————————————-

Yogacharya is Director of International Yogalayam, Editor of “The Yoga News”, and author of “The Yoga Tutor”, a basic introductory course to learn yoga online

Retweet this by clicking below

International Yogalayam, Yoga News, The Yoga Tutor, Twitter Follow

I’d been studying and practicing yoga for awhile before I came across Swami Gitananda’s Yoga Correspondence Course, “Yoga Step by Step.” Up until that point I had been a firm believer that yoga could only be learned face to face, in a yoga class.

But Swamiji’s course intrigued me for some reason, so I decided to give it a shot.

That course changed my life!

I read a whole lot of books on yoga before that … and through them I gained a bit of insight into different aspects of yoga. But I wouldn’t say that I was really “learning yoga” through them. Most yoga books, to be fair, aren’t really designed to teach people yoga.

… Well, if they are, they aren’t very well designed to do it, that’s for sure.

So up until that point, I could not imagine that there was really too much for an aspiring yoga student to gain via the written word, diagrams, photos and illustrations (DVD’s and streaming video weren’t around back then).

But in that one quick little decision I made to take that course, I finally learned just how much I was missing! Swamiji’s yoga correspondence course was the point where I felt I went from doing yoga exercises, to “really practicing yoga” … and my yogic journey has been a truly marvellous one ever since!

I credit Swami Gitananda 110% for that. Anybody can create a correspondence or home study course, but Swmaiji literally showed me “how it was done!”

I still teach yoga classes from time to time, but I have an acute understanding now of just how limiting they can be for providing real comprehensive yoga education.

I also know, from my own personal experience, how strange the idea of learning yoga via correspondence or home study can seem when your yoga world may never have been stretched too far outside of the yoga studio.

So you’d think I’d get tired of answering the same question over and over again. “Can I really learn yoga through your yoga home study courses?” …

But I don’t get tired.

I don’t because I know how amazingly effective the yoga learning programs are that I have put together … and I know that once I’ve helped to nudge someone in their direction, they will know it too!

Students who do try them are perhaps surprised the most when they realize that they weren’t “giving up on their yoga classes” at all. In fact, it’s really not a case of either/or … of yoga class or yoga home study.

I get frequent emails from students of my courses thanking me for making their yoga classes more fulfilling … saying that after taking my yoga home study programs, they now have a much better understanding of what they are doing with yoga, both in and out of the yoga studio, and that they are getting so much more out of their yoga classes now too!

… Now that, to me, sounds like the right kind of yoga education.

———————————————-

Yogacharya is Director of International Yogalayam, Editor of “The Yoga News”, and author of “The Yoga Tutor”, a basic introductory course to learn yoga online

Retweet this by clicking below

International Yogalayam, Yoga News, The Yoga Tutor, Twitter Follow

I came across your website www.discover-yoga-online.com, and I have some questions about some points. In the historic part of your side, you said that “The period from about 7000 B.C. to 1500 A.D. was an era in the history of yoga when the teachings were written down.” Please could you give some information about written texts in the early 7000 BC? I read yesterday in Wikipedia that the earliest Upanishads were written approx in 900 BC … I am studying Yoga and Naturopathy Ayurveda and I really struggle some times because there is not enough information in English.

~ Marisel

Answer.

You’ve asked a really good question, and I’ll give you my thoughts about it.

As you’re probably aware, yoga, along with other the ancient traditions, whose origins can be traced backed millennia, began as an oral tradition. When we talk about historical dates such as “the period from about 7000 B.C. to 1500 A.D. was an era in the history of yoga when the teachings were written down,” we’re not necessarily referring to any specific books, but rather to the period when yoga began to move from an oral tradition to one where masters and students began to record these teachings in one way or another other than just by memory.

Many people consider The Rig Veda, the earliest of the 4 books of the Vedas, to be the oldest extant piece of writing, and it can be attributed to this ancient period. The Ramayana is also considered to be upwards of 7,000 years old, with The Mahabharata following in 2-3000 years BC.

As you mentioned, The Upanishads are attributed to a period much later that this. The Upanishads are the principle texts of the field of Vedanta, which literally means “the end of the Vedas (… or after the Vedic period to be more precise). But dates this far back are always hotly contested, and the fact is that it really is impossible to say with any certainty when exactly something was written when we are looking so distant into the past.

Personally, I found the reading of both the Ramayana and The Mahabharata to be the things that have given me some of my greatest insight into the science of yoga. To be sure, for the keen student of yoga, the lifelong study of these ancient texts will prove to be one of the most illuminating and profoundly inspirational pursuits along their yogic journey.

I understand your frustrations at finding good English translations. It’s not easy, and often there aren’t any. That’s why learning Sanskrit is almost essential if one really wants to delve deeply into this ancient body of wisdom. Even many of the texts that have been translated, were translated by academic scholars who may have translated the words, but did not have the deeper cultural or spiritual foundations of understanding to properly interpret their meaning.

This field of study can certainly be difficult at times. That’s why so many people today prefer to just ignore the spiritual and cultural aspects of things like yoga, and just relate to them on a purely physical and more utilitarian level.

But when you have glimpsed the astounding Universe that lies deep within this cultural heritage of India, as I think you have, then you know that there is no greater challenge to be taken up than to dig deeply into it. Patience and resolve will definitely be your strongest companions.

I’m very happy to see you doing this work, and I wish you all the best in your journey. Thanks again for asking this question. Maybe our readers here will have some other thoughts to share on the subject too …

———————————————-

Yogacharya is Director of International Yogalayam, Editor of “The Yoga News”, and author of “The Yoga Tutor”, a basic introductory course to learn yoga online

Retweet this by clicking below

International Yogalayam, Yoga News, The Yoga Tutor, Twitter Follow

Whenever I see a class advertised as yoga for beginners, well, let’s just say, I’m not really keen on presenting yoga in this way. I understand what the teachers are after here. They’re trying to take some of the intimidation out of yoga for the newcomers.

But I think that carving yoga up into so-called levels like beginner, intermediate, and advanced really is not painting a very clear picture of what yoga is really all about … especially because mostly what we’re talking about when we use these terms is how physically challenging the class will be … and certainly not really how advanced in the science of yoga anyone in the class necessarily is.

In fact, I rarely meet anyone who is not a yoga beginner … and that goes for most teachers and high-flying yoga personalities on the yoga scene today too.

Ok, I know a lot of you already think I’m a bit nuts ;o), but before you start thinking that now I’ve definitely gone off the deep end, let me ask you this …

What makes someone advanced in yoga? Is it how flexible their body is? Is it how graceful they move through a sequence of asanas, and how perfectly aligned and firmly stable they can hold difficult body positions?

Well, if it is then there are hundreds of world-class gymnasts, ballet dancers, and circus performers who must be borderline yoga masters too, even if they’ve never heard the word asana before.

No, my friends, perfection in the physicalities of yoga alone doesn’t mean didly squat! I continually meet folks who can do amazing things with their bodies, yet can’t seem to control their cravings and desires to save their life. I watch people demonstrating their physical expertise and then in the next frame see them mucking up their personal relationships like hormone raging adolescents. I’ve seen contestants in a “yoga competition” argue and nearly come to blows!

Yoga for beginners needs to start, not just with some basic physical practices, but also with some basic introduction to just what yoga really is all about … and I’ll let you in on a little secret. It doesn’t have anything to do with how far you can bend your spine backwards.

What do you think yoga for beginners means? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below …

———————————————-

Yogacharya is Director of International Yogalayam, Editor of “The Yoga News”, and author of “The Yoga Tutor”, a basic introductory course to learn yoga online

Retweet this by clicking below

International Yogalayam, Yoga News, The Yoga Tutor, Twitter Follow

Yoga instruction online is no longer a novelty. In fact, it’s quickly becoming pretty much common place. The virtual world is adding a dimension to yoga that would have been undreamed of just a decade ago. It’s incredibly exciting and at the same time pretty darn distressing!

Yesterday I posted an article here that answered the question “can you really learn yoga online?” … and the answer was a definite maybe!

… Because that question is like asking “Is running good for you?” The answer depends on a lot of factors. If you’re being chased by a bear, then yes, running is good for you. If you just had quadruple by-pass surgery, then no, it’s definitely not!

In order to know if yoga instruction online is a good way to learn yoga, there are a lot of factors to mull over… and it unfortunately means that we have to tread somewhat into that inferno of heated emotions swirling around the question of just what proper yoga instruction is.

It’s a smelly swamp that, I admit, I do plunk myself into and usually hop quickly back out of from time to time … and the after-stench of the experience usually leaves me vowing to keep my distance a little further from it the next time. Anyhow, it’s late and I don’t feel inclined to open up that can of worms any further this evening.

So what makes for good yoga instruction online? The same thing that makes for good yoga instruction in the living, breathing world … a teacher that has the knowledge and experience of yoga themselves to be able to guide others safely and effectively along the yoga path.

Sure, that’s a little easier to suss out in person than it is from a well-polished website or DVD productions that have been edited to impressive fashion. At least up close, in person, flaws and cracks can’t be edited out, and teachers have to demonstrate without a script, just what yogic living really is.

So if you’re looking for yoga instruction online, then the best piece of advice I can give you is to “do your homework.” All is not what it always seems in cyberspace … That’s why they call it the “virtual world.” And always remember, as the BHAGAVAD GITA cautions us, in Kali Yuga, our present age, great orators are often mistaken for the wise.

———————————————-

Yogacharya is Director of International Yogalayam, Editor of “The Yoga News”, and author of “The Yoga Tutor”, a basic introductory course to learn yoga online

Retweet this by clicking below

International Yogalayam, Yoga News, The Yoga Tutor, Twitter Follow

I was once asked how many times I thought my Swamiji would turn over in his grave if he knew that I was encouraging my students to learn yoga online. Well, first I pointed out that Swamis are interred in Samadhis, not graves, and that they are also placed in them in an upright, cross-legged sitting position!  Knowing Swamiji, I’m sure he turns upside down himself sometimes anyhow, just for fun!

Swami Gitananda never even knew the internet. It was after his time. But he once shared his thoughts on the subject of yoga and book learning, which have been a guiding light to me as I continue to explore the possibilities for helping people to learn yoga online in this technology age.

Swamiji pointed out that yoga has always been considered something that cannot be learned from books, but he was also quick to qualify that by saying what most people think they are learning these days is really only just the starting point of yoga.

What he was saying is that at the higher stages of yoga the personal guidance of an experienced teacher is essential, and that it is very rare to find anyone who has gotten to that point yet these days.

But for most of the rest of us, he was confident that there is indeed much that can be learned via the written word and through proper diagrams – much to lay the foundation of a healthy personal practice, as well as an understanding of the concepts and principles of healthy yogic living.

He also reminded me that those teaching must still accurately represent the oral tradition of yoga, and not be watered down to suite the emotional needs of wandering yoga tourists.

In the 1970s, Swamiji finished probably one of the most profound pieces of modern literature I have had the privilege to lay eyes upon, which he eventually engineered into his own yoga correspondence course called “Yoga, Step by Step.”  This course was my own introduction to Swamiji, and the spark that would ignite the raging fire of transformation in my life over the years to follow.

If you’re curious to learn yoga online, you’ve no doubt done a little searching on Google. What you came up with, however, was probably a far cry from what Swamiji would consider to be an accurate representation of the yoga tradition.  So many yoga teachers today seems to think that all they have to do is film themselves teaching an asana class, and that is what teaching yoga online is all about.

There are hundreds (maybe even thousands) of websites with libraries of yoga exercises and smatterings of yoga-related information all indexed for the casual visitors to scan through and pick and choose what interests them.  But you definitely won’t learn yoga online if you take that approach.

The web has brought us into a new technological age, but technology alone doesn’t make learning yoga any easier. Simply creating slick looking websites and captivating videos alone does not make for good yoga instruction.

A deep understanding of the tradition of yoga and the rare wisdom of how to transmit that knowledge is still the one and only mark of a genuine yoga teacher, no matter what the medium of instruction used.

I can only imagine what Swamiji would have done if he had all these modern tools at his disposal as well. I’m sure he would have given us all a humble lesson in what it really means to learn yoga online …

———————————————-

Yogacharya is Director of International Yogalayam, Editor of “The Yoga News”, and author of  “The Yoga Tutor”, a basic introductory course to learn yoga online

Retweet this by clicking below

International Yogalayam, Yoga News, The Yoga Tutor, Twitter Follow

Soon! …. VERY SOON!

For those of you who are new here, The Yoga Tutor is our innovative, 21-lesson Yoga eCourse to help you learn the fundamentals of yoga, and to develop your own home yoga practice. It’s so unique, in fact, that people are just chomping at the bit to get it!

If you haven’t seen the short video walkthrough of The Yoga Tutor, click here to watch it now …

Let’s give some away!

We got to thinking, what’s a fun way to tell people about The Yoga Tutor?

… and then it hit us … A Contest!

How Do You Enter to Win?

To enter the contest to win your very own copy of The Yoga Tutor, simply leave a short note in the comment section below.

Contest Details:

• Only one entry is permitted per person.
• Entries will be accepted until 11:00pm (EST), September 19th, 2009
• 3 Winners will be chosen at random and announced on September 22nd, 2009 right here on this blog page.

So here we are, all you have to do to win is enter a comment about the course, tell us what you want in a yoga course, or just say hello!

We’ll be picking 3 winners really soon, so go ahead and post a comment below right now! :O)

Thanks and GOOD LUCK!

Yogacharya

*IMPORTANT! Make sure you enter a valid email address, or we won’t be able to contact you if you win!

The Contest is now closed!

Congratulations to our winners!:

• Pamela at vitalyoga.com
• Anuradha Ilwahdi
• Mrs. White

And thanks to everyone who entered!

I was absolutely stunned recently to see that we now have Guru Ratings on the net! http://www.globalserve.net/~Sarlo/RatingsR.htm

Your Guru’s position on the charts can depend on how many devotees / students / disciples / fans they have and how many organizations they run worldwide. The political and financial clout can also help get a better rating and DVD and book sales figures are equally important.

Modern Gurus seem to call out, “come to me and I will save you!” without letting the students ever come to know that none can save us except ourselves.

Lord Krishna also known as Yogeshwar, the Lord (master teacher) of Yoga would be an utter failure in such a rating system. He says in the Bhagavad Gita, “Of thousands of people only one desires me and of the thousands who desire me only one attains me!” to put that in figures only ONE out of 1,000,000 get to him! Such an abysmal failure as a Guru indeed!

Pujya Swamiji Yogamaharishi Dr Swami Gitananda Giri used to say, “ I don’t want to create followers, I want to create leaders who can lead themselves and others towards Moksha!”. He would further extol his students to work on becoming a Guru to themselves by finding the inner Guru spirit- the Guru Sakshat. Swamiji would kick off anyone trying to cling on to his feet saying, “It is not my duty to carry you – you need to carry yourself”.

The Dharma (sacred and righteous duty) of a Guru is to help the student find themselves. When the student does so (Moksha – liberation -Kaivalya) none exists. If we understand the role of the Guru in these terms, the most successful Guru by these lofty standards is the one left with no disciples anymore as they have all attained Moksha!

What a far cry from the modern Guru ratings!

About the Author:

Yogacharya Dr. Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani heads the Rishiculture Ashtanga Yoga lineage of his guru-father, Dr. Swami Gitananda Giri, Gurumaharaj. He is a licensed physician and an international speaker and teacher of yoga recognized worldwide for his unique insights into the field of yoga as therapy. For more on Dr. Ananda visit:
Ananda-Balayogi-Bhavanani
I.C.Y.E.R

I know you’ve felt what I’m feeling right now. I’ve been sitting in front of my computer all day, my neck is aching, my back is sore, and my eyes are so strained that I probably wouldn’t see a giant flying potato coming right at me!

I really need to do some yoga … but I’m exhausted!

I know what would happen if I rolled out the mat right now and tried to do a few light exercises.  My body would simply let go. Before I know it, I’d be out cold in shavasana.

So when I’m feeling like this, do you know what I do?  I pop a little “be one” pill.  Yep, I shut down my virtual world and head out into the land of the living with no other objective except to be nice.  If I see an old man crossing the street, I play boyscout. I open the door for the lady who has her arms full of groceries and a crying baby in tow.  I smile and say hello to total strangers, and then stop to smell some roses.  I buy an icecream and look so happy about it that the teenager serving me from behind the counter cracks a big wide grin herself!

With all that, I’m reminding myself that there is “NO SELF” … and going about the normal activities of the day as if I were simply an invisible angel on the shoulder of every man woman and child I stumble across during my brief my travels … I’m remember to BE ONE.

… and you know what?

After that, I really feel like I did some good yoga today! :O)

Yogacharya is the Director of International Yogalayam, and Editor of The Yoga News

In a post I made a little while ago about why there are so many “new yoga styles” today, I said that ignorance is the main reason. Well, let me tell you, this little statement seems to have set off a bit of a firestorm. Not here on my Blog where I originally posted the article, but on another Blog where I reiterated that comment.

The word “ignorance,” out there in the big bad world, is sure a flashpoint for intense emotional reaction.  But if we think about it, why should it be?  After all, ignorance does not mean that you’re crude, or that you are dim-witted, or that you are stupid.  It simply means that you are operating on assumptions that are not entirely true. It means that you have not yet come to understand the full extent of the thing that you think you know so well. It means that you are not fully aware of your own unawareness.

In other words, it means that you are HUMAN!

Yoga teaches us that ignorance, or avidya, is part and parcel of the human state of being. The fact that we are here, now, in this form, means that we have yet to possess all the pieces of the puzzle, which is really why we are here in the first place … to learn, to deepen our understanding and to ultimately outgrow this worldly state altogether.

Avidya literally means “non-knowledge.” On one hand, it can mean incorrect knowledge, which is probably the most common form of avidya … thinking that we know something, but getting it wrong because we haven’t yet learned all that we need to know about the subject to really understand it fully.

It can also mean incorrect perception, just like the man who mistook the rope for a snake, or the mistaking of a car backfiring for the sound of a gun. Those types of things demonstrate to us that a lot of our reactions and our beliefs are triggered at a subconscious level, from our deep-seated conditioned ideas about things, which may or may not even be true.

Yoga also teaches us that we do have to potential to overcome ignorance through deep, inner study of ourselves. It teaches us that we have the potential to rise above the assumptions that we have been basing our beliefs upon, and to gain a much deeper understanding of everything that we know and do.

… But yoga also reminds us that this is not a hasty process. It takes time, and above all else, a willingness to let go of a lot of our assumptions and a willingness to admit to ourselves that we may not know quite as much as we think we do.

We don’t have to be embarrassed about our ignorance, after all it is all just part of what it means to be human. But what we do need to be ever-mindful of is leading others down the road of our own ignorance, which is why guidance from someone who has greater clarity than we do is an essential part of the growth process. Without it, we run a great risk of simply continuing to further delude ourselves with our own misconceptions and misinterpretations, mistaking them once again for real knowledge and understanding, and maybe even influencing other with it as well.

So the next time you hear me suggest that you are ignorant, please don’t get offended. I’m not saying that you are a bad person … I’m only reminding you that you are human!

… and perhaps more so, that you don’t have to be!

READ THE ORIGINAL POST that got some folks up in arms … “Why Are There So Many Yoga Styles Today?“

Yogacharya is Director of International Yogalayam, and Editor of The Yoga News.