On my first day of TTC, I remembered a session of theory teaching by an overseas guest teacher about the meaning of Samathi (the 8th limb of Patanjali Yoga Sutra) after an intense Asana session. In his explanation, he drew a circle with the word “sadness” at the bottom and the word “happiness” at the top of the circle.
He explained that human being moves from happiness to sadness and vice versa and samathi means a state whereby you could stay at the top of the circle forever. Out of curiosity, I asked, “so that means by performing the poses you taught us just now over and over again, we will reach that state?” Everyone had a good laugh at my question and it was left unanswered.
After few years of attending Yoga courses with many leading instructors all over the world, I am convinced that he does not know the answer. 10 years thereafter, when I look at my profession from a distance, I could conclude that the state of Yoga industry today is in its full blown crisis.
Not only there are great diversity among all the leading Yoga masters in the world, but our bodies are also broken. Many have created schools of thought in the name of Yoga but the ground of which the styles of such Yoga are created have actually got nothing to do with logic and sense of human needs.
In the new era Yoga today, I witnessed that the bold ones that dare to claim pathway to heaven and enlightenment without need to accommodate logic and responsibility lead the way. I am also convinced that most leading Yoga masters in the world today know little in what they are teaching. We know their names and clearly none of them are enlightened themselves.
In fact, most of the Yoga practitioners who are either learning in blind-faith or trend followers, are missing the full potential of the practice and detour completely from the essence of Yoga.
My dissatisfaction with modern yoga practice has led me to search for something more.
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