2015 a deeper culture of yoga please

a prediction or wish for yoga culture in 2015 crafted by Matthew Remski who teaches Yoga Philosophy and Ayurveda for YTT programs worldwide, and is the curator of the WAWADIA project.

This is a snippet of the article from Yoga Dork 

'I direct it not at the general practitioner but at the professional class: those who teach or administer studios for a substantial part of their income. These are the people who are responsible for holding and guiding the mood of practice moving forward.

I predict/wish that from this day forward, teachers will recognize that they are on this battlefield in every moment of every day. I predict/wish that they will be acutely aware of the constant tension between action and inaction. They will realize that calming themselves or resolving their personal traumas to a manageable degree through yoga was a kind of basic training for the larger battle of interdependent renewal.

I predict/wish that teachers will recognize that the enemy of terrestrial life is global, structural, pervasive and tenacious, and that neither asanas nor meditation can attack it directly. Only boots-on-the-ground activism can. Then they can recognize the true target of teaching: that human civilization is the macrocosm of basic human drives like rāga and dveṣa.

I predict/wish that teachers will accept that it is a sign of obsessive narcissism to long for these drives to be erased in a blaze of private enlightenment, and to spend countless hours practicing towards this end. However, they will know that addressing things like attachment and aversion pragmatically in the brief and privileged laboratory of practice can allow the higher yoga of activism to proceed with greater sustainability.

I predict/wish that every single teacher can start to make this work in simple ways first. Like tithing their monthly income to a warrior cause they publicize through their newsletters. Or by modeling activism for their communities by serving populations without access to yoga. Or by tying access to "advanced-level" practices with strategic (rather than symbolic) environmental work. Or by letting students know that asana and meditation can grant the insight to see that they are in a war that can finally be heroic. By letting them know that practice can give the strength to fight with grace, even though — or especially because — the outcome is unclear.'

I wholehearted concur.

Peace & Shapes