Te acher zone
VIEWPOINT 1:
Traditional Yoga Association
Yoga has been evolving for over 5,000 years of written Indian
history – fragments of art left behind indicate it’s even older than
that. The Katha Upanishad, part of the Hindu Vedanta, is the oldest
surviving text on the teaching of yoga. It depicts a young seeker in
a dialogue with Death – the first recorded teacher of the art and
science of yoga, which is now practiced in fitness centres, studios
and community halls globally. During the growth of this mighty
yoga tree, numerous schools and lineages became established,
some leaving written texts, others passing on traditions orally.
This evolution is now threatened as a quasi-government
organisation seeks to create a National Occupational Standard
for teaching yoga. When powerful organisations seek control,
they always say it’s to ‘protect the public’ and ‘keep them safe’.
We must question this. Are these not the claims put forward by
any group seeking to impose its authority and undermine all
other groups existing alongside it?
A brief survey of insurers will confirm that yoga has by far
fewer claims and injuries than other movement disciplines.
Therefore, is it protection or protectionism that this ‘setting
standards’ is serving? Can we not, as teachers, rely on the
canniness of consumers? If they don’t like one class, they’ll
quickly migrate to another.
An article by the British Wheel of Yoga that appeared in the
October issue of OM [see page 109] attempted to reassure
readers that there is no plan for standardising all yoga teaching- and then proceeded to tell us how it will be standardised. Let
us not be misled by illusions of transparency and inevitability.
While yoga has evolved to reflect today’s emphasis on physical
wellbeing, it remains what it has always been: the ancient path of
Hindu mysticism. Now that yoga has become big business, any
plan to misrepresent and re-package it for the fitness industry
will be seen and opposed for what it is: a project to compel a
spiritual tradition to submit to quasi-government regulation of its
philosophy and practices.
The same Hindu scriptures from which yoga emerged gave us a
metaphor that is pertinent to the present situation. Coming from
the Atharva Veda, it is a profound cosmological vision illustrating
the interdependence of all things, in which the universe appears as
a great net woven by the god Indra that extends in all directions
infinitely. At each node of the net is a jewel reflecting all the other
jewels; the condition of one node is reflected in all the other
nodes endlessly.
Rather than different yoga schools reflecting one another, a
National Occupational Standard means that only one image of
yoga will subsume all others. Instead, can we step back from this
precipice and ask who is really being served, and how can we
better reflect and support each other as we connect ourselves
and our students to the organic, intrinsic wisdom that yoga calls
us to in its ancient tradition?Swami Ambikananda Saraswati, chair, Traditional Yoga
Association (traditionalyoga.org)