december 2017 / january 2018
yogajournal.com.sg
at New York University’s School of Medicine. By definition,
spirituality involves contemplating and communing with the
human spirit or soul—as opposed to material or physical
things, which are much more tangible and verifiable—and
thus requires a certain openness, trust, and dropping of
defenses. Plus, many students enter these spaces already
vulnerable, confronting physical, emotional, or mental
wounds. As a student receives solace from the practices
shared by her teacher, a false sense of intimacy may crop up
and result in what experts call “misattribution of arousal,”
according to Thakkar.
“In high-emotion settings that elicit strong physical
responses, like a yoga or meditation class, the sensations of
relaxation and bliss can be wrongly attributed to a specific
person,” Thakkar explains. “Likewise, change of breath or
increased serotonin from exercise, like an asana practice,
can mimic the responses of romantic arousal. In fact, the
neurotransmitters associated with spirituality—dopamine
and serotonin—are also associated with feelings of love
and lust. As a result, it is biologically challenging to sort
out where your feelings are coming from when you fall for
someone in one of these settings.”
This explanation resonates with me. When I look back,
I realize how easy it was to associate deep meaning and
connection with my ex because I met him when he was
leading meditation classes and giving powerful dharma
talks. It was hard to tease out my attraction to him from the
one I felt for the spiritual path. Once we became involved,
our relationship seemed extra purposeful and intimatebecause we had met under the umbrella of spirituality. And
when he broke up with me, it felt like Buddhism itself had
rejected me.
Unfortunately, the group where I met my ex had no
code of ethics or grievance council to provide guidance or
help prevent these sorts of schisms. Yet the ancient texts
themselves outline foundational codes of ethics, including
advice for sex. The yoga path is built on the guidelines
of the yamas and niyamas—yoga’s ethical and moral
codes—with brahmacharya yama often translated as wise
sexual moderation. “Practicing yoga depends on keeping
the ethical rules, or yamas, as a foundation, or else it really
isn’t yoga at all,” says Sri Dharma Mittra, founder of Dharma
Yoga Center in New York City. In Buddhism, the third
precept is about avoiding sexual misconduct.
Yet these foundational principles are not always
well-known to new students, nor fully explored or
contextualized in yoga and meditation as they’re often
taught and practiced today. “The number of yoga teachers
who have completed a 200-hour training has exploded,”
says Hala Khouri, creator of the teacher-student module in
the YogaWorks 300-hour training, and co-founder of the
nonprofit Off the Mat, Into the World. Indeed, for every
existing yoga teacher, there are two more in training—a
third of whom have been practicing for two years or less,
according to the 2016 Yoga in America Study by Yoga
Journal and the Yoga Alliance. With an influx of teachers
newer to yogic traditions, there is a higher risk of abusing
—intentionally or unintentionally—the authority role,
says Khouri.
Some communities are taking steps to protect both
students and teachers from damaging relationships by
establishing ethical guidelines and a system of checks
and balances. These help teachers sort out their feelings,
caution students against idolizing their teachers, and
provide details on how to report transgressions, especially
in the case of outright abuse. For instance, the Iyengar
Yoga National Association of the United States (IYNAUS)
has ethical guidelines based on the yamas and niyamas
that state teachers must “avoid intimate relationships with
their students.” IYNAUS’s guidelines also ask teachers to
step up when a student-teacher relationship has been
“compromised” and help the student find another Certified
Iyengar Yoga Teacher. Similar directives exist for Spirit RockWith an influx of
teachers newer to
yogic traditions,
there is a higher
risk of abusing the
authorithy role.