The authors, Joshunda Sanders and Diana Barnes-Brown (the former lives here in Austin, and the latter in my last hometown of Brooklyn - kinda weird) have a central criticism: that you can't even get started on x, y and z if you don't have cash to spend. That according to Oprah and Elizabeth Gilbert -- who wrote Eat, Pray, Love, a best-seller that chronicled her year-long pilgrimage to find herself over food in Italy, yoga in India and love in Bali -- wealth is a precursor to finding happiness. In other words, good luck getting enlightened if you can't afford a monthly yoga pass and a spinach smoothie from the Daily Juice.
They argue that this claim is just another consumerist ruse -- a way to get women (since that's who priv-lit primarily targets) to feel freedom by spending their own money frivolously and abandoning their real responsibilities -- like family and bill payments.Now, there's no question these things are luxuries. We all have to eat, but we don't all have to hire a personal chef. Or even buy fancy cookbooks. We all need to exercise, but really all you need for that is gravity -- not a gym membership or spin classes. And we all need to ask the hard questions: What is the meaning of life? Why am I suffering? How can I be free of this?
... But do we need a week in Costa Rica for that? Or even a $20 yoga class?
However, this is how I make my living -- teaching yoga and running retreats -- so it got me thinking. Am I being irresponsible?
As I seriously considered it, it was hard not to get immediately defensive. But I set aside ego and identity for a moment and here's what I came up with:
The cycle of consumerism is possible because we live in a more primal cycle of wanting, of desire. A Buddhist monk will tell you that, same as any western economist. The practice of yoga, or any meditation, is to make that cycle of desire more conscious. We need only to see the man behind the curtain to realize that the wizard doesn't in fact have any power over us. Trouble is, that curtain is a real bitch to pull back. We have to work at it every day, consistently. That's why it's a practice. You don't need anything but yourself for this. Not even a yoga mat. As Joseph Campbell says, you just need to "follow your bliss."
But as with any effort, community certainly helps. So does a guide. So does a hero and a hero's journey. It's anthropological. Campbell spent his life demonstrating the universality of this. We have myths and a collective unconscious for a reason. But just when the mythological arc of Siddhartha Buddha or Jesus Christ or Arjuna becomes a too esoteric, too out of reach -- we get Elizabeth Gilbert. Someone we can identify with.
Of course, unlike the Buddha or Jesus or Arjuna, Gilbert has to make a buck in the modern world. And her journey seems like the answer. Book marketers know this. So do movie marketers. It's very sexy, so some readers will inevitably miss the point for the sexiness. Suddenly, it seems as though a journey like Gilbert's is the last thing they'll ever want -- the want that, once won, will end all wanting. And Eat, Pray, Love becomes another cog in the consumerist wheel.
But that doesn't mean there's not something truthful inside. Just like, whether you're Christian or not, there's something truthful about the golden rule. You don't have to believe Jesus rose from the dead to get that treating others how you'd like to be treated really does make the world a groovier place.
In their article, Sanders and Barnes-Brown quote an anonymous high-end life coach, who admits her industry lives by a secret maxim: "Don't fix the client." Yet these life coaches with wealthy clientele continue to offer perfection and happiness. And people -- particularly women -- keep investing.
But that's decidedly not what I'm doing. I don't have all the answers. In fact, I don't have any. I'm certainly not free from attachment or desire. I'm not enlightened. But I still teach because what I do have is a practice, and that's what I teach from.
I don't offer answers or perfection. I offer presence. I offer practice. And anyone can find those things on their own. So it's a pretty humbling experience when people choose to find them with me.
The irresponsibility would be in fooling myself otherwise.
It is typical of people who are concerned about not being a certain way, that they are, in fact, much more not that way than average, regardless of if they feel that they are or not. Perhaps if there thought they were not, then they'd be less concerned about not being so, and would, in fact, be more that way.
ReplyDeleteIf the generality of that hasn't melted your brain, I'll be specific about my experience with you as a yoga teacher: you are the least evangelical of any yoga teacher I've had. Personally, I find this a very good thing. You tend to state how things are, and not how things should be. You tend to allow your students the space to find their own path, instead of prescribing one for them.
There's a huge difference between providing "answers" and providing "wisdom". People who are concerned with fixing problems in their life by seeking answers are the ones most susceptible to the kind of consumerism of which you speak, and, yes, it's true that some of your students may be seeking that from your practice. Still, those of us who see the difference, and, in fact, find evangelism abhorrent, thank those, like you, who simply state what is, so we can use what you know on our own paths.
Thanks, zyrain. I really appreciate that. It's something I'm very conscious of -- keeping yoga accessible to those who don't want evangelization. I get that some people find this very helpful. But as a student, I don't. So as a teacher, I'm sensitive to that and try to leave space for people to have their own experiences.
ReplyDeleteAs MY teacher says, "I'm just the designated driver. It's your journey, and your path."
:)