Uncertified Yoga Teacher

Amir,

The reason I said: “about 20 years” is NOT because of the problems to do with spiritual development but with the problems with teaching it.

I know many highly attained people that are useless at teaching - and many teachers that are not spiritually attained.

To get the right blance between spiritual knowledge and teaching skills takes a reasonably intelligent person about 20 years.

If you are teaching after about 3 years you are unlikely to have had enough life experience to know the limitations of your skills.

If you are teaching after five years you will not have enough experience of the diversity of approaches to be effective.

If you are teaching after 10 years you will think you know what you are doing - which is a VERY dangerous place to be.

I am not talking about awakening - I am talking about TEACHING.

As to Buddha he had to be convinced by two Devas before he allowed himself to teach - he knew the limitations.

So, my experience is that we can be awakened in the blink of an eye - but to start teaching is a DIFFERENT PROJECT and requires maturity.

Nothing else will do.

God Bless

Amir - also- there is no apparent need to attack Dwai - who strikes me as a very considerate and perceptive individual.

Dwai seems able to LISTEN to AND consider mutiple perspectives and thinks carefully before responding - something many others in this forum might learn from.

Dwai,

No, you have not offended me in any way and I was not being sarcastic. Your opinion was not humble. When witnessing an artificial veil, I address it immediately. When speaking of matters to do with Yoga or any of the spiritual sciences, I leave all formalities aside.

YogiMat,

“To get the right blance between spiritual knowledge and teaching skills takes a reasonably intelligent person about 20 years”

You are right, some cultivation is needed. But it is not the cultivation of skills in the sense of cultivating a method of teaching. It is the cultivation of wisdom - and it is that wisdom which becomes the guiding force for a disciple. Wisdom is not a technique. If one is teaching as a technique - then it is not the authentic teaching. That is the problem with many teachers, they try to teach as a technique, and as long as the teaching is as a technique - it is bound to be artificial. If coming into the presence of such a one - absorb what you can from him, but if you are seeking the direct spirit of the true teaching, one will have to seek elsewhere. Between the living presence of a master and his teaching, there is no difference between the two - it is a direct expression of one’s being.

“As to Buddha he had to be convinced by two Devas before he allowed himself to teach - he knew the limitations”

Gautama was not intending to teach in the beginning simply because he understood the impossibility of trying to express the inexpressible - he did not see that there was any point in making an effort to teach something which almost nobody would be capable of understanding. But eventually, he became persuaded, for whatever reason - whether through his own intuition or “Devas”, that he should perhaps give it a try. In either case, there is nothing to loose. When he tried teaching for the first time - it was a complete failure. He happened to be passing by one Hindu brahmin, and told him about what had happened to him.

The Brahmin asked, “Who was your guru?”

Gautama said, “I did not come to my enlightenment through a guru, I have discovered it through my own effort”.

The Brahmin said, “It may be so”, and walked off.

Later, he returned to five yogis whom he used to practice austerities with in the forest, and started speaking to them of his discovery and his method. The yogis, being convinced of his realization, became intiated as his disciples.

Sometimes teaching is a failure, but it is not because of not knowing of any technique. Either one has not cultivated enough wisdom which can work like an instrument to transmit the teaching, or the other is not yet sensitive enough to understand the master. But I would like to emphasize this - that the teaching and one’s own realization are inseperable.

Dear Amir,

I understand your perspective and thankyou for posting the story about the Buddhas own failures at teaching which was one of the first things that drew me to finding out more about Buddhism about twenty years ago.

To me, for an awakened one - it is not so much “shall I teach?” but “how do I teach?”.

the teaching and one’s own realization are inseperable.

Hurrah !

At last someone is speaking sense !!

BUT - we must NOT deny our deficiencies - the Buddha was UNAWRE of how to simply float around telling everyone that he was enlightened was clearly not the way forward.

To make an argument for teaching we must understand that the project of becoming awakened is very different to the project of becoming a teacher.

Some awakened people do not teach - they just live.

Others do teach - and you must admit that some teachers are more suitable for some people than for others.

Also, some people are not able to absorb the teaching and for these people they do not respond to teachings - they only respond to the lessons life gives them.

For all of us that are immersed in the tradition we must attend to our defficiencies in order to portray the Dharma the best we can - and when we fail - we must not look too harshly at oursleves - but neither should we ignore our failure and perpetuate the failure.
We need time to reflect and consider our next engagement and try new methods.

If we stick to fundamental principles of ethics no blame is forthcoming.

If we stray, then we must forgive oursleves and apologise to those we have led astray.

Thankyou for your attention.

God Bless

“the Buddha was UNAWRE of how to simply float around telling everyone that he was enlightened was clearly not the way forward.”

That was one of his approaches, he simply said it directly - that he is enlightened. When he returned to those five yogis in the forest, who had previously abandoned him because they thought he had gone astray, he insisted that they refer to him not by his name or as an “ordinary” person, but as the Tathagata. The Tathagata means the one who has gone beyond. It was not a name that was given to him, it was a name which he had given himself. Gautama Buddha was by all standards a self-declared Buddha.

“the project of becoming awakened is very different to the project of becoming a teacher”

: ) Yes it is. Although they may cross paths, that is not necessarily so. There have been countless Buddhas who decided not to teach, and whose names are not even remembered. There are some who tried to teach, but their way of teaching was such - that very few understood them. Perhaps, their presence was enough for such people. Even in the last one hundred years, Jiddu Krishnamurti is an example of this. He was not an eloquent speaker by most standards.

SIMPLY FASCINATING! (in my best Spock impersonation)

[QUOTE=AmirMourad;57117]Dwai,

No, you have not offended me in any way and I was not being sarcastic. Your opinion was not humble. When witnessing an artificial veil, I address it immediately. When speaking of matters to do with Yoga or any of the spiritual sciences, I leave all formalities aside.[/QUOTE]

Hmm…when I prefaced my post with “in my humble opinion”, what makes you second guess whether there was genuine humility in it or not?
:slight_smile:

I can be humble, matter fact and yet have a strong opinion about something. My opinion is humble because I recognize that different people have different opinions. I respect their right to hold and voice those opinions. And my opinion is just another way of looking at things…so there you see…there was sincere humility involved.

I suspect that there is some amount of hubris in your posts, but I will not dwell on that because that is your personal problem and while it is mildly irritating, it doesn’t really affect me in any significant way.

“My opinion is humble because I recognize that different people have different opinions.”

Opinions are never humble. Because one is still convinced that one knows, and has come to a conclusion. Even if one is open to hearing other people’s opinions, still in the meantime you are holding onto your own conclusion. Humbleness is possible once a human being comes to a recognition of his own ignorance.

“while it is mildly irritating”

That is the intention.

As I have said before - when one comes to one’s liberation one is absolutely choiceless, so there is no question of practicing your own nature.

Right, but you claim to have come to liberation, enlightenment, the final goal. And the evidence you offer for this is that you can wash the dishes like a pro :wink: You claim to have done sadhana for a few years on your own by living the life of an ascetic - in your own home. Then you came out of it and claim you are liberated, enlightened and have reached the final goal. What in a few years? Even Buddha did very intense sadhana for 10 years under the tutelage of various masters before he undertook his final meditation under the Bodhi tree for 40 days and in those 40 days he went through extreme physical and mental challenges and Buddha was already a highly evolved being since his birth according to Buddhist history.

But it took you only a few years in the comforts of your own home? Ok…

All methods are just skillful means for entry into the methodless. When one arrives to the methodless - it is not a question of practice. To live in communion with your true nature from moment to moment has nothing to do with yama or niyama - in fact there is no longer a need to follow such rules and regulations which are just a temporary substitute for functioning out of one’s own natural intelligence. For a man who is awakened - even if he steals, it makes no difference to his awakening at all. Because actions have no quality in themselves - it is one’s state of awareness which is running beneath it which determines their quality. The same action done by one who is conscious is of a totally different nature than the same action done by one who is unconscious.

You have been basically saying this so far: When you walk, you walk better than us; when you eat, you eat better than us; when you talk, you talk better than us; when you wash the dishes, you wash the dishes better than us; when you write, you write better than us; When you think, you think better than us. Basically you are better than us, you are awakened, we are asleep. You do everything better than us. Now, you might say there is no such thing as “better or worse” but dude it is clear you are saying we are all inferior, because we are asleep and unconscious and you are awake and conscious.

Not only that you are claiming that if you steal, and hence we can add other crimes murder, lie, rape - then you are still enlightened and still in a pure state, because your stealing, murdering, lying, raping is not the same as our stealing, murdering, lying, raping.

You are displaying most of the classical symptoms of narcissistic personaliy disorder:

Wiki:

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition, DSM IV-TR, a widely used manual for diagnosing mental disorders, defines narcissistic personality disorder (in Axis II Cluster B) as:[1]

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
Requires excessive admiration
Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
Often mild to moderate paranoia, that others are out to do him in.
Predominant “name dropper” boasting or suggestion association with people or affiliations of importance.

I think what you demonstrate is a clear reason why if we do sadhana on our own without any supervision or facilitation by a master, we are likely to develop all kinds of issues and delusions - like believing we are the next Buddha(you are very close on that one) or the second coming of Jesus, or something a lot more sinister. When you said that if you steal it does not affect your awakening, thus saying awakened beings can steal if they want, you revealed something very disturbing about how your mind works.

[QUOTE=AmirMourad;57170]“My opinion is humble because I recognize that different people have different opinions.”

Opinions are never humble. Because one is still convinced that one knows, and has come to a conclusion. Even if one is open to hearing other people’s opinions, still in the meantime you are holding onto your own conclusion. Humbleness is possible once a human being comes to a recognition of his own ignorance.

“while it is mildly irritating”

That is the intention.[/QUOTE]

I could go into the absurdity of your post, taking it apart piece by piece, but that would be doing you a favor. I think i am done engaging with you…wallow in the goo of your enlightenment!

Opinions are never humble. Because one is still convinced that one knows, and has come to a conclusion. Even if one is open to hearing other people’s opinions, still in the meantime you are holding onto your own conclusion. Humbleness is possible once a human being comes to a recognition of his own ignorance.

I will translate this for you Dwai. He is saying everything others say is an opinion; everything he says is the truth.

SD - Why do you always manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

There is nothing in Amirs posts which suggests that he is deluded.

PLEASE CONSIDER THE LANGUAGE YOU EMPLOY MORE FULLY.

Your communications are violating peoples wish to undertake intelligent discussion in a NON-VIOLENT manner.

If this was a political or other forum I would understnd it but we are trying to learn from each other and your insistence in being at the front of the class is becoming a nuisance.

Please speak your mind - but try to think more carefully about how your audience is likely to respond to you.

For example, calling me a retard and a racist might be accurate but I generally view those terms as being hostile and offensive which makes further communications between us unecessarily strained.

Please note that BUDDHA REJECTED ALL HIS MASTERS because they were simply not up to it.

I am not suggesting that you do the same, but that you certainly want to consider it.

ALSO - PLEASE quit with the INFORMATION DUMPS.

They are HARD TO READ and TEDIOUS.

Given the choice I would much rather hear your imperfection that other peoples perfections in this forum

God Bless You

You call peoples posts where they make an effort to share knowledge, learning and advice with you “information dumps”. You are the last person to talk about respect for others.

You accuse others of being passive aggressive, violent etc - and so far you have disrespected me, Dwai, Neitzche and The Scales by being highly patronizing and rude to us. You have only been here a few days :wink:

There is nothing in Amirs posts which suggests that he is deluded.

He is telling the entire forum he is better than them, and that they are asleep, unconscious, unenlightened. He is claiming everything he does and says is better than us. He just told Dwai his opinion is not humble without any provocation from Dwai, simply because it is an opinion. Yet, he is constantly going around this forum giving unsolicited opinions to people, but when he says them they are nothing but pure and absolute truth emanating from his awakening. He even just said that if he even stealed, it would be ok, because it would be him stealing, the awakened one.

I am sorry if that is not delusion, then what is?

[QUOTE=thomas;39474]On the one hand, I like the idea of self-study and learning on my own. But on the other hand, I know I could not have done yoga properly by using a DVD. There are simply too many things that can go wrong in a pose, and I would not have been aware of them. In fact, I think that after my experieces with private lessons, that I think the student needs that as well.

So I can understand that to be a teacher, a more experienced teacher would be necessary to thrain them, and it might be hard to learn it all on their own.

But I look at the economics of a 200 hour teacher certification.

12 students x $3,000 equals $36,000.

That’s a pretty sizeable chunk of change, and it seems to me that those same 12 people could pool their resources and hire instructors privately as needed for much less.

200 hours is 25 8-hour days, and if there are 12 students paying $3,000, that comes out to $1,440 per day the group of 12 students are paying their teacher/studio.

Couldn’t a qualified teacher be found for $400 per day? If so, that would lower the overall cost for all 12 students to $10,000, or just $833 each, which is a lot bettr than $3,000.[/QUOTE]

getting certified is all about making money. its all about making students/teachers feel like they are getting this great ability to teach yoga but its all a load of crap. I finished my 200 hour certification and feel ripped off. I only paid $1,000 half off for trade work at the studio but I was dissapointed with the actual traiining. I learned far more things I didn;t like about doing yoga ata studio that things I did. It has since made me go back to practicing on my own at home and enjoying yoga allot more not being around the B.S of a studio

I think for people with very little experience in practice and who are not actually practicing on there own they can learn allot. But if you are ready to be a real teacher then its just an extra boost of confidence knowing that you can feel comfortable up in front of a class

I agree. What right does an American Yoga Alliance association have to control the market on yoga teachers world wide? Wouldn’t an Indian alliance make more sense? Since Indian’s have thousands of years in this ancient practise, I think we should support the Internationally recognized Indian associations such as, Yoga Alliance International founded by the Indian Swami Vidyanand. Rather than an american business that’s out to make money in a relatively new trend for the west. Plus the Indian associations have lower one time fees that don’t have to be renewed every year.

[QUOTE=Michelle Kaminski;65651]I agree. What right does an American Yoga Alliance association have to control the market on yoga teachers world wide? Wouldn’t an Indian alliance make more sense? Since Indian’s have thousands of years in this ancient practise, I think we should support the Internationally recognized Indian associations such as, Yoga Alliance International founded by the Indian Swami Vidyanand. Rather than an american business that’s out to make money in a relatively new trend for the west. Plus the Indian associations have lower one time fees that don’t have to be renewed every year.[/QUOTE]

thats America for you. Serving the almighty economy above all else

What I learned in y.t.t. Was love
Cheers

PS:

[QUOTE]Michelle Kaminski/ Handsofeye,

“I agree. What right does an American Yoga Alliance association have to control the market on yoga teachers world wide? Wouldn’t an Indian alliance make more sense? Since Indian’s have thousands of years in this ancient practise, I think we should support the Internationally recognized Indian associations such as, Yoga Alliance International founded by the Indian Swami Vidyanand. Rather than an american business that’s out to make money in a relatively new trend for the west. Plus the Indian associations have lower one time fees that don’t have to be renewed every year”.[QUOTE]

Emotions and loyalty are good, until they make us blind. Let us have some reality check.

  1. Perhaps “market” was a wrong word. Because if we are controlling the ‘market’ it is better done by one who knows ‘money’ than a novice;
  2. YA doesn’t appear to control “yoga teachers” by redefining yoga, but setting standards of what is a (yoga) teacher. Standards may be arbitrary and subject to evolve, but they make better sense than a ‘free-for-all’ in their absence.
  3. YA doesn’t appear to be a legal authority. Their whole system is for those who want to recognize those standards to be of any value.
  4. ‘Indians being in this practice for thousands of years’ is the most misleading statement that is ironically popular. Beyond doubt, yoga originated in India and it was practiced by people of the then ‘India’ thousands of years back. But that golden period was subsequently followed by the dark ages that gave us discriminations of unthinkable proportions, a blinding cloud of rituals, and a huge gang of middlemen to separate us from the divine. We have discovered our own golden past in the last century almost the same time the West did. Most of us in India are overwhelmed by our own heritage but are happy to carry its symbols rather than to practice it and make it contemporary. It is a mute question how and why like many other Indians I had to know yoga-sutra more from English authors. Given this, I fail to understand why Indian ‘brand’ shoud be automatically superior to the Western ‘brand’. Why all branding is not bad? Why is it not said that yoga is for all humanity, not limited by physicality vs spirituality, by orange robes vs household clothes, by American version vs Indian?
  5. In a limited sense, there are better efforts to understand yoga in the West. First, they could approach it with no predispositions. Secondly, they are bringing to yoga the same inquisitive probing and disciplined execution that is generally found in other disciplines. There is a significant and growing number of yoga practitioners in the West who appreciate yoga’s Indian origin and its intrinsic spirituality and are all set to realize that potential in their own way. They are unfamiliar with its rigors, but keen on trying.

I think we Indians have a lot on our plate to cherish, rediscover and refurbish. We can do it quicker if we rekindle our spiritual DNA. Then we will rise again as the undisputed authority on yoga and not claim the riches just by inheritance.