The Mirror of Yoga

by Richard Freeman

  A question that burns in the minds and hearts of many students is what happens if you do not have a good guru, and in fact, how do you know for sure whether a guru is actually first-rate? Various tools, in particular intuition, can be helpful in this light. If someone claims to be a guru (which in and of itself should be a warning signal), you should be particularly rigorous in your assessment as to whether the teacher exhibits clear thinking in their actions toward and in their relationships with others, as well as whether they seem to possess a depth of knowledge and understanding of the classical teaching as well as the practical applications of yoga. You should also practice careful self-reflection to discover whether the teacher is in some way hooking into your own ego as a means of building their image in your eyes through your adoration and surrender to them. This is the relationship teachers sometimes impose on their students, and it is a sign of an immature and nonskilled teacher. Good teachers are not detached from the world nor do they appear to be above others; instead, true gurus have a deeply rooted and vast sense of compassion and insight, and they function in the world with openness and respect for others. These are things that are sometimes difficult to read correctly—especially if a teacher is wanting (consciously or not) to attract followers. Part of the tradition of a guru-student relationship is that the questioning mind is encouraged and welcomed. That way, not only is the student examining the depths of the subject, but the relationship itself becomes the litmus test for whether or not the teachings and the guru are being approached and maintained as part of a bigger context of insight. The student must be encouraged to actually think about the subject matter, read original texts, and contemplate their meaning, and most important, the student must be guided in practicing the tradition as a means of actually experiencing firsthand the essence of the teachings. The teacher is responsible for honestly communicating with the student, and part of that honesty is that the guru continues studying and practicing as well. In addition, the teacher must guide the student correctly toward the root of the teaching rather than blinding the student to the essence of the teaching as a method of self-aggrandizement for the guru. This is at the root of all good teaching and is critical within the yogic tradition that rests so thoroughly in relationship.

  Within the tradition of yoga, and as if triangulating, we rely on the plurality of others who are also practicing in order to gain a sense of direction for ourselves. It is said within the Hindu yogic tradition that we follow guru, the sādhu, and the śāstra. This is something like having three branches of government—the executive, legislative, and the judicial branches—and it allows for a system of checks and balances. The guru is the primary teacher and also brings knowledge and focus of the particular methodology or the lineage of teachings as you apply them to your unique circumstances. Sādhu simply means “holy person” and refers to the wide variety of people who are also within a lineage, or within distinct lineages or even separate religious disciplines. There is a remarkable similarity between people who have very distinct practices (or religions), but who also have deep insight into the core of the heart—a connection to the nature of reality. The similarity is recognizable in the type of smile you see on their faces and the quality of alertness reflected in their eyes; they are open, clear, content, compassionate, and deeply connected to all that is happening before their eyes. Resting in the often unspoken support of others who themselves are also in search of the truth is an important element in sustaining a deep and evolving inquiry into yoga. The third branch is the śāstra, which means the scriptures. Of course each lineage of yoga has its unique sets of scriptures, but there are also large bodies of scriptures that are accepted by nearly all lineages (both Hindu and Buddhist). So for students who have a good teacher and the inspiration from others on the path, it is also imperative to continue to study directly from the original texts—to read and contemplate the philosophical questioning and theorizing that has evolved over thousands of years. Within the Buddhist tradition there is also a threefold system that supports practitioners, that is, the Buddha, who could be considered to be the archetype of the guru; the saṅgha, which is the community of other practitioners and is equivalent to the sādhu; and the dharma, which means the teachings and practice, represented in the actual texts or śāstra of the Buddhist tradition.

  With three reference points for finding a suitable guru and methodology, you are more likely to stay grounded within the core of your exploration into the meaning of life and into your own practice. It is not always easy to find this triangulation of support. Especially in the modern world we may have little access to a sādhu or even to other experienced practitioners of yoga. Unless we speak Sanskrit, or have found good translations of the traditional teachings, it may be equally difficult to access the original teachings of the śāstra. Finding a guru can be the most difficult task because many contemporary teachers are new to the subject and have not weathered the test of time. Some others may have had a mystical experience through yoga, they may have had deep insight into the meaning of reality, but have not taken off the training wheels of their particular sect. We may also find a teacher who is not deeply accomplished in the yogic arts but who is taking advantage of the great desire many people have to learn yoga. The teacher may play off of the egos of students, manipulating them in ways that are unethical and unkind. This is a particularly sad situation within the context of yoga because many students come to this practice when they are in a vulnerable position in their lives and need to explore the subtleties of their own mind that are arising through the practices. These kinds of unethical teachers will systematically work so that you have no access to the original texts, to other lineages, or to other practitioners who might bring you back down to earth. Such teachers do not encourage students to question the ideas of the teaching or the actions and ideas that they present, instead telling students what to believe and often how to behave. Such behavior is a sign of an immature or unskilled teacher who does this sort of thing to boost their own ego. It is an age-old problem within any system that young, inexperienced teachers (or scoundrels masquerading as teachers) manipulate students and the teachings themselves in these ways. So beware and trust your instincts when looking for a guru and a lineage.

  Remember that yoga is something that is real; as a tradition it is a continual synthesis of the experience of millions of practitioners—all of whom are essentially within the same boat of being surrounded by sensation, feeling, thought, and intelligence. All yoga traditions follow remarkably similar principles, no matter what particular language or specific culture lies at their root. Although it may be difficult to find a good teacher, the good news is that whether you do not have a good guru, or if you do have a good guru but are unaware of it, whether you love your guru even if your guru is not good, or if you do not love your guru in spite of the fact that your guru is actually very good—under any of these circumstances, all hope is not lost. The principle of relationship, the dual points of view that are merging into one perspective, reflected by the two feet of a multiplicity of gurus as well as in your relationship with your guru—this is what is important. The principle of relationship with the teacher is exactly parallel to the principle of relationship with anyone else; whether it is your girlfriend or boyfriend, your spouse, your parents, your children, your pets, or even random people on the street. Regardless of the specifics, the principle of relationship in which the interpenetrating nature of all phenomena is revealed remains the same.

  We love to place our teacher or our guru on a pedestal. Just like our lovers, whom we also tend to place on a pedestal. That way they become the symbol in our heart for everything that we want: they embody our desire for freedom, beauty, and even for life itself. We think of them as we would beautiful music, blue skies, chirping birds, flowers, and springtime. This is a universal phenomenon. But be it our teacher or our lover, if we have placed them on the pedestal, we are engaged in reducing them to the theories we have about them. In so doing we want them to be exa
ctly like the images of them that we hold hidden in our deepest mind. This does not allow us to truly experience the immense gravity of who they actually are or the boundless depth in the core of their hearts—that part to which we are instinctively attracted and the part that is inconceivable and inexpressible. When we place the teacher on a pedestal, we are conversely placing ourselves in a pit. It is as if the pedestal were created by digging space for it in the ground, leaving a depression, and we then go and stand in this hollow. In this way all of our innate intelligence—our questioning mind, clear vision, cleverness, and our skepticism—are given away. Through this process we become unintelligent and dependent on the image of what we now believe to be the teacher rather than inspired by the reality of the teachings. Under these circumstances we are not really in relationship with the guru, now on the pedestal, because we do not have an immediate awareness of their being or an immediate connection to and appreciation for the delicacy of life. We have fallen out of relationship with the person we call our teacher, and it is almost impossible under these circumstances for that person to be in a true relationship with us as well. The very practices of yoga have evolved through this incalculable synthesis of the working through of a relationship—with so many teachers and with so many students. This very amalgamation allows us to continue on even in the face of the natural process of transference of our own intelligence onto our teacher. It is the teacher’s foremost duty to give you back your intelligence, to return to you your heart, to encourage you to access yourself. They do this by being who they really are, and by being completely honest and compassionate with you. It is in such an environment of absolute truth and trust that we find the actual process of yoga, one in which both teacher and student are honest about what they know and are sincerely willing to look at the processes of how they know what they know. Students will pick up this process from their teacher and then they will actually begin delving into the yoga, finding the truth and the guru deep in the core of their own hearts, just as their teacher has found her own guru within the core of her heart.

  The process of yoga can be almost embarrassing when we become aware of our ignorance and the fact that we have made a projection. For example, even though we might have comprehended the concept of a guru as someone who through their teaching and actions points us to the truth found within in the present moment and within our own hearts, we might suddenly become aware of the fact that we have taken a form—someone, something, some technique—and that we have become idolaters by placing that form upon a pedestal. We might find that we have done this even within the context of the yoga practice itself! The embarrassing part is that in doing this we have actually stopped the real unfolding of yoga in order to create the appearance of the yogic process. When we hear about the phenomenon of the guru who becomes self-absorbed and manipulates his students, we probably think that we would never fall for such a transparent trick. But we may have unwittingly fallen for it in many subtle and insidious ways, because a universal phenomenon for all human beings is that we tend to give away our power to others. It is quite common to transfer onto a teacher, a parent, or a peer some aspect of our inquiry—this is the classic definition of transference or giving away our power to others. When we do this, in order to preserve the constructed mask of a relationship, in the process we wind up aborting our inquiry into what is real and true. Under these circumstances, supporting the illusion of the projections of our mind—the transference—feels almost like self-preservation. So we stop thinking deeply, looking at the truth, and inquiring into the nature of reality. As humans we love to jump to conclusions, to try to seal down reality, whether it is the reality of our own being or our idea of the reality of the totality of the universe.

  The process of yoga and of relating to a guru leads to the discovery of the workings of our own mind. Perhaps the most common aspect of mind that is revealed through yoga is that of ignorance when it is defined as superimposing that which is limited, context dependent, and temporary onto that which is unlimited, infinite, and pure. Through this form of ignorance we project essence outward, and we become attached to outward form. For example, we see the guru as infallible and as being beyond human, or we have a mystical experience and believe that one experience separates us (and elevates us) from other “mortals,” or we imagine that the form and structure of the practices we do are the essence of the teaching. The process of yoga is the practice of bringing conscious awareness to this very natural and reductive function of mind. You could say yoga is the drawing of a circle and then the erasing of that circle, which leads to drawing another circle that is again erased. Yoga is the ongoing process of creating a sacred space, then dissolving the borders of that sacred space, and then defining the sacred space again in the context of the most current and relevant moment in time. Ignorance, or avidyā, arises when we forget to erase the circle that we ourselves have created within our own mind, when we think our insight into the present moment is a permanent state of affairs. This is an incredibly powerful aspect of mind—that we can take an ordinary table and through the power of mind we can say, and fervently believe, that everything on that table is sacred. People do this symbolically all the time, for example, when they set up an altar and then become trapped by the power they have projected into the objects they place on the altar. This ability is certainly not all bad; it allows us to focus the mind as we reduce the vast complexity of existence to symbols or to simple metaphors that are understandable and are then easy to work with. In fact, this is what thinking is. A thought is an idea or a universal that allows us to place a large number of particular events into a box. For example, the idea “chair” is a universal concept, but there are actually thousands and potentially an unlimited number of particular, unique chairs. We can understand each chair as separate, and at the same time we can appreciate them all through a universal or an idea we name “chair.” This organizational and thinking skill is basically what the mind is designed to do, but problems arise when we take its work of creating categories and concepts lierally. Once we have created a sacred space, and have empowered that space by defining what is inside the circle as sacred and what is outside the circle as irrelevant, then we make the mistake of taking our arbitrary definition literally. It is essential in the process of creating a sacred space (or any concept) to realize where that sacred space or the concept came from, and to then be able to consciously erase the borders of our definition. It is equally important to then create new borders when and if appropriate. This is the essence of the yogic process, and it is also the essence of how to have a real relationship with anyone else. In all that we do it is vitally important to look clearly again and again so that at the appropriate moment we are able to let go of our sacred circles, so that we can reevaluate our means of identifying situations and release our expectations. By letting go you can understand your concept’s dependency on the context that you have defined within the system of your own mind, and in so doing you might possibly see things clearly as they are arising.

  We develop this skill of defining and letting go through all aspects and phases of a balanced yoga practice. It is part of our training to be comfortable with not-knowing so that at the time of death, the sacred space that we have defined as our body can be allowed to dissolve. If the yogic process is fully awakened, then death is actually considered to be an excellent event—a joyous time. But if we identify with the forms we have created within our minds, if we cling to our ideas of sacred space, then great fear arises at the moment of dissolution. In other words, if someone who is dying identifies the “self” as the immediate physical and mental experiences occurring at the time of death, if a person identifies the physical body as the “self,” then there is great fear at the prospect of dissolution. The fear of dissolution of the self and of the ego may be greatest at the time of death, but it arises in less extreme circumstances all the time. When the yoga practice starts to really work and our image of ourselves as totally separate from everything else begins to d
issolve, we become deeply aware of others. This can be a good thing as it can lead to insight, compassion, and the ability to live with not-knowing. But whenever we meet something that lies outside of our system (and our system would be defined as our body, mind, feelings, sensations, thoughts, emotions) there is also the potential for conflict and a very real possibility of resistance to the dissolution of our defined system “self,” which can result in feelings of great fear. Our system is the ego, the part of ourselves we believe to be separate and permanent, and it is also the part of ourselves that allows us to feel secure and certain in the world. So when we meet something outside of our own defined system—for example, another person who happens to have a prominent ego, someone involved in another religion, or someone from another culture—in order to interact with the “other” and to have an authentic relationship with them, we must dissolve at least some of the boundaries of our own “system.” We must soften the boundaries of our ego enough to allow holes in the borders of our sacred spaces and those things we have identified ourselves with, so that we can actually interface in some way with the other. The paradox is that it is equally important, after dissolving our borders in a relationship, to redefine them and then to redissolve them again and again and again.