It’s refreshing quite frankly to see the “enlightened facade” of yoga broken open by the recent sexual scandals. Refreshing, because for too long we’ve held yoga and other spiritual practices up on a pedestal thinking they will magically save us from ourselves — from our own humanity.  For isn’t that what they promised — some kind of transcendence, a way to rise above our humanity and dwell in a perfected elevated state of consciousness?

As the English playwright, Christopher Fry has written in A Sleep of Prisoners: “Dark and cold we may be, but this is no winter now:  The frozen misery of centuries breaks, cracks begins to move . . .”  To me this scandal and all scandals are a wake up call to our humanity.  How can our yoga evolve to include our full humanity, how can we make room to hold our shadow parts — the parts of ourselves we are not yet aware of (which are working in a subconscious undercurrent), and the parts of ourselves we perceive to be unacceptable?

Part of the yoga practice is learning to hold tension.  Such as the tension of warrior 2 pose, when your thighs are burning and your mind wants to escape.  Yoga is also a practice of learning to hold and “feel” the tension of being human.  To learn to make room for our sadness, grief, anxiety, and lust as well as our joy, delight, peace, and vibrant aliveness.  All too often yoga is simply a practice of bypassing the feelings and parts of ourselves we don’t want to look at.  The american psychologist, John Welwood, coined the term ‘spiritual bypassing’ to describe this process of using spiritual practice to “avoid or prematurely transcend basic human needs, feelings, and developmental tasks.”

As a certified Anusara teacher and a member of the yoga community for the past fifteen years, I’ve experienced a sense of personal alienation by witnessing the way yoga is used to transcend the messiness of our humanity. Historically, Broad points out a slew of gurus who sexually stepped out of integrity with their own teaching. The lesson to be gleaned is not to dim back the light of sexuality and vibrant aliveness that may well be a byproduct of increased yoga practice, but instead to take a good hard look at ourselves, to do the work to enter into a relationship with the dark, messy, realm of human emotions, sexuality, money, etc. All aspects of life are part of our spirituality, our humanity and our divinity.

In Broad’s article I felt him demonizing the beauty of enlivened sensuality that may arise during yoga practice.  To me this is an essential part of being human and a gateway to awakening as embodied human beings here on planet Earth.  That vibrant aliveness is what connects me to the light green grass gowing on the cusp of spring, to the shimmering light dancing on the surface of the ocean, and to my beloved partner.  To block the tingling aliveness of being can be just as dangerous as to block the endarkened parts of our being.  The answer is not to dampen down our aliveness, but rather to mature as yoga practitioners and teachers to a place where we can learn to hold the tension of our full humanity — without ignoring parts of ourselves that later surface from the basement of our being.

Thich Nhat Hahn, a Vietnamese monk, was once asked “What is the most important thing we can do to save the world?” He replied, “the most important thing we can do to save our world is to hear the sound of the earth crying.”  The enlivenment that yoga practice gives us, allows us to open our senses wide to feel everything in ourselves and in our world more deeply.  To open more to our despair and our ecstacy, to become more real and more whole by connecting to the totality of what it means to be a human being here in the 21st century on planet Earth.  Yes, there is always the temptation when we do increase our sensitivity and power that we can exploit what we perceive to be “other” whether that is our lover or the resources of our planet.  Yoga, let’s not forget, is ultimatley a practice of awakening to our seamless connection with all that is.  And in this light of recognition, we as human beings have an opportunity to live from a different center of gravity inside ourselves, one where we not only hear the sound of Earth crying but we actually feel the ache of a world so devastated by our ignorance and greed. To have the capacity to hold, to feel, to live from this depth and still move forward out of the source of love, binding us together, calling us to serve all creation.  This is part of our ennobled universal humanity. This is what yoga can help us to discover, unpack, and live into.

In terms of spirituality it’s time for us as a species to grow up.  Christopher Fry goes on to say,”Thank God our time is now when wrong comes up to face us everywhere, never to leave us ’til we take the longest stride of soul men ever took.”  It’s so easy in yoga and other spiritual paths to look to the light and deny the darkness.  Now, the dark comes up to meet us everywhere  in our yoga teachers and gurus, in the priesthood, in our politicians, in our industrial degradation of the planet, in the wars we wage against the other, and intimately inside ourselves in the many ways we are at war with ourselves — at war with who and what we are as human beings.

Yoga invites us to go inside and meet ourselves, say a radical “yes” to who we are and feel what it feels like to be us.  To take time to meet our shadow, or the parts of us that we would say “this” is “not me.”  For a long time I’ve been feeling disconnected from a yoga world that talks all about the light and ignores the dark.  In Debbie Ford’s classic book “The Dark Side of the Light Chasers” she quotes Carl Jung as saying “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.”  I’m happy to say goodbye to the enlightened facade of the yoga world and welcome the next phase of our evolutionary unfoldment.  This scandal and the way it was able to spread with the internet so ubiquitously around the world may well be one of the biggest stepping stones in the evolution of yoga.

Is some part of you longing for more in life?  Are you feeling flat with your spiritual practices or longing for a more juicy experience of the Mystery of being alive?  Are you experiencing anxiety, depression, sadness, or ennui, confusion and restlessness even in the midst of doing lots of yoga?   What if this deep sensitivity to the underlying discomfort at the center of your being is a sign that you have evolved on your spiritual journey to a place where you are ripe for awakening? What if you are at the threshold of your own heroic journey of awakening to all of who you are?

Yoga of Awakening is an integration of somatic exercises, shadow work, consciousness explorations and a supportive community of awake and awakening beings.  It is informed by the work of Waking Down in Mutuality, Hatha Yoga, and indigenous Earth-based spirituality.  The goal of this work is to support and guide you into your own full, embodied conscious awakening — one that includes your humanity and your divinity.

Through Yoga of Awakening you will receive the guidance you require to navigate your own personal heroic journey in the company of others who can hold sacred space for your tender, emerging Self.

Awakening ultimately leads you to a more authentic experience of yourself and an ever-present sense of fundamental wellbeing.

To get started you can set up a private, free 20 minute session by phone with Geri.  Or join the “Introduction to Yoga of Awakening” course at Yoga Del Mar in Southern California (www.yogadelmar.com).  For those with previous experience in Waking Down in Mutuality we offer monthly meetings on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of every month.  For more information contact Geri Portnoy geri@yogadelmar.com.