9.0 on the richter scale

I've been going through a bit of a rough patch this last week after I discovered that a fellow yogi that I dearly respected and a venerated yoga master both turned out to be very, very human (ala John Friend-ish human). I'll admit it - this realization has rocked my foundation and I've been going through a bit of mourning these past few days. I've found myself questioning...everything. After all, what does it mean when the people who practice and teach these principles can't live by them? How can I be inspired to follow something that doesn't appear to work? Especially in the case of the yoga master, this guru, how can I trust his teachings about love when he turned around and created a destructive cult in his wake?

Hilariously enough (almost as if the Universe had planned it...), this all happened just as I was heading into a 3 day intensive workshop with Aadil Palkhiavla. I cried through a good portion of it - not because he was saying anything mind blowing but because I didn't want to be there, facing the very thought system that I was questioning (and sitting beside my former on-a-pedestal friend while he engaged in his very human behavior).

Over lunch, I confessed this to one of my fellow trainees. Confessed? More like moaned and complained. Why? Why are Pastors and Gurus and Priests - why aren't they trustworthy? Why are the very people who are telling us to eat Sattvic foods guzzling beer and eating pizza?  Why are the teachers that are teaching us how to overcome ego, walking around with puffed up chests? Why are the ones who are supposed to be guiding us towards Divine love, failing to live it in their own lives?

Her answer was so flippant, I don't think she realized what a force of nature came out of her mouth. She said "The problem is, people want someone to do it all for them. They want someone to say 'Here is how it is. Here is what you do' and then you just do it and then you don't have to think or do any work and you can blame them when it goes wrong."

Oh.

Ohhhhh.

Yes. Of course. It made so much sense, it hurt.

It is not for us to put our very souls into the hands of another. We can look to teachers and priests and gurus for guidance but we must always do the work ourselves. We must always do the work ourselves. We must ask questions, dig deeper, learn the truth and decide for ourselves where to go.

Even in our yoga practice, we can't just do a pose because a teacher says it's good for us. It is up to us to ask and learn more and decide if it really is good for us.

No teacher will be our end all, be all. The buck stops with us. With the Spirit within. 

As we returned to class, Aadil brought us around him for a lecture.

"Do you know what Patanjali says the ultimate purpose of yoga is?" he asked in his enthralling voice.

Answers were shouted out like popcorn. "Unity!" "Samadhi!" "Moksha!"

He grinned at us and shook his head. "No, my friends. The ultimate purpose of yoga is discernment."

Discernment. There it was. Right in front me. I felt like I had been led right up to that moment, right to that answer.

I think that's what all this foundation cracking has been about. The Universe has shaken me out of a stupor of blind acceptance and reminded me that the answers are within me.