Re: Uma Inder , Umaa

Phoenix wrote:

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She didn't enjoy any statement that doesn't align with her version and quest of 'truth' so she attacked me and people close to me, some grandeur guru trip spiels on things that are not true at all.

Someone who calls themselves a teacher yet cannot respond respectfully to any
difference of opinion or new information is someone who is actually fragile and can only get power and feel powerful by assembling a bunch of adulators.

For persons trying to make sense of the social issues that affect yoga, Corboy
recommends a website, Decolonizing Yoga.

[www.decolonizingyoga.com]

Decolonizing Yoga addresses yoga and a myriad of social justice issues. Long,
thoughtfully written articles, carefully footnoted.

Matthew Remski has written a series of articles about problems that developed
for Jivamukti Yoga.

[www.google.com]

More articles by Matthew Remski


Matthew Remski identifies some hazards indigenous to yoga assemblies:

* Victim blaming

* The habit of obedience, mental and bodily obedience to trusted teachers.

Victim Blaming

[www.decolonizingyoga.com] .

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“I found his comments ill-informed and unfortunate,” Faurot said. “He’s someone who’s been in the New York yoga community for a long time, and he instantly contributed to victim-blaming culture, which enables abuse, and silences those who would speak up.”

Thomas Shanahan, Faurot’s lawyer, was also on the call.

“From a legal perspective,” Shanahan said, “what’s stunning about Kaminoff’s comments is that with all of his years of experience in the yoga world, it’s clear he has absolutely no idea that under New York state law, Holly could never have consented to a sexual relationship with someone who controlled her employment.

“It’s shocking to me,” Shanahan said. “Maybe he figures that Eastern philosophy trumps Western law.”

“This is why this stuff happens over and over again,” said Faurot. “Victims speak out, and then people like him, who could be offering some guidance, make comments that are just wrong.

and

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faithful to a modern yoga tradition of minimizing and whitewashing patterns of abuse in teacher-student relations.

“People keep saying, ‘Don’t give your power away.’” Faurot says.

“But I didn’t know I had any power when I came to Jivamukti. My self-esteem was that unhealthy. I can see it now because I’ve done a lot of therapy.”

Boundaries are crossed after a teacher establishes trust.

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“I was in a freeze pattern”

“My apprenticeship with Ruth started out as highly formal, and I loved it,” said Faurot.

“The rule was that I couldn’t study with her until I could read and write in Sanskrit. She had high standards and expectations. In the beginning she showed herself to be a very firm, professional teacher who knew a lot and had a lot of experience. Once that trust was built, then the lines started getting crossed.

And

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“Getting things as an adult that I’d never received as a child was very powerful. I felt safe with Ruth. She made me feel very loved. I gained older sisters, who were her prior apprentices. I became part of this small privileged family within the larger context of the Jivamukti community.

“Acceptance into this family required unquestionable devotion to Ruth, and in return she agreed to be our teacher, our guru. It was assumed that all of us would work together to serve and take care of her.

“I learned quickly that to question her, to disagree, to see other points of view, or to even subtly to shift the focus away from her, was to bring on disapproval and the risk of rejection or being shunned.”

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Over time, Faurot’s practice and sense of her body underwent a disempowering shift.

“Ruth would spend the night with me on Sundays and I would always take her class Monday morning. Those classes were always very difficult. My body would feel off, heavy– like a wet noodle that could be bent into any shape. Looking back this was clearly my body’s response to the violations taking place.

“I was in a freeze pattern. I had a deeply ingrained habit of dissociation due to both my childhood and the eating disorder I developed as a young adult. Because of that, it was perhaps easier for Ruth, my ‘guru’ – the person I was taught to trust more than my own instincts – to gain control and possession over my person.”

Ingrained Obedience in the Yoga Community - lack of boundaries.

Students trained to be obedient to their yoga teachers will be more likely
to give that same obedience to a new guru brought in by their teacher.

Jivamukti and Geshe Michael Roach: The Cross-Marketing Tangle of Magic Teachers

[www.decolonizingyoga.com]

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The Jivamukti/Roach connection formalized in 2003 through a yoga of business opportunity and political necessity. Jivamukti was expanding both operations and overhead, and Roach was quickly exhausting his welcome on the Tibetan Buddhist teaching circuit......

(Corboy: Later, Michael Roach's operation got into serious trouble.

[www.google.com])

“Sharon and David raised us to be very respectful of teachers,” said the source. “You don’t point your feet at your teachers. You don’t lie down or eat when your teacher is speaking. It was very formal. And I think that’s nice in a way. In the West, we’re not very humble or respectful of elders.

“What they did well was to raise a culture of students who were reverent. Is that a cult? I don’t think so. Is it traditional? Maybe. Is there a power imbalance? Yes.

“Geshe Michael came to these big groups and he saw the perfectly-behaved students of Jivamukti. And he was very impressed by that.”