The Abode of Yoga

There's another way to facilitate non-attachment. Through acceptance. Through a conscious acceptance -- rather than the sanyassin's rejection -- one begins to demystify and thus weaken the influence of things once thought foreign, dangerous, and dark. Like Harry Potter repeating the dreaded name of Lord Voldemort when nobody else will, the conscious acceptance and examination of those things that have influence over us is the first step towards gaining control. To be sure, it's not a rigid control I'm thinking of. It's not control through confrontation, by directly pushing against those forces pushing against you. On the contrary, it's like judo -- using your opponent's momentum to your advantage. To be successful, you must bring your opponent close. It's scary in the beginning. For me, the process began with my reawakening . I had been out of the Center for about seven years, when out of the blue a psychic presence reappeared in my daily consciousness. ...

I used to confuse the means for the end. For those of us who spent any appreciable time on a path that required some measure of serious renunciation, this confusion is woven into the very fabric of the path of yoga itself. Here I speak of the confusion between renunciation (the means to an end) and the state of non-attachment (the end itself). To be precise, it's not really confusion. It's conflation. When you're on a path -- like that of the Sri Chinmoy Center -- which requires most of its followers to embrace a severe renunciation of the world and its pleasures (and pains), the tendency amongst the disciples is to conflate the physical, emotional, and mental act of the renunciation itself with the goal of achieving a state of non-attachment to the things of the world. That's what I did anyway. I would take one look at the photo of Swami Vivekananda above -- the very image of renunciation -- and say: "That's my goal." It's funny to think about now, bu...

Ethics aren't everything. Although Guru's misconduct towards Sevika, Rupavati, Phulela and Suchatula was just that -- misconduct -- I'm not convinced that unethical behavior as a rule proves that an individual has no spiritual development. Before I can take up that subject, however, I think I should slow down and lay some groundwork. I believe that consciousness precedes matter. In other words, I'm not an atheist. As a result of their experiences in the Center, I realize that some of my friends have become atheists. Some have embraced a purely scientific cosmology. In their view -- whether they've stopped to articulate it this way or not -- matter comes before consciousness. Without the brain, there is no mind. Without life, there is no existence. That's a perfectly acceptable assumption about the nature of existence. It's just not mine. Which, by the way, is not to say that I buy into the somewhat simplistic notion that I must -- as a believer -- reject th...

What Guru did was wrong. If you believe the allegations made by Sevika , Rupavati , Phulela , and Suchatula -- as I do -- then the ethical case against Guru's behavior is straightforward. His conduct was clearly un ethical (or immoral if you prefer that term). (I wish I could footnote, because having re-read each of their testimonials, I feel compelled to note here that Phulela's testimonial strays a bit from what she experienced directly to things she either heard from others or assumed was happening. While I accept as true those experiences she recounts from first hand experience (i.e., having sex with Guru), I don't embrace some of her other accusations (i.e., "there were signs [Guru] was also having relations with men" or the implication that Guru's misconduct was widely known). In the most general way, Guru misrepresented himself to seekers like me who joined the path thinking him to be a lifelong celibate yogi. While my thinking about the subject of sex...

Is it possible that both were true? Is it possible that Guru both realized something profound in his silent meditation and was emotionally dysfunctional in his active life? I think it is. Over the remaining posts of this blog, I'll do my best to articulate how I've reached this conclusion. It will take a fair bit of deconstruction , not just of the myth of Guru himself but perhaps more importantly much of the language that permeated the Center-life. We'll also have to think about ethics and yoga. Are the demands of ethics and yoga always , necessarily, the same? We'll have to think about sex, too. Let me first emphasize, however, that this conclusion of mine -- that Guru was both extremely advanced in some ways, and flawed in others -- is not for everyone. It's just the conclusion that works the best for me. I'm not putting forth this theory as the be all and end all assessment of Sri Chinmoy. How could it be? I only experienced a very thin slice of the human d...