The “flavour-of-the-week” mentality offers a range of good choices but does it root you to the practice?
When I started practicing yoga it was shortly before yoga had made a household name for itself. It was still at a time when people thought of it as an alternative lifestyle. It was by no means mainstream and not really taken too seriously by the general public. Even being a yoga teacher was not something to be proud of. Today, it is the total opposite. People consider yoga a necessity for reducing stress and good health. Ironically it is even better understood as a practice for well-being than as a purely spiritual one.
This shows how the way we often take up these practices is conditioned. The advertisements, the media, other people and even our samskaras (imprints on the subconscious mind) are influencing us. If we also look closely it is easy to see how this growing trend also encourages the “flavour-of-the-week” mentality. That is, we start to think by gaining a lot of knowledge and seeking out teachers from one tradition to the next we will improve and enhance our ability, as well satisfy our desires. Contrary to the popular understanding that “variety is the spice of life” this can be a limited approach in yoga. Limited…. because the practices of yoga including meditation are not spiraling outward. It is a deep well; it goes down and deep.
Throughout my travels ot India I have practiced with many other students and teachers along the way. I discovered that many of the practitioners had already been studying and training with a lot of other teachers, different types of yoga, variations of meditative practices and the like. A common thread amongst them was in moving into one tradition, with one teacher to study for a period of time and then leave. For whatever reasons there came a point where the teachings were no longer satisfactory, fault was found with the teacher and the others in the class. While it can be argued that studying under new teachers and learning from various traditions is enriching, it can secretly side-step the way the untrained mind craves variety, not consistency.
It can be relatively easy to protest that trying something different is not bad. But I am talking about how when we examine why we fly from one teacher to another, one tradition to the next and one method to a different one we may better understand our motivations. Gathering, collecting and gaining more knowledge is not the same thing as learning. Called “Spiritual Materialism” it is another way of bypassing the core and thinking we are progressing and evolving. Much has been written on this topic being the key teachings of Chogyam Trunga Rinpoche, a Buddhist meditation master and teacher. He concluded to be on the spiritual path there were 3 necessiities. One is having a main teacher, the second is having a practice, and the third is doing the practice. The late Shri K. Pattabhi Jois put it in a similar way. He said more than one practice or teacher was like more than one wife and “not good”.
It can be exciting to study from different sources, but the question is whether or not it is serving you the best? It can be compared to going home (not in the literal but abstract sense). Usually we have one “place” which we consider home. This is the place where we retire at the end of the day and from which solace is found. From my experience and having studied directly with a primary teacher for over 12 years it provides the direction of moving down and deep rather than outward.
Undoubtly as a student searching for what works it is confusing in the matrix of teachers and methods available. The paradox is that sometimes we have to travel from teacher to teacher or style to style before we find what resonates. At a certain point, however, and probably within the first 5 years the practice source should become established. It is worth while to reflect upon whether or not the “flavour-of-the-week” mentality is your path rather than committing to one lineage.
The roots of practice certainly branch out, but inevitably are rooted by growing from the bottom up.
Credit: This is a post by Heather Morton of The Yoga Way. You can find the original here.
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