Getting of my High Horse by JJ Gormley
There’s a thin line between healthy self-esteem and unwarranted pretension or vanity. Sometimes, I sense the attitude among my students that I am superior to them. They seem to think that I somehow know the secrets of life; that I have it all together. What’s dangerous about this is that occasionally I start to believe it myself. I begin thinking that perhaps I am different; why else would I be running a yoga studio and traveling to other studios and workshops around the world to teach? Maybe I am special.
Just when I start to believe that I’m somehow better than others, my karma catches up and I find the rug pulled out from under me. I do something or say something that is clearly “not yogic” and get called on it. Thankfully, my colleagues here at Sun & Moon do a great job of bringing me back down to earth when I cross that thin line. My family and friends, certainly my ex-husband, Dennis, would be the first to tell you that I’m just as human and mortal as everyone else. My boyfriend, Bob, knows that I sometimes do and say the wrong things or react impulsively or compulsively, often with a bad temper to boot, despite having a meditation practice that allegedly helps me to avoid such behavior. The theory is that if you still practice those behaviors, think how badly you’d be reacting if you didn’t meditate. Still, such theoretical notions don’t make me—or those on the receiving end—feel any better.
When I find myself behaving badly, I thank my yoga practice. For one thing, it allows me the presence of mind to pause, to recognize that I just behaved badly. It allows me the presence of mind to see the situation for what it is and to move on as best I can. I can let go of any guilt or shame that I might otherwise take on and I can make amends by apologizing if need be. In short, yoga can help us clear the air after an untoward situation has arisen.
To me, making a mistake is part of being human. It is what you say and do after you’ve made the mistake that is important. So yes, yoga teachers make mistakes; we are human.
Why do we put yoga teachers up on a pedestal, or anyone for that matter? My theory is that many of us have a seventh chakra imbalance. When your crown (seventh) chakra is in balance we know that the true guru (teacher) is within. We do not need to go in search of a teacher to put up on a pedestal. Yet if our seventh chakra is imbalanced, we are always looking for someone to teach us. We want someone to furnish us with the wisdom and the secrets of life, the reason for God’s existence, for our own existence, etc. Therefore we go in constant search of this teacher. Once our seventh chakra becomes more balanced, we realize that the answers are within us.
The meaning behind the greeting said at the end of each yoga class, Namaste, is “we are one.” The word signifies that we are all bound together in this world and that we all come from the same Source, the same Higher Power. Yoga philosophy takes it further to suggest that all things, plants, animals, minerals, everything is all the same. Scientifically, you could take it down to the molecular level — everything is derived from atoms.
The greeting, Namaste, also has implications for the teacher, who must step down from the role as teacher and honor the fact that she is an equal among peers. Put differently, when students respond to the teacher’s Namaste greeting, they are metaphorically at once thanking the teacher and accepting her back into a body of co-equals. In yoga theory, a teacher receives guidance from numerous sources, from all her past teachers and her teachers’ teachers. It is her duty to stay out of ego space (by teaching her own stuff) and let the corpus of these teachings come through. So in theory, yoga teachers simply assume the role of teacher for a moment in time for the sake of others. They assume this role because they are presumably able to let go of their own ego and allow the greater teachings to come through them. Thus, the true yoga teacher is never really a guru (teacher) and should never be placed above others. Namaste brings it all back to one.