Ashtang Pranam (8 Limbed Prostration)

It is one thing to trust one's teacher. It is another thing to prostrate myself to the teachings, advice and opinions of any one person, no matter how learned they are, no matter how trustworthy they are, no matter how much I respect them.

I am not sure if it is (1) the wisdom gained of experience (I turn 40 in less than two months, over the course of my years I have had good teachers and bad teachers and teachers who disappointed me and teachers who have pleasantly surprised me....I could go on....), (2) my natural tendency to question everything (innate, or possibly the result of being the child of two lawyers) or (3) my education and training as a lawyer (which had far less to do with case law and far more to do with inquiring into everything deeply and maybe not finding answers, but definitely finding better questions). But there has always been something that prevents me from completely giving myself over to ANYTHING, without question.

I am not particularly religious, although I consider myself Jewish. It is mainly a love of my Jewish culture, including the way we interact with our families, the way we celebrate our holidays, the inspiring stories from biblical times, the inspiring stories from the modern day. It is not so much that I know how to pray to my God as a Jew, because in fact, I really don't. Yet somehow, I have come to understand that I definitely DO believe in a "God" thing - whether it is a bearded old man in the sky (I doubt that), or some higher power that is beyond my comprehension (including the possibility of an UN-animated force within nature that causes thigns to happen for no particular rhyme or reason, which I do not consider to be a Godless way of looking at things).

And the way I feel about "God", or whatever, is that he/she/it is the only one who has access to all knowledge, who has witnessed everything, and is ultimately the only TRUE teacher (satguru) of anything that can be taught. Or, as the Jivamukti yogis say at the end of each class: Om Bolo Sat Guru Bhagavan Qui...JAI! (God is the ultimate teacher...Hallelujah!)

I have come to trust in the higher power, or at least to understand that whether this higher power is benevolent, vicious or even insane, there is precious little, if anything, that I can do to change the course of things as they happen. My only power over this higher power is in my ability to accept things as they are. According to Buddhist philosophy, that power is the difference between suffering and not suffering. So, when bad things happen, pain may be inevitable, but the suffering can be minimized through acceptance, which is to say prostration to the higher power. Works for me.

Which brings me back to this notion of prostration, and to whom we prostrate ourselves. Like I said, in my case, it is rare (or maybe it has never happened) that I prostrate myself to any one person, giving myself over completely to their teachings. There was never a time in my life when I didn't question my parents. There was never a teacher in high school or professor at Tufts or NYU with whom I always accepted the teachings without question. At NYU, I would have been eaten alive if I did. Even as I am training my dog I see this - I am going with my own instincts as opposed to the insistence of the breeders and the doctors who insist it has to be done differently.

As Ashtangis, we are asked to prostrate ourselves to the teachings of Guruji, even if those teachings don't always ring true for us, even if those teachings seem antiquated or mysoginistic or what have you. And it is wonderful to have something to trust in, something that doesn't really change much, ever. We are told, practice, and all is coming. To me, this is the ultimate in giving onesself over to the system. Do your practice, and all is coming: a somewhat vague statement in that it isn't clear what it means to "practice", and it isn't at all clear what is included in the "all" that is coming, or when or how it might come. But a broad statement just the same: ALL is coming. And that must be good.

Probably by writing this, I am suggesting to some that I am no Ashtangi. If I were, then I would surrender to the teachings, and stop all the questioning. And that is exactly what I am questioning. I am questioning the lack of questioning that seems to be expected of us.

OK, now, to get myself in even more trouble, I will go even further and say that there are students of Ashtanga out there, who hang on every word of their teacher and who won't make a move if it involves yoga, even tangentially, without speaking to their teacher first. There are students who seem uncomfortable admitting to being angry or to having questions about some of the rules, some of the constraints. There are students who seem uncomfortable in even asking their teacher, "What do you mean by that?" "Why are you giving me that advice - it doesn't fully make sense to me on an intellectual level?" or even, "How am I doing?" because that would seem to indicate a lack of faith, either in the teacher or in the system as a whole. The words "When do you think I might get the next pose" cannot even be formed by the lips, even as they roll around in the brain like any other chatter that is in need of stilling.

If the pressure to do/not do any of these things is coming from the teacher (and I don't know if it is), then there appears to be at least a borderline abuse of power, at least in my opinion. The student comes into the shala, tired, vulnerable, needing spiritual succor, and the teacher provides a sanctuary. But if there is a fear that the teacher will abandon the student, give up on the student, if the students questions the teacher or the system, and the teacher encourages or even nurtures that fear, then there is a problem.

I am almost ready to go back to my Ashtanga practice. And I want to practice in the studio that feels the best, that smells the best, that looks the best, that has teachers that will give me the best teaching, to the extent that any human teacher can do so. But I don't want to give up my autonomy. I don't want to feel as if I can't ask the questions I want to ask or express doubt or lack of clarity on something that my teacher offers. I don't want to be told that I can't practice three days of the month because of a phantom period that I don't even get - since I have no ovaries anymore and no longer menstruate - but the system requires me to take a Ladies Holiday anway. I don't want to be told to leave a puja because I am somehow unclean because I am a woman. I don't want to be told that x, y or z is good for my practice but not feel the freedom to ask, "hey, so why is that, anyway?"

In the past five weeks, I have not been practicing, and instead, I have had the opportunity to read about others' practices and to read about the shalas where people practice and the teachers that may or may not be seen as gurus by their students (guru, satguru, same difference as far as I am concerned). I have been thinking about where I want to practice when I am able to practice again, and frankly, I am really feeling anxious because I don't think I fit in anywhere.

I am never going to be that girl who prostrates herself to the teachings of any one teacher, who takes comfort in eliminating, rather than broadening the fuzzy edges where ambiguity lies. I am going to have to ask questions. I am going to have to not worry about offending my teacher because I need to practice at a different shala for a workshop or because I have a doctor's appointment at my regularly scheduled shala time. I am never going to be that girl.

But I want to practice Ashtanga. I just don't know where do it anymore.

YC