Yoga Will Never Get Another Chance Like It
Yoga will never get another opportunity like it.
It touched down in the high-income world at the perfect time. Just as we were about to launch into the fastest and most destructive — to life and its health and dignity — period of change in history.
It took the western world by storm and is today a global sensation.
And yet, at the peak of its popularity, and at the peak of its economic and industrial powers, life collapsed.
Yoga, never bigger.
Our world, never sicker.
Yes, yoga was reaching the peak of its powers when it came to business and economics, and God and life were reaching the peak of their suffering.
And yoga had no idea it had been placed right before our eyes to prevent life’s most recent collapse from happening.
It might help to preface what follows by adding a link to a piece of writing I published on August 3rd 2017.
You will see at the time I was surprised, but even then, God was displeased with yoga, knowing full well our world was spiralling out of control and yoga was proving powerless to stop it.
In the hands of the western yogi, yoga departed from its most sacred duty — to unite humanity with God — and chose a different path.
https://www.rustyguthrie.com/2017/08/03/the-fight-part-2-continued/
Let us continue!
Yoga, in the high-income world, has become a platform for success in business and industry. It is a key player.
It has also become a widely used tool for creating fame, wealth, and influence.
It is quite telling these were the three things the devil tempted Jesus with during his time of struggle in the desert. Jesus, who can be considered one of the greatest yogis in history and the benchmark for how a yogi should live.
More so than the contemporary yoga-lebrities — how telling terms such as yogalebrity and yogaprenuer even exist — who flood the world with self-promotion, and guaranteed something sacred, which had the capacity to address the needs of our desperate and broken world, would be redefined and reimagined to maximise economic profit, while deepening the one thing that was destroying the life we belong to — our individually-centred attachments to the physical world and its temporary spoils.
Remember, the one thing that riled Jesus up, more so even than the treatment he received during his crucifixion, was when the temple was reduced to a marketplace.
Yoga is a marketplace.
It was never going to deliver our world from the immense suffering it was experiencing when it could not even spare itself.
Yoga — through its mishandling by far too many yogis — sold its soul, or had its soul sold for it, at a time when our world was falling to its knees.
It is why it — and everything else that has failed for that matter — had to be replaced.
Yoga chose industry over keeping life sacred.
Marketplace over temple.
And now, like every other aspect of our world which failed life — or God — it must be held up to the spotlight.
But yoga should not feel bad.
Everything sacred in our world has been betrayed. That is why it shut down.
However, Yoga was meant to guide us away from the marketplace mentality, not become an industry itself.
But by no means is this the end of yoga.
It can enjoy being a key player in industry and yogis can promote their handstands and their yoga bodies and brands — both personal and business alike.
It can promote ‘healing’ of the physical kind and become a platform for yoga teachers to build their brands and shine their individual light upon the world.
It can continue helping people maintain some form of peace and sanity in a world gone mad. And do not think for one minute I am being dismissive of yoga’s benefits in this regard. I, myself, teach and use the aspects of yoga that benefit my individual body and mind.
But guardian of our world?
Not anymore.
It had its chance.
A golden opportunity if you will.
You see, the timing of its arrival to the western world was perfect. It is as if God knew what was about to come and thought, ‘Yoga — come west, I am going to need you more than ever!’
But like everything else sacred in our world it, too, was swallowed by the high-income world’s need to exploit and desecrate it for economic profit, and individual fame, wealth and fortune.
When our world collapsed a person could be a yogi, but not yogic.
Christian but not Christian.
And so on.
Many have prioritised their labels and their own lifestyles over God’s wishes for his life and our world.
They have forgotten their most essential purpose was to honour God and maintain the dignity and sanctity of life.
So, they had to be replaced.
Our new commandment is to live with conditional expression.
Conditional expression — the way of life that rejects the things that are, or would be, abusive to life.
It is not a business.
It is not an industry.
It is not something that can be faked or betrayed.
It is a way of life.
In God’s eyes, we are either living with conditional expression — or we are not.
We are either living in a manner that is supportive of life — or we are not.
We are either honouring God — or we are not.
Many people have shared stories of leaving the ‘corporate world’ behind in search of a more spiritual approach to life.
But the corporate world, the marketplace that it was, was not left behind at all.
The marketplace mentality and the need for fame, wealth and influence — the corporate world — came with them.
Students became clients, and yogis — through the myname yoga branding approach — put their name before God’s.
And our world plunged into a darkness far more penetrating than it had ever felt before.
Not only had our physical abuse become too much.
But our energetic and psychological abuse of life — of God — reached a level life had never experienced before.
And so, it shut down.
On Yoga’s watch!
You see Yogas primary purpose was never our individual well-being.
It was to defend the dignity and sanctity of God and all life.
By guiding people to being a part of life that is supportive of life.
Which means giving life what it needs.
Yoga was meant to help us live with conditional expression.
Yoga has redefined itself.
But, in Gods eyes it was never up for redefinition.
When yogis such as Yogananda brought yoga to the west, yoga faced a great dilemma.
Am I going to the market place?
Or will I become the guardian of God’s sacred life in its greatest hour of need.
Yoga chose the marketplace.
And the rest is history.
Yoga provides a multitude of benefits when it comes to our individual health and fitness.
But the fact also remains yoga failed at its most essential purpose.
To honour God, and his wishes for life.
This piece appears here at the conditional expression/phusion living website.
