Yoga: Turning off the power.

Power is like cancer. Normal cells grow, reproduce, and even destroy themselves if they are damaged, all through a process of cell division. Cancer cells don't obey those rules. They are addicted to multiplying their numbers regardless of the results. Yes, there are benign cancers and power plays. However, when gone unchecked power can spread its disease like malignant cancer destroying everything it touches, unless we stop it. It's had debilitating effects on our health, our environment, and our economy.

We have all been infected with power at some point in our life. Yoga teachers included. Take Bikram Choudhury (once again) and his franchise stipulations, which beg the question we keep asking Goldman Sachs employees, "How much money do you need?" Even in the studio teachers are inherently faced with power issues. Maintaining authority over the class is important. However, too often authority morphs into power severing the union between teacher and student. Yes, there's a correlation in the corporate world and many others.

In education, only looking for what is wrong in order to make a correction is an easy way to maintain authority. It also feeds power. It seems to be how most teachers are taught to teach -no matter what their discipline. Unfortunately, what is wrong with something (and what is different) stands out for most of us. However, would connecting with what is right with the student, offering positive suggestion and feedback, and creating a union of effort, cause a teacher to lose his or her authority? No. But it would turn off the power. Many business moguls would say that's a formula for failure. Is it? The worst thing I can see is that it might blur the lines a bit between student and teacher, but then both learn from the exchange. The teacher remains in authority by being authentic, and by creating a nourishing cycle students want to come back to. It evenutally becomes a kind of self-feeding yoke for growth and evolution.

The opportunity is always there but not many people take advantage of it, because the one in authority is oftentimes not self-aware enough to encourage the exchange. Of course, years later they might be able to say, "Wow, I learned a lot from that student." As a certified perpetual student, I can say I've had the opportunity to get a glimpse of it. The first time was when I was twelve. The teacher reminded me of a verocious wolf, who claimed to eat crowbars for breakfast. She scared the hell out of the whole class; but she ended up nurturing us individually like we were her own cubs, while respecting our contributions. She actually changed my life, because she made me feel my interpretation of the material mattered. Granted, I've also had the red-inked witch, who never knew I retyped my original bloodied paper after the third attempt to satisfy her dictates. She ended up showering me with praises of "brilliance" and "finally getting it" but it was the first paper I showed her. I've also had dancing dictators who demanded I stay en pointe in arabesque, while they shouted out my failures until they finished their cigarette. There were opportunities for a union of learning present in all of these circumstances, only the wolf made good use of it. The rest allowed power to overtake them. I can't say how cognisant the wolf was of it or not. I will say, despite my earlier loving jab, I've witnessed the magic most in ever-increasing degrees with yoga instructors. They seem to honor the process in their students and themselves. I believe that's what yoga creates naturally, if you let it. The student shifts and learns how to be a student and a teacher for themselves, while the teacher learns to acknowledge the student in themselves, and integrate their wisdom to teach with more authenticity.

In yoga, turning off the power involves going deep and wide - and like everything else in the practice it'll take a lifetime to master. Maintaining unified respect and authority over your own body like over a class, a corporation, or a country is a constant dance with power. The push to make it better must join with what is --authentically there. The need for power has roots in our own fears. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of someone else being better than us. Fear of not being in control. Fear of messing up, and the list goes on ad infinitum to the fear of death and after death. The more we fear, the firmer hold power has on us. Yes, once again, we see the metaphor for this everywhere from the proliferation of cancers, the economical ploys, as Matt Taibbi so aptly titles, "The American Bubble Machine" to the oil spill, and of course, war.

The I'm-right-me-oriented ego mind is the key driver for power. In time, yoga stills that mind. Again, there is no winning or "getting there". It's all in the journey. We must begin. Striving to turn off the power, and learning that we can turn on so many more lights without it.