I’ve been in this business for over 15 years and the longer I’m in it the more the business side shows its ugly face. Yoga has been around longer than any of us and will continue to be here long after we are all dead and forgotten.
Yoga is here to give us a platform to work from within ourselves. To confront ourselves head on and meet the challenge of growth and development and not just stay stuck in the chaos that is daily life because at the end of the day none of that matters. All that truly matters is connection with your own consciousness, your true self, and letting everything else just be a part of the ride.
Since opening the studios I am overwhelmed with messages from people who want to share their personal yoga stories with others and it brings me so much joy that so many people want to help and serve others. Occasionally though, I get the trademarked yoga style that shows its face. People that are pushing an agenda, that is not theirs, to share and promote the namesake of a teacher. A true teacher doesn’t want you to tell everyone who they are or make sure your students know where you studied or what lineage you are following or pass down their so called traditions. A true teacher is there to pass the light and the essence of yoga down to you and then to move on and hope you can take this knowledge with you to change your life and possibly share it with others. No one owns this knowledge. This is universal, it’s public sector information.
It takes a lot of ego to be that kind of self promoting teacher and ego is exactly what we are trying to shed through the process of yoga. It’s a true sign that the teacher has not yet evolved and should actually still be a student. If you need to trademark the name/style of yoga you so called invented then you are doing it wrong! How can one pass on knowledge that they have not yet seemed to have learned themselves?
Yes we live in a world that revolves around money and commerce but through yoga we can break free of all of the confines of this world and find our own personal, and inner, freedom from it all. If you need to treat yoga like something you own then you should truly not be sharing it with others because you are the blind leading the blind. You are simply repackaging information that has been around for centuries and putting a label on it to resell for personal gain, not spiritual gain.
My goal is to offer people a knowledge that has only one name, yoga! Yes there are many styles and ways to practice but the message that resonates is the same in all of them. There are many path ways to the top of the mountain, but they should not be owned or trademarked.
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