Honoring someone who has mastered the governance of the body-mind complex is a common tradition in the spiritual arts like yoga, kung fu and tai chi. Each of these traditions have stood the test of time. Each tradition has its own unique name for the master: guru, lama, sifu, abba or master. Revering the teacher is not actually about revering the person who is considered the teacher. It’s an available tool that is about the student’s consciousness unfolding its own knots, negative tendencies and karmic habits. It’s not about putting a human being on a pedestal to be revered. No. Evan a master is human and thus inherently flawed. All human beings are perfectly imperfect. Always.
The whole notion of guru devotion, or honoring one’s teacher is more about unlocking a process within the student’s heart-mind field, their chitta. It’s a process that helps the student gain access to surrendering their egoism, their subtle arrogance, and their over developed sense of individualistic importance. It’s about Ishwarapranidhana, the fifth niyama of Patanjali’s yoga sutras. Surrendering to the teacher means surrendering to the divine process of yoga through devotion and service for the ultimate attainment of spiritual knowledge. Faith and trust are involved. It’s a time honored tradition that works, though there are those unscrupulous individuals who have abused the tradition for their own darkly motivated personal gains. Any unwillingness to engage in this process is simply about the strong grip that the student’s ego has over the student themselves.
Without this key of surrendering to the teacher, asana practices turn into a series of physical tricks and look-at-me accomplishments. Pranayama practices become breath holding contests and spiritual practices get reduced to complicated rituals and ceremonies wherein the underlying foundational motivations are utterly lost.
Take it from someone who has immersed themselves in the process, if in your yoga, you are driven to gain physical prowess in asana, you will forever be bound to the inertia of your body. If you feel a longing hunger for the energetic sensations of spiritual awakening, you will always be anchored to restlessness. But, if you seek spiritual freedom, find a teacher and love them, honor them, cherish them and surrender to them. Not only will you untie the knots that bind you to your body and energy, you will also transcend the inherent prison of your emotions and mind.
It’s About Surrender to the Process, Guest Post by Mara Healy
