Wattles Mansion

Today I was feeling run-down physically, so I went over to Wattles Mansion and did Sahib Parnaam and the 11 minute “Har” meditation under a big pine tree. Afterwards there was some pine sap on my yoga mat, so keep that hazard in mind if you’re considering doing your practice in a similar location. There was a nice wind during Sahib Parnaam, which made the 16 minutes of pushups in Downward dog a little more bearable. When I got home I did the next meditation from “Masters Touch,” “Meditation to Open the Lock of the Heart Center to Increase the Power of the Infinite Within,” which took about 12 minutes.

Sahib Parnaam got my energy going again, which helped, as I continue to drool snot out my nose intermittently while this cold waxes and wanes. And yes, now my shoulders are sore. But the Master’s Touch meditation actually seemed to help a bit, I think.

Last night I read some disheartening papers online about Yogi Bhajan’s actual teachers and the Sikh disdain for yoga. One was written by one of my teacher’s training classmates at Golden Bridge.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/140983448/Maharaj-to-Mahan-Tantric
Not a totally surprising account, as the details of Yogi Bhajan’s past have always been shrouded in a lot of legend and seemed lacking in factual accounting of his teachers’ lineage. What it did leave me wondering was if what I’ve learned, taught, and am practicing is actually really kundalini yoga or a hodge-podge of hatha techniques, pranayama, and Sikh excerpts turned into mantras.

The second paper was by a Sikh scholar from India, who tore Yogi Bhajan’s teachings to shreds in the context of Indian Sikh belief and practice.

The links showed up on a YouTube page which didn’t have much surprising information in it’s video message: “Academic study shows the Kundalini Yoga of Yogi Bhajan is a fraud.” I downloaded the author’s Kindle report and haven’t read it yet. There have been some nasty reports of the business dealings of some of the 3HO members, but I don’t see them as indicative of flaws in Yogi Bhajan’s teachings, even though the business practices of 3HO are also questionable.

These all fortify my skepticism, but despite that, I ask myself, “what about the time it rained on the tantric shelter during White Tantric Yoga at summer solstice?” ONLY on the shelter. Not around it. In the middle of a NM drought. What about the benefits of how I feel after I do a yoga set? It’s hard to reconcile the inconsistencies. Do I throw the baby out with the dishwater? Apparently not, since I ploughed through another day of practice.