Club Med of Salvation
By Stefanie Renard
Come join Club Med for Salvation! If you need a psychic for your dog, you can find it here. If you want to be healed by someone playing a horn in your ear while you rest in savasana, we can accommodate you. If you want to practice “orgasmic meditation,” we have a studio for that.
The one thing I know after being around a few spiritual blocks is that my bullshit radar has gotten really fierce. It went off a few weeks ago at an event in Mill Valley, California. I had paid $20 to see a famous spiritual teacher who was in town. No one made me go to this event. I was taken with her teachings and was eager to learn more. I was sucked into the idea of her being an instant answer to my pain.
But I learned that there is a big difference between thinking that you are enlightened, selling that you are enlightened, and actually BEING enlightened. The whole event was orchestrated down to the color of her clothes and head scarf. It was like being on a reality show for people who would win a prize for seeming the most enlightened, by way of being able to earn the most money from their tricks and duping the most amount of people into a spiritual stupor. I realized that don’t want to be an extra on this particular TV show.
Here is an example of how the event went down:
A man is selected by this “guru” from the back of the packed room. She clearly already knows him. He sits up on the stage. They hold hands and look at each other meaningfully. Almost immediately, he starts to laugh in a hysterical, almost maniacal way. And they keep gazing at each other in that way — which implies deep and we are spiritual. And he never stops this laughter. She turns to us and says “This is it” and “He’s got it.” There are uncomfortable titters across the room. People feel like they are supposed to get what is going on here. But if this is it, then I don’t want it… or anything to do with it. Joy is awesome, but hysteria is another thing altogether.
Teachers come in all packages. My own yoga teacher, for instance, is nothing like the ones they showcase in Yoga Journal. He’s loud, hairy, demanding and honest. I could accept a message from this polished guru woman if it felt like it had authentic meat to it. However, the message she had for us that night was feather-light: Just stop right now in this moment! There is nothing to do! YES!
This is totally true, in an esoteric sense, but how many of us can really operate from this place? While Westerners are addicted to self-improvement plans, I don’t believe many of us can just do nothing, stop trying, and bammo! WAKE UP to our true natures. On the other hand, I see why this message would appeal to a lot of people. It is the same reason we seek pills for our obesity and believe that abundance will manifest itself in our lives if we only think about it hard enough. We are looking for quick answers.
I am sorry, but this shit is hard.
Let’s talk about the Buddha. He left his rich family and became a mendicant. He sought various teachers and achieved high levels of meditative consciousness. He tried to reach enlightenment by practicing severe austerity and self-mortification. And then he sat under the Bodhi Tree for 49 days until he fully woke up. He didn’t just read a book or pay $20 to see the latest guru speak. He applied real effort, dedication, work and an incredible ability to face himself. And that’s all he did, while he was doing it. He didn’t do it after work. He didn’t do it in a convenient yoga class once a week. No one gave him a pill, a mantra, an affirmation, an essential oil or a book. He didn’t bathe in orgasmic sounds or hula hoop with fire dancers. He simply dealt straight up with the hardest thing of all – himself. It was an act of will and what my teacher calls ‘”donkey work.”
At some point there might be an app for all of this. “Find inner peace with the swipe an optimized retina display.” Just like that, you will break into blissful hysterical laugher.
But for now, if waking up is so easy, then why are most people walking around numbed-out with their heads up their butts? If you are one of those lucky ones who experienced enlightenment on the spot, then I am truly happy for you. But these famous teachers need to be careful about the sugary messages they are sending to some broken souls looking for ways not to feel as much pain. And the broken souls need to practice discernment about where they spend their money, and realize that to get out of this mess they are going to have to do some real, hard work. No one ever got enlightened from a $20 drop-in.
About Stefanie Renard
Stefanie has practiced yoga for 10 years and is in the second year of a 500-hour Iyengar teacher training with Gloria Goldberg and Manouso Manos. Stefanie’s principal teacher is Manouso Manos and she also augments her studies with other senior Iyengar teachers such as Patricia Walden, Marla Apt, and Carolyn Belko whenever she can. Stefanie’s hope as a teacher is to awaken the body’s innate intelligence and enable her students to reach their fullest potential.
14 Comments !
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erica says:
loved this article !!!
I love this from Richard Rose, a teacher i admire who is awakened and one bad ass hillbilly teacher who said in response to a woman who said this:
“People are just doing the best they can,” a woman near the back of the room called out. “Following their bliss as they see it. ”
Rose turned and said to her “Look, if you ever want to discover anything of importance,” he said with great seriousness, “you’ve got to get this Pollyanna crap out of your heads. People think they can indulge in whatever whim overpowers them at the moment, and that somehow this ‘spontaneity’ is going to transform them into a wonderful spiritual creature that God just can’t resist loving. This is nonsense. Life isn’t pleasure, it’s constant struggle driven by relentless tension. Look out the window. It’s a bloody carnage out there. Everything’s trying to eat something else, just so it can stay alive long enough to reproduce and provide more food and fertilizer for this slaughterhouse.”
Joe says:
It’s incredibly trivial thing for someone with charisma and a grasp (even just an intuitive one) of applied psychology to lead someone into an ersatz “spiritual experience”. That’s how cults work. It’s all done by letting someone know what he is about to experience (i.e. plant a “suggestion” in him) and then using any one of a myriad of methods to induce a superficial trance state. This induces a state of suggestibility in many people, and they will “spontaneously” experience what it was suggested that they would.
I assume that the man knew ahead of time what types of experiences this woman was supposed to give. That sort of sustained gaze into someone else’s eyes will induce a trance state in many people. Then, sure enough, he had the “spiritual experience” that he was expecting.
I’m not saying that this woman is a “cult leader”, I know nothing of her. She may very well believe her own BS. Many spiritual fraudsters started off by fooling themselves first, or by having been fooled by someone else.
There’s a British stage magician named Derren Brown (http://bit.ly/gOqOPF). He is a “mentalist” (http://bit.ly/hWnD4x) which means that he specializes in emulating the possession of supernatural powers. The only difference between a “mentalist” and a “supernatural fraudster” is that the mentalist is honest about the fact that he is fooling you, the fun is in trying to figure out how he is doing it. Brown is very very good at it. In pursuit of his craft he has gained a wide knowledge of methods of psychological manipulation.
He is also a dedicated Houdini-like debunker of spiritual fraudsters. In this (http://bit.ly/K7cboH) video (there are several parts) he demonstrates how to start a cult. That’s not what he calls it but that’s what he’s doing. It’s part of a TV series that he filmed in the US where he is not well known. In each episode he demonstrates how to accomplish a different type of spiritual fraud.
On the other hand, as you say, there were spiritual leaders like the Buddha. A completely different thing.
Vision_Quest2 says:
I’m supposed to be a jaded New Yorker, but I so LOVE magician shows!
Rae says:
me too!!
JJ says:
If you walk around the East Village at 3 am, you’re going to see the wild side, and it probably wont be a good time…if you goto a new age seminar in mill valley, you’re going to experience con job hippies, and it certainly wont be some kind of fantasy enlightenment.
Vision_Quest2 says:
There’s an internationally famous team-teaching married couple in New York City who are a little better at this than the charlatan you had the misfortune of studying with … notice I say, only a little better … their brand of philosophy so reminded me of attending a fashion show, that I forget I was supposed to either get or remain enlightened …
Laura says:
One would assume that after practicing yoga for years one’s bullshit radar is fine-tuned.
Judging by the number of yoga practitioners attending workshops that promise instant enlightenment, obviously that isn’t the case.
But again, consumers live in the constant promise of the ultimate product or service that will make them feel whole, happy, popular, or content. The bad news is that no such a product ever existed (even the effect of drugs and sex doesn’t last long)
So, delusion makes up for it.
Paetra says:
Good one!!!
Terry Post says:
What spiritual teacher giving darshan or transmission are you talking about? Love to know.
Stefanie says:
Hi Terry – I intentionally left that one out since I didn’t want it to be so much about a particular person. I can clarify a bit and say she was of the neo-advaita world and leave it that.
Satu says:
“at some point there might be an app for all of this”… there are “yoga apps” already, we won’t have to wait that long.
Kanani says:
I run a very small blog called WarRetreat, and all we do is try to dial things back a notch and help vets and their loved ones take a breath, and feel the floor beneath their toes. We’re thrilled if they go to Target and toss a DVD into the cart, happier still if they watch it, ecstatic if they sleep the night.
Our bullshit meter goes off a lot as we are sent countless DVDs, invitations to events (even those that are headlined by some big name claiming to support vets). We’re leery about anyone promising enlightenment to someone who has experienced trauma because they have the potential not to deliver or worse, to make someone feel guilty for not feeling as good as the person on the podium.
So while I wish we could tip $20 into a pot and say, “Just stop right now in this moment! There is nothing to do! YES!” this isn’t really respecting where they are, nor acknowledging how trauma has shaped their life, and where they are right now. Phrases like, “finding your true authentic self” can be confusing to all of us, a genuine WTF moment.
Like I said, can we dial the expectations down? Help someone take a breath? Help them feel their toes on the ground?
Buddha's Chagrin says:
Wait, you mean there’s not instant enlightenment? Damn, I’m going back to being a plumber! But in all seriousness this Advaita-lite is ridiculous for most people. Even Ramana Maharishi, a strong advocate of Atma-vichara, said that if it didn’t work for you, you have to go back to standard yogic practices. And I’m not talking only about asanas! The path towards Enlightenment is hard friggin’ work. Let’s face it, most “spiritual” people are jokes and lazy-ass to boot!
Ed B says:
Nice article Stefanie. Just so you know as soon as I read the adjectives describing your teacher, Manouso popped into my mind. And that’s not a bad thing.