...this is the 216th Yoga for Cynics post...making it...kinda, sorta...like finishing a second set of the 108 sun salutations that make up a yoga mala.....which means...yeah...some o’ that esoteric yogacentric kinda content...which, no doubt, is utterly baffling, irritating, anachronistic, alienating, stupid-seeming, and/or simply boring to the 47.3 %* of readers who know eka pada rajakapotasana only as that curried cauliflower and potato stuff at the local Indian buffet place...
...then, I can relate...it was twenty or so years ago when I first met people who talked about yoga...along with positive attitudes, compassionate lifestyles and related topics...and was massively turned off by all of it...particularly as this more enlightened consciousness tended to be expressed through passive aggressive rage and harsh judgments toward anybody whose lifestyle was deemed less compassionate...which, as it turned out, was just about everybody...
...it’s only recently, though, having met lotsa people who do a bit better with that living your yoga thing...including my very nice blog friends**....that I’ve starting to see that all my grousing...see above...about granola nazis isn’t exactly dripping with compassion, openness, or positivity, either...
...yoga studios tend to have special deals for new students...so, I’ve tried pointing out that, thanks to my Zen-like cultivation of beginner’s mind, I’m always a new student...dying as an old student with every out-breath and reborn as a new student with every in-breath... which gets laughs...but has yet to garner me an actual discount...
* statistics are made up
** such as Brooks, on whose blog much of this post started out as a comment...
