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Teacher Karma
By Maureen Butler
It’s September, regardless of our age or place in life, at some point over the last couple of weeks we have all experienced a shared feeling, a universal remembrance...summer is over, we’re going back to school and the critical question of ”Will I like my new teacher?”.
As a yoga student one of the first lessons we are taught is to be non- judgmental of ourselves and of our practice, to simply observe. So often in life I find myself wanting to skip the observing and jump right into the assessing. Practicing yoga helps us to recognize the beauty and importance of being present to the moment and to the breath. The flow of our practice begins when we get out of the way of our thinking “monkey” minds. How many times have I told myself, when I am in a new or challenging asana or set of circumstances, that I’m not liking it, that there is something not quite right (out of my comfort zone), my resistance begins to escalate. My resistance will peak and then my inner critic gradually descends, getting quieter and quieter until there is a shift. What is it…willingness, surrender, grace? No matter what you decide to call this quieting, it is nice and good. As the saying goes, “What we resist will persist.”
My observations about our relationships with yoga teachers are that we can convince ourselves that no one is as good as the teacher we previously practiced with, but this thinking does not serve us well. Are we forgetting that the practice is less about the teacher and more about our own practice and our own commitment to ourselves? Perhaps this is an easy distraction from what our focus should be. I know this has been true for me in the past.
I’ll never forget my first yoga teacher. Once a week I walked into the heavenly sanctuary of a Prenatal Yoga class. My teacher’s voice was like an angel, nurturing, encouraging me to be quiet and listen to my body, and leading me into a restorative Savasana at the end of a gentle, yet powerful series of poses. This was one of the most holy experiences I had ever had in my lifetime, and I had never been so grateful to one human being. Teachers and students change for many of life’s reasons, but when my first and “favorite” teacher moved to Montana to follow her dream, who could not be happy for her? It was with a heavy heart that I began to search high and low for her replacement. I soon found and reluctantly began taking classes with a very well known and respected teacher, while all the time withholding any affection or admiration. I laugh now at my own stubbornness and for not fully appreciating his teaching, because I was so attached to my previous teacher. Spending too much time comparing and griping about what he did or didn’t do, I truly undermined my time with this very different yet gifted teacher. Honestly, the Blessed Mother would have disappointed me if she had incarnated as a Level II Hatha Yoga teacher!
My current teacher just gave us the news of her plans to stop teaching our class in her usual gracious and detached manner. And then without skipping a beat instructed us to get into Downward Dog and to “make it our own”. Like my practice, I have matured. This time I trust. This change is divinely inspired to be exactly the right teacher, brought to me at the right time, for exactly the right practice. For now it is September, a time to rededicate ourselves to our own practice, to take a closer look at our lives and see what we repeatedly resist and where we can go deeper. To open ourselves to truths that must be revealed.
Namaste to all of you. And, to all the teachers for their generous spirit and devotion...the ones we instantly love, the ones we grow to love and especially to the ones that reveal to us where we have more work to do.
Maureen Butler, yoga student, shamanic apprentice & mesa carrier of the Andean tradition, will be traveling to Ireland to apprentice in the ancient Celtic traditions this fall. Beginning in January 2007, she will lead a monthly Women's Circle focusing on spirituality, connecting with the divine feminine & creating balance in our lives at the Elmhurst Yoga Shala.
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