Shouldn't yoga be free?

Of course. Over the 40 thousand plus years since Shiva taught our planet yoga, most of them, yoga had no price. You couldn't buy it or sell it. The spirit has never made a tradeable commodity. So what's going on now? Can you get yoga without paying? Can you teach yoga without selling?
Well, no, not directly. The whole shitstem is rigged up to prevent it. But people keep buying yoga, treating it like a commodity, and I've certianly tryed to sell yoga myself.

I think its important that we buy yoga and sell yoga. That's not really the issue. But it shouldn't be mandatory or even a requirement. Yoga must be treated with the respect and worship and devotion of a religion, but yet must be absolutely seperate from being a religious path. This sets up quite a dichotomy. A religion that's not a religion? Absolutely. A path that has all the benefits of a religion, if there are any and there must be, and a path that avoids all of the pitfalls of religion if there are any and there definitely are.

So for us to somehow create a viable yogic path for Americans to follow is a little crazy. It takes money to work through this shitstem that everyone is a part of. We aren't trying to avoid the shitstem, but we aren't trying to subscribe to it either. So we need non-profit organizations and great stores of funds and energy to create a foundation that the yogic energy can move through. Right now the yogic path is full of charlatans, and indeed, any American who becomes a yogi must go through a period of being a charlatan to really arrive at something genuine. Most, though, stay there. So how do we, as yogis, move forward past the pitfalls of our chosen profession? Yoga is more than just a lifestyle, its a destiny, a specific calling, the end and the beginning and part of the middle. Its part of a desire for something greater and the utilization of a specific means of living that has been tryed and tested true for thousands of years.

This doesn't mean yoga has to replace cars and television. But it should begin to replace churches and run off non/anti-profit tactics trhough willfull donation and charities. Yoga is not a corporation or a company, but can become a church, a company, and even a conglomerate. Yoga can do anything but does very little because thats our destiny. Yoga can become the president of the United States!

There is no one of us who is THE chosen Guru. BUt, together, we are guru. That's simple and exact. If we trick each other we trick ourselves. We are deceivers by nature. So fi we're not going to change our nature, which is almost impossible, we can most definitely apply it to the yogic path. This is where our tantra comes in. The darkness and the light are part of the same manifestation of life in general and absolutes. Neither is better. Neither is worst. Endless light is no more preferable or viable than endless darkness. We have to take this to the next step, renounce our dogmatic upbringings, and recognize that hell is no more or less better than heaven. Those two are manifestations of natural phenomenon and neither is no more right or preferrable than the other. A true being can traverse heaven and hell and the earth and be free and true and powerful everywhere. It has no preferences for where it walks, only that it walks. And thats yoga or at least part of it.

 

actually if you look in the spectrum, (in london, but just a listing of community classes) the government provides up to 100$ in classes and many of the yoga classes are only 40-70$

 

Well, America is alot more fucked up. The government doesn't provide funds for spiritual activities that aren't somehow affiliated with christianity as a general rule, here. If you asked for funding to support your local group of entheogen macking shiva devotees you might get locked up.

 

I am not reading this whole thing. I have no reason to as I was walking early one morning I saw a group of like minded people with blankets doing their yoga together under a humongous oak tree at a park here in NOLA (of all places on Earth!). They didn't look like they were charging. I think if you look with eyes wide open through your parks you will find more free yoga than you can imagine. And/or call a yoga studio and ask them if anyone gets together at the park in the am. Peace and Good Luck.

 

BTW, most of these people were ladies in their fifties looked like. Maybe a few older men. There are yogis in every city now, count on it, of all races, count on it.

 

yea there's certainly yogis and yoga studios everywhere
no doubt

 

I like Diane Stein's pholosophy on Reiki. It applies to Yoga, too. Some Reiki teachers would insist that everything "spiritual" had to be free. They would teach wealthy people for free while they struggled to pay their own rent. If they lost their house for lack of funds, they would only be able to teach the bums on the log or they just wouldn't have time to teach because they're spending that time working at Burger King. She would pretty much chastise them for not charging rich people while encouraging them to NOT charge poor people or at least offer a sliding scale.

 

It seems everything has a price these days. iggy:

 

well doing yoga with 50 year old women in the park doesnt appeal to me
im sure it does to chodpa

in fact one of my most beloved teachers is a 50y/o women, I think it just the way she skipped the message of the post
i just remembered chodpa is a he
or whatever it doesnt matter
this person is warlike in their beliefs in yoga
not me
ive had many teachers
ive turned away from many teachers
i am a student, and i am a teacher
isnt that so true?
i could find teachers everywhere or not find any anywhere
so what?

anyone can do a yoga pose, pay for a course, get a certification almost
so what?
there has been yogis for over 40 thousand years prolly

I have to connect to Shiva, I have to connect to Maha Yogi who lives in the himlayas for thousands of years, whose body is an afterthought

those are my teachers now
not chodpa, not yogi bhajan, not my own ass

no one can explain what a teacher is
its like a mushroom trip
always different
if not, the same

i think we are limited by what we eat
that doesnt mean not eating is the answer!
i must experiment
i must excel
YOU can go do yoga with 50 year old women in a public city park
III will be roaming the deserts thinking of eternity, feeling its vibes
i may charge the universe a fee for my thinking
after all i am not required to do this
i pray it will meet my requirements and i pray it receeeves my thanks and love

 

i got my best yogi classes by going to a 4am kundalini yoga sadhana regularly for 40 days
4am sadhana is always free
you pay a price and get rewarded if ur crazy enough to wake up around 3am just to do your daily yoga

of course i paid thousands of dollars to do my teacher certifications
i feel like the rewards for that have no price
mostly its gone into my music

 

Well, the people who teach it have to make a living somehow...

 

I was turned off by paying for yoga as well. In the Upanishads...just like any other religion whether mono or polytheistic the devotee, follower, disciple has a duty to spread the good word to is brothers and sisters freely.

I had found one group devoted to the yogas that never asked for money to participate, but eventually they wanted you to go to a $1000 retreat put on by some guru.

In the US yoga is more of an exercise form rather than a spiritual path and I have a hard time trusting anyone claiming to teach the spiritual ways of the yogas and charging a monthly fee to do it. I would rather make a donation to my esteemed teacher when I can afford it (or trade off labor) than pay a monthly fee.

You don't "do" yoga and "doing it" in the park I highly doubt is anything more than a bunch of old ladies doing a trendy exercise.

Keep your eyes and ears open, pay attention to your dreams and keep your mind clear. Your teacher will reveal himself/herself and what an honor it will be. We will always be students.

 

Hmm. I'm just getting addicted myself, and the only teachers in the area are in a community center in another town and thirty dollars a week. That's groceries to me, so I rented some Gaiam DVDs from a local video store that offers free educational rentals and I'm copying them as I type. Bad me, but in this community it may be the only option. I've subscribed to Yoga Journal, and am experimenting on my own. I have a few friends who are considering experimenting with me. Who knows? Maybe we can start a freebie student yoga club on campus?

Also, look around on YouTube. I found this for free, and they have beginner levels. https://www.youtube.com/user/yogatoday#p/a

Any information can be free if you look hard enough. Yay, yoga!

 

You can't buy 'yoga'.


You buy the classes. Or the DVDs, or the area to do it.
If you are willing to pay for those things, then do so.
If you aren't, don't.


No one is going to tax you for practicing yoga in your home.

 

well, someone might try

yoga requires sound insulation and the knowing that your free to express yourself loudly and wildly at times without worrying about whether or not the neighbors can hear it

to me thats a big setback
I like to chant fully and powerfully and play yogic music in groups
and to do it at all hours of the day, in the middle of the night, whenever
but without a good sacred oga temple room its not very plausible
ive learned to do more mantras in the lovers whisper voice to compensate for it
its really just as powerful although I dont get asmuch glandular activation and healing form the vibrations

 

i like canada. america seems a little bit backward to me.....

 

Yoga teacher (and naturist) here. I have to eat and need to derive some income out of teaching yoga. I do donate my time freely at 'festivals' where I often get a reduced rate for attnedance. We live in a materialistic world but dream of a free world.

 

Just because something "should" be free, doesn't mean it will be.
Look at bottled water xD.
You can always get yoga for free, and water. Yet, people will always pay for it anyway.

 

people teaching yoga need to make some sort of a living. But i do agree to some extent, the person teaching yoga is giving you a service or a gift of some sort, so as the reciever i think a karmic donation should be made through whatever means. At my studio we charge for most classes but we have meditations by donation and yoga by donation a couple times a week so that everyone no matter what income or reasoning to be there can participate, we even have mixture yoga so that once a week , with a donation to our local food bannk you can participate, and each week the yoga or nia changes so that people can experience different types of yoga.

 

To some people, for a thing to be valuable it must be paid for. Some people go to classes because they cannot muster in themselves the discipline or motivation that stigma of "not showing up" may provide. There are many levels of practice ranging from the ritual, or mindless devotion to the sublimation of all sensation. In my mind, traditional evaluations are far more suspect than financial ones'.