Beyond Pain and Pleasure

"The field of quantum possibility, in which love has opened doors otherwise unimaginable, is our soul's true habitat. The world of fear and limitation is not our home, and who among us is not profoundly weary of hanging out where we do not belong." ~ Marianne Williamson

Let’s be honest.  If someone were to give the choice right now between a Hershey Kiss and being poked with a sharp stick, I would gladly choose the chocolate.  We all tend to choose what is pleasurable over what is painful.  It is reflexive within our nervous systems.  And it is generally unconscious. 

Experience teaches us that we don’t always get what we want.  Despite affirmations and visualization, hard work and following the rules, prayer and adhering to the “correct” faith suffering finds us and makes us its own.  Despite a healthy diet, proper exercise and the best health care available we still get sick sometimes.  Sometimes life comes after us with a sharp stick and no chocolate.

Although we don’t like to admit it adversity makes us conscious.  Swami Satyananda said, “Remember this: suffering brings wisdom.  Pleasure takes it away.”  The “pleasure principle” keeps us asleep, pain can seem like a rude awakening.  Does this mean that we should torture ourselves?  Definitely not.  All we have to do is be open to life experiences. 

Yoga teaches us to develop and maintain a neutral ground which is beyond pain and pleasure.  We can’t have one without the other.  We can enjoy life without identifying with and clinging to that enjoyment.  We can endure suffering without becoming bitter and resentful.  Instead we can realize ourselves to be the witness of life experience.

When we attune ourselves to the inner witnessing awareness we begin to awaken to our deeper soul-identities.  We begin to understand that this world is not our home.  Instead, it is a collective hallucination.  We stop buying into pain and pleasure and awaken to the inherent bliss of our own nature: swarup-ananda. 

Sometimes this awakening comes suddenly and conclusively, most of the time not.  For most of us it takes consistent spiritual practice.  This means constant effort to remember who we are and where our true home is.  Our true home is heaven.  It is Love, not the self-centered, pleasure-principled love of ego-clinging, but the absolute and unconditional Love of God. 

The good news is that the more we practice the less we have to suffer.

Walking the Spiritual Path

Where knowledge is of the Self (Svarupa Jnana), how can there be various kinds or grades? Knowledge of the Self is one. Proceeding step by step refers to the stage where one has turned away from the pursuit of sense objects and one’s gaze is entirely directed towards the Eternal. God has not yet been realized, but the treading of this path has become attractive.

-    Anandamayi Ma

The idea of a spiritual path is a metaphorical concept that serves a purpose as we pursue the goal of awakening.  There is a tendency to mix metaphors when talking about the spiritual path.  Are we on a journey or are we waking up from a state of sleep?  Or is there, as Ram Dass entitled one of his books, a “journey of awakening?”  Both are metaphors for process of releasing our exclusive ego-fixation and coming to realize our true being.  With most journeys we start from here and go to there.  On the spiritual path we start from there and come back to here.

For most of us walking the spiritual path means maintaining a daily spiritual practice.  It might be mantra recitation, Vipassana meditation, kriya yoga, selfless service, devotional ritual or deep philosophical inquiry.  It might just be remembering to love your neighbor as yourself.  There are a variety of alternatives and we each have to find the path that is right for us.  The important point is to keep on trying.  It is not always easy.

The world dream has its own gravity.  When we choose the path of awakening we are going against it.  One can become lonely as one realizes that friends and family are not interested.  Loneliness is an important part of the journey.  We have to separate ourselves from the collective dream in order to awaken.  The majority of people in this world are still dancing around the golden calf.  Loneliness, solitude and self-awareness are crucial aspects of the path.  We are moving from the world of distractions to the inner reality.  You can’t develop spiritually if you are afraid to be alone.  We can’t grow spiritually unless we are willing to confront the fear of death.  

When the Master Rapes

 

“To stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening.”

~ Pema Chödrön

It was in the early eighties after returning from a three month stint at the ashram in India.  We returned to the US with plans to begin an ashram in the desert.  With the approval of Gurudev we moved onto some land being offered by an elderly couple who had once started a spiritual community there.  There was just a handful of us with a respected senior sannyasin in charge.  With my ecstatic spiritual batteries recently charged in India, I was full of optimism and inspiration. 

The high desert in Southern California can be challenging.  Depending on the time of year the days are hot, nights are cold, winds can be strong and episodic rains cause minor flooding.  By early spring temperatures rise into the nineties and steadily rise into the hundreds.  We were farming/gardening, maintaining buildings and promoting the ashram as a yoga sanctuary.  Personally, I loved every minute of it: the hard work, spiritual camaraderie, opportunities for meditation and especially evening kirtan. 

We had some difficulties.  My wife was not as enthusiastic as I was about the project and we fretted over our two and a half year old daughter.  There was a growing tension within our small group which seemed mysterious to me at the time.  On the other hand, we received a visit from a highly realized disciple of our Guru who greatly impressed me.  We lead retreats with people coming from all over the country.  We grew a variety of vegetables in the mulched soil that we worked.  I became known as the master of the compost pile.  I had a multiple psychic/spiritual experiences both within meditation and in activity. 

One evening one of our novice sannyasins confessed to us that she had been having a sexual affair with our leader.  As she tearfully went on she had become aware that there were others as well.  I flashed back to a comment that I had filed away when he had remarked “just because you’re a swami it doesn’t mean you have to be a eunuch.”  I had laughed it off at the time.

Our senior swami was married and had children.  We had met them in India.  He also had a habit of extolling the virtues of “brahmacharya,” or celibacy.  I wasn’t that young at the time but I idealized this guy.  It turns out that he was having multiple affairs as he travelled across the country spreading the message of yoga.  It took awhile for it to connect in my mind; he was misusing his yogic charisma and his position of influence and power to seduce vulnerable women.

If you are truly a spiritual aspirant, stop for minute and consider how pathetic that is.  However, to paraphrase Ram Dass, what we meet in another person is a reflection of our own inner tendencies.  I had to admit that there was a spark of jealousy in me, to some extent I saw him as a rock star attracting groupies.  The fact that he was taking advantage of vulnerable women took a while to sink in.  Although it didn’t qualify as rape in any technical sense he was manipulating them.

The misuse of power and charisma for sexual purposes is certainly not new or unusual.  I grew up in the era of JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. both of who were known to have had affairs.  Many spiritual leaders whether from mainstream religions or from apparent cults have gotten into trouble for their sexual exploits involving their followers.  Recent scandals have involved Bikram Choudhuri and Zen Roshi, Joshu Sasaki, both accused not just of sexual impropriety but rape.  Rape, of course, is not a primarily sexual act but an act of violence.  However, any misuse of power and influence at another’s expense is also an act of aggression.

Following the revelations about our teacher in the desert, I lost my respect for him and we got into an argument after which he left the ashram and never returned.  He left the country in fact after cleaning out our residual bank account.  Although I lost my respect for him in particular, I did not lose my respect for the yoga tradition nor for the many other sincere and dedicated Swamis.  It certainly opened my eyes though and I learned to see through my initial infatuation with charismatic leaders.

Of course our spiritual leaders are human beings with weaknesses.  Fame, power, charisma, etc. present temptations which can corrupt them.  In the Yoga Sutras Patanjali warns us against playing around with yogic powers.  To do so can reinforce egoic self-centeredness and cause one to stumble on the path.  Power of any kind can be corrosive.

Ultimately, as Buddha taught, we are each responsible for our own spiritual progress.  Gurus, teachers and guides are important but we might get into trouble if we lean on them too heavily.  All experiences are a potential means of growth as well as potential illusions to mislead us.  I am thankful for my experience in the desert.  Although it disillusioned me it also awakened me to my personal responsibility.  There has been much to learn since and I still find myself boxing my own shadow at times.  We have to be careful not to over-generalize.  As the saying goes, “one bad apple . . .”  On the other hand we might be well off to look at the structures of power in our spiritual organizations and how they lead to exploitation.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/world/asia/zen-buddhists-roiled-by-accusations-against-teacher.html

http://mindful-yoga.blogspot.com/2013/08/bikram-and-ethical-yoga.html

Ego, Ignorance and Attachment

Attachment is to emphatically be someone.

Nonattachment means the freedom to be no one.

-          Nagarjuna

In the spiritual sense, ego means holding onto a false sense of identity.  It is attachment to an embodied self which is limited in space, time and possibilities.  In that attachment we forget that we are multidimensional beings with the physical body being the outermost shell.  It is like believing that we are the clothes we wear or the cars we drive.  It is belief in a fictional narrative, a hypnotic induction aided and abetted by our friends, family and culture.  In this sense we can understand yoga as a means of dehypnotization. 

Waking up is scary business for most of us simply because we have become so deeply imbedded in our personal storylines.  We are emotionally invested in our BS, our belief systems.  The ego is a false belief system that has lodged in our unconscious mind and created a false reality.  Our essential nature is not influenced by our thoughts and beliefs.  It simply is.  It doesn’t subscribe to categories such as time and space or you and me.  There are no sinners or saints, worthy or unworthy, good or evil beings.  There is only awareness. 

There is a lot of stress involved in being an ego.  We have to work full time to maintain the illusion of a self.  It takes constant mental energy to create, revise, update and keep our storyline going.  We have to prove ourselves, compare ourselves to others, compete, judge ourselves and others, worry about our appearance, social status, finances, health, etc.  Ego is the source of desire, anger, greed, jealousy, pride and fear.  Ego can never afford to relax because it feels itself to be constantly threatened from within and without.

The Yoga Sutras outline five kleshas or afflictions that beset us in this existence, five things that condition us to suffer.  First of all is avidya – ignorance of our true nature as beings of consciousness.  Out of ignorance the second affliction, asmita – ego attachment arises.  Ego is then conditioned by the other three afflictions: raga – desire, dwesha – aversion and abhinivesa – the fear of death.  Once we have forgotten our spiritual essence we descend into the dark world of the ego. 

When we are identified with ego we look outside ourselves for fulfillment.  We seek happiness in other people, possessions, accomplishments, etc.  The problem is that real happiness cannot be found in any of the ephemeral objects of the world.  Real happiness is latent within us waiting for us to recognize it.  We spend our lives seeking for approval, gratification, security, enlightenment, etc.  All of these are already within us as our true Self.  Instead of looking for happiness we are the source of happiness.  Instead of seeking love we are love.  All of the things that we are obsessed with in this world become irrelevant when we recognize our true nature as love-bliss-awareness. 

Western psychology sees the ego quite differently.  However, there are some similarities.  Freud was responsible for developing the concept of the ego as a psychological entity.  He wrote, “The ego is first and foremost a body ego . . .”   So, in a sense there is a general agreement that our sense of identity is rooted in our physical form.  From here we can understand that one’s ego develops through the potentials within us – physical, vital-emotional and mental.  In other words developmental psychology recognizes the first three koshas, or layers of our existential being.  Because Western psychology is based in the truncated world view of scientific-materialism it is resistant to recognizing the higher/deeper levels of our beings. 

From the Western perspective healthy ego-development is the epitome of psychological health.  It is very true that we need to learn to control our impulses, relate rationally and learn to accept life on its terms to some extent.  In fact it is essential before we can enter true spiritual development.  Spiritual development begins when we are able to turn our attention away from the objects of the world and look within.  This is not at all the same as retreating into fantasy (primary process) in order to avoid facing reality.  Meditation leads to the development of a transrational process associated with the ability to observe one’s mind objectively.  The mind is not the observing self; it is not consciousness but an ever-changing object of consciousness.  The ego is basically a self-referential construct within the mind.  It is a handy construct within our day-to-day affairs but it is a cognitive and social fabrication.

Patanjali defines asmita, “egoness”, as a mistaken identification of consciousness with the instruments of knowing, i.e. mind and senses.  The body and mind are a means through which we experience this dream that we call reality.  They are the “instruments” of experience.  They are very valuable instruments.  A healthy body and a sane mind are true gifts for which we must be grateful.  On the other hand, our essential being is neither body nor mind.  It is pure awareness.  Or as Ram Dass and Rameshwar Das put it, “The ego is based on fear, but the soul is based on love.” (Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart)  As we move from our identification with the ego-self to a more expansive awareness we naturally become more open, loving and happy.

In a May 2013 article in Psychology Today entitled This Is Your Brain on Meditation, Rebecca Gladding, M.D. outlines changes in the brain’s functioning which occur through meditation practice that reduce the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex and its connections to the insula and amygdala.  She describes the medial prefrontal cortex as the “Me Center” of the brain.  It is involved with the process of self-referencing information.  The insula is associated with bodily sensations and the amygdala with fear.  Looking at the “Me Center” and its connections the body and “Fear Center,” we can see how the brain mirrors this ego concept quite literally. 

Meditation also strengthens the functioning of the lateral prefrontal cortex or “Assessment Center.”  It is the part of the brain that allows you to “look at things from a more rational, logical and balanced perspective.”  As Dr. Gladding further explains, it is “involved in modulating emotional responses (originating from the fear center or other parts of the brain), overriding automatic behaviors/habits and decreasing the brain’s tendency to take things personally (by modulating the Me Center of the brain . . .)” Here we have a research-based neurological model of the fear-based ego and the means of transcending it through meditation. 

The ego-center of the brain is implicated in states of depression and anxiety which are based in self-referencing in negative ways.  When we engage in constant comparison and judgment, dwell in the past or continually try to imagine the future we create these distressing states of mind.  When we are fixated on “I, me, mine,” we are prone to defensive fear and aggressive violence.  This is the primary problem in relationships.  It is the primary problem in society and in the world.  Our collective consciousness is seeking to evolve beyond the narrow, narcissistic fixation of the ego.  We are seeking the shift into a new consciousness, a new awareness.  Meditative practices are essential in helping us in this direction.

Love actually requires that we are able to be rational and objective.  In order to experience love we need to step outside of our compulsive self-referencing and allow a greater force to enter our lives.  Love is not passion although passion can be involved.  Love is definitely not possession, jealousy, envy, pride or anger.  Our emotional responses are tied into our ego-identity.  Love allows us to let go, transcend ego and open to the expanse of being.  At the same time loving awareness allows us to accept all of our thoughts and feelings without fear or judgment.  We recognize them as temporary states of our evolving identities.  That is, up until we realize that we are none other than the love-bliss-awareness itself.

Reference: www.psychologytoday.com/blog/use-your-mind-change-your-brain/201305/is-your-brain-meditation

The Healing Power of Mantra

Mantras were discovered in higher states of meditation, when

yogis started to explore the different layers of the mind to

discover the source of existence. As they went deeper into their

own nature, they started seeing themselves in a different way. We

see ourselves as composed of matter, we identify with the body.

But within this sthoola, gross body, there is also the sukshma,

subtle body. The extensions of the subtle body are manas, buddhi,

chitta and ahamkara through which we are able to experience the

attributes of the mind and interact with the world of sense objects.

Underneath the subtle body is karana sharira, the causal body, the

dimension of the spirit. – Swami Niranjanananda Saraswasti

Mantras are “tools” with which we can work with the mind.  Ordinarily when people try to meditate they find that their mind is full of chaos and confusion.  Instead us using our minds, we generally experience ourselves as being controlled by our subconscious.  There is a great yogic saying, “the mind is a great servant but a terrible master.”  How can we control the frenetic energy of the mind?  The answer is by relaxing and letting go of our ordinary obsessions, desire-fantasies and negativity.  The mind is a tremendous power within us which we can use for better or worse.  The mind can heal but it can also kill us.

When we are fixated on the superficial level of our material existence we tend to ignore what is happening within our minds.  We are engrossed if “life” as we believe it to be without understanding that our life experience is the product of our minds.  Or, if you prefer, it is the result of the interaction between mind and matter.  Quantum mechanics has shown that there is a direct link between mind and matter.  Our minds interact with a field of probability to produce a material outcome.  However, when our mind is stuck in repetitive patterns (samskaras) we are not able to consciously and freely determine anything.

“Change your thinking and you can change your life.” is the central axiom of the New Thought movement and it is quite correct.  However we need another approach which involves looking within and examining the unconscious thoughts and beliefs that drive us.  The world is currently struggling to “awaken from the nightmare of history,” as James Joyce put it.  We can only do it by releasing all of the karmic conditioning of the past and opening ourselves to new possibilities, new beliefs. 

Mantra practice is a powerful tool for realizing this possibility.  The Sanskrit term “mantra” means “a tool, or method, for liberating the mind.”  It does so through the power of spiritual sound vibration.  Language, or speech, both controls and expresses the mind.  However language is based in pure sound vibration.  Mantra dissolves language and thought back to its true state of pure vibration.  It allows us to release the superficial meanings of words and to reconnect with the power within.  Mantras take us deeper within ourselves; beyond the physical manifestation, beyond our compulsive belief systems and into the potentiality of our inner beings.

Mantra practice allows us to enter into the true state of meditation, awareness beyond thought.  Sometimes when my computer is malfunctioning I simply need to reboot it to fix the problem.  Mantra japa (recitation) is a way of rebooting and reprogramming the mind.

Total Yoga

What makes one a terrorist and what makes one a good person?

It is the mind. The mind can be a saint and the mind can be a

sinner, and it is that mind which has to be dealt with. As a system

of mind management, yoga helps to change and transform the

hyper agitated mind and make it more peaceful and content. In

the beginning we come to yoga to deal with our mind, to deal with

tension, frustration and anxiety, to learn how to relax and let go.

Eventually, as our involvement with yoga increases, we come to

know the other dimensions and aspects of yoga, but originally the

effort is to understand the mind.  – Paramhamsa Niranjan Ananda

In some recent posts I may have seemed to disparage the physical practices of yoga, the yoga asanas.  In fact, I try to practice asanas daily and encourage anyone to do so.  Asanas benefit us on physical, psychological and spiritual levels in terms of health and development.  When practiced properly, i.e. mindfully, asanas are a form of meditation and help us to integrate these three aspects of our beings (physical, psychological and spiritual.)  As Alex Korb, Ph.D. writes, “Yoga can supposedly improve depressive symptoms and immune function, as well as decrease chronic pain, reduce stress, and lower blood pressure.  These claims have all been made by yogis over the years, and it sounds like a lot of new age foolishness. Surprisingly, however, everything in that list is supported by scientific research.”  (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/prefrontal-nudity/201109/yoga-changing-the-brains-stressful-habits)

What I have criticized is the tendency of our culture to adopt only the most superficial aspects of yoga, to focus exclusively on the physical asanas and to lose the deeper spiritual-philosophical basis.  You don’t have convert to a new religion to practice yoga but it helps to develop a flexibility of mind as well as body.  Soul and spirit are legitimate aspects of our beings just as are body and mind.  Yoga enables us to become more aware of these dimensions of our beings.

Asana practice is a good place for most of us to begin.  We are more or less identified with our bodies, or as Dr. Freud put it, “The ego is first and foremost a body ego.”  Our histories of attachment, stress, conflict, abuse and trauma are all held in the muscular tension of our bodies.  Yoga helps us to become aware of the energetic aspect of our beings, to release psycho-physical “knots,” and to balance the polar energies of prana (bio-energy) and chitta (mind-energy.)  I won’t go so far as to say that it is a complete substitute for psychotherapy.  The therapeutic relationship is sometimes necessary for us to heal.  However it is a powerful adjunct to “talk-therapy.” 

When I first began to learn yoga under the tutelage of Swami Niranjan, he asked me what I wanted to learn about yoga.  I told him I was interested in meditation.  Coming from a background which I now identify as a “domestic violence family,” I was struggling with moodswings and anxiety and hoped to transcend them through meditation.  He simply told me, “You need to learn asana and pranayama before you will be able to experience meditation.”  However, even my first yoga class included asana (postures,) pranayama (breath work,) and introductory meditation practices (i.e. yoga nidra.) 

I learned that yoga is an integral practice.  It is not just physical exercise, nor is it just relaxation.  On a deeper level it is a discipline to develop consciousness.  It is a means of awakening to who we are beyond the physical body and the conditioned mind.  As Swami Shiva Radha put it, “Yoga means dehypnotizing and waking up.”  It is most deeply a discipline of awareness.  It is sometimes easy to miss this and to let yoga become “yuppie calisthenics.”  As Dr. Korb (ibid.) says, “After going back to my Dad's yoga class a few times, I eventually came to the realization that not only can you practice yoga in real life, but, conversely, you could go to a yoga class and not really be doing yoga.  Some of those hot, tan, thin women around him might just be placing their legs behind their heads, and still not be focusing on keeping their breath calm and steady, or their minds clear (Note: I have removed a lame blonde joke).  They might be focused on something else entirely.  Without the sustained intention of focusing on the present, and calming the mind, going to a yoga class is literally just going through the motions.”

Beyond yoga class, Swamiji taught me that yoga is a discipline that carries over into our daily lives.  Most notably is the practice of karma yoga or mindful activity.  Karma yoga means being aware of ourselves in the midst of our activities, letting go of past impressions, future imaginings and simply being “here-and-now” in our work responsibilities.  Karma yoga is mindfulness-in-action.  Along with this is Bhakti yoga or the cultivation and maintenance of love, devotion and surrender in our lives and Jnana yoga, philosophical self-inquiry.  When we put all of these together we begin to truly and fully practice yoga.  

Bikram and Ethical Yoga

By God’s grace one is born as a human being. Try to make the best of this opportunity.

~ Sri Anandamayi Ma

There is a story I heard somewhere of a spiritual hermit who lived in the woods far from the mental contagion of human society.  He lived out in a forest and even went so far as to build a shelter in a tree where he could meditate without being interrupted.  Nonetheless local people discovered him, learned of his wisdom and would come out from time to time to ask him questions about life.  Eventually the local governor heard of his existence and decided that he needed to impress his subjects by going through the motions of consulting this crazy person. 

He arrived on site accompanied by his retinue and proceeded to address the holy hermit.  He called up, “I have heard of your great wisdom and have come to seek your guidance.”

After a pause the hermit answered, “What is your question?”

The governor was nonplussed.  He was used receiving information without questioning, following the rules as modeled by his peers and most basically, never questioning anything.  He had to think for a minute.  Finally he replied, “How can I find enlightenment?”

The hermit replied, “Be kind and do no harm.” 

The governor replied, “That’s it?  That is the extent of your wisdom?  I was taught that as a child.”

“Easy to say,” replied the hermit, “but hard to practice.”

Yoga is essentially a spiritual discipline.  It is not a religious discipline although it can be incorporated to the benefit of any religious tradition.  It is a holistic and integrative discipline, something hard to grasp with our fragmented modern/post-modern minds.  It is a discipline to help us disconnect from the false conditioning of our lives and to reconnect with our authentic being.  Religion is basically a form of conditioning.  Yoga is about spiritual practice and spiritual evolution.  It is experiential rather than dogmatic.

Having said this, it is somewhat disheartening to look around at the state of yoga education which is currently popular in the West.  A recent article in Elephant Journal article addresses the fact that many so-called yoga instructors do not meditate. (http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/03/why-yogis-dont-meditate/)  From my understanding of the yoga tradition as I have studied and practiced it both at home and in India, the idea of a “yogi” who does not meditate is an oxymoron.  An instructor who is not personally familiar with some form of meditation practice is not a yoga instructor.  He or she might be a teacher of calisthenics but not yoga.

The physical practices of yoga, i.e. asana, are a small subset of what is all about.  There are various definitions of yoga throughout the literature.  For example Patanjali states, “Yoga means bringing the patterns of mind into a state of stillness.”  In a similar vein, Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita states, “Yoga means complete mental equanimity.”  Another definition found throughout the traditional literature is that yoga means the union of the individual self and the Universal Self.  All three definitions point to the same thing: a transcendence of the conceptual ego and the realization of a deeper dimension of being; or more simply put “inner peace.”

This may or may not bring us to the peculiar case of Mr. Choudhury.  To be honest I have never been a fan of his style of yoga.  I have had friends who tried out or were even fond of his “hot Yoga.”  From my training at the Bihar School of Yoga, it seemed to make no sense.  It seemed to be about a particular sequence of asanas (postures) without any regard to individual needs, superficial in that in only focuses on the body and perhaps, um “stinky.”  My greatest reservation was that it did not seem to be connected to the greater, spiritual dimension of yoga (in which case, as noted above, it is not yoga.)

My concerns have been recently confirmed by a series of lawsuits brought against Bikram Choudhury. (http://blogs.yogajournal.com/yogabuzz/2013/07/will-bikram-yoga-survive.html)  Overall it appears that his yoga concession is a travesty of the yoga tradition.  If the charges are true, he is guilty of sexual harassment and rape.  Beyond the criminal scope the reports are that he is racist, misogynistic and homophopic.  He definitely does not seem to exemplify the loving openness and self-discipline that is the heart of yoga. 

Of course it is easy to judge and judgment is a characteristic of limited ego-identification.  On the other hand we need to use discernment and discrimination in a wise way to avoid the snake oil sellers on the path.  The Universal Being uses us all at times as teachers and as students.  An errant guru may impart as much wisdom as a “good” one.  The teaching is always relevant to where we are in terms of our own psycho-spiritual development.