The dumb things I do as a yoga teacher…

I remember being in Morocco 🇲🇦 on a yoga retreat. There were other yogis there too, and one afternoon I saw a woman on the beach setting up her tripod and camera 📷.

She found a suitably spiritual-looking rock, sat in lotus, placed her hands into a mudra (westerners love a mudra 🫣), straightened her posture and arranged her face into the perfect yoga grin. You know the one.

She then ran back to check whether the camera had captured her deep spiritual nature.

I looked. I judged. I rolled my eyes so hard I saw my own third eye 👁️.

Nothing says peace and presence quite like positioning your camera, pressing record and immediately performing for the 'gram 🫣🤷🏾‍♂️.

As my mind continued doing its compassionate, I understand and don't wanna judge yoga work, my monkey mind started wondering what her caption might say.

“OMG. There I was in the middle of my daily meditation when a complete stranger took this picture of me. He said he had never seen anyone mid-samadhi before. He AirDropped it to me afterwards. I had no idea any of this was happening because I was transcending 🫶🏽✨”

I know what you are thinking. Zee, what about non-judgement bru ❓

I know. I know. Look, I’m trying, but “yogis” just hands out far too much ammunition 😭😭

Then it occurred to me that I was judging her for performing spirituality while mentally writing an Instagram post about her performing spirituality. You know, just when I think I am making progress with this yoga malarkey, "yogis" find another way to drag me back down to earth 😭

So naturally, I made my own Instagram post about the absurdity of being a modern day yogi.

Titled → The dumb things I do as a yoga teacher…

Behind the jokes, though, there is something worth thinking about 🧐

Yoga has nothing to do with looking peaceful.

Many moons ago 🌙, before man became obsessed with who looked like a yogi, anyone was accepted as a “yogi” as long as they were on the path. As long as they were a seeker.

In the earliest days, thousands of years ago, a yogi was someone trying to do better and be better, regardless of their appearance, their insecurities or anything else the modern yogi tries to mask.

But when the “holy men” systemised yoga, it began to look as though yoga, or being called a yogi, was only for the pure. For the perfect. For those who spent all day meditating and, on the surface at least, appeared to have it all together and figured out.

For a long time the typical yogi looked like the bearded holy man in lotus pose.

Meanwhile, seekers who didn’t fit into the mould, seekers who didn’t care for outward appearances and simply asked to be accepted for who they were, got called outcasts and vagrants and were forced to live on the fringes of society.

And there is a huge irony here.

In yogic culture, Shiva, the first yogi, was himself an outlaw. An outcast. He is pictured dancing with those considered the lowest of society, those not deemed pure or respectable enough for the rich or the “pure yogis”.

Yet Shiva the vagabond was followed and revered by those same pure yogis.

The followers of Shiva seemed to forget the path he had trailed. Shiva never tried to fit in. He was the most unyogic of yogis.

To be a yogi, no mudras are needed. No posturing is needed. You don’t need to dress yogic, look yogic or act yogic. The most yogic person you will ever meet is the person you will never meet. You will never know as he or she wont dress like a yogi. They won’t dress like one because they have nothing to prove to you.

Someone once told me (in my platinum collection of bad reviews), that I was the most unyogic yoga teacher they had ever met 😳.

I was flabbergasted and almost choked on my chicken burger 🍗. But once I surrendered to my tears, I afforded myself a grin and thought, you know?, I must be doing something right 💥

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Namaskar - Eternal Seeker

Zahir Akram

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