The Cure to Loneliness: Finding a Guru
Copyright 2006 Alanna Kaivalya
Many people ask me if I can recommend where they should study
yoga on their travels to the birthplace of this ancient Indian
philosophy. I humbly admit to them that I have never been to
India. My gurus are in New York--and they are American.
Most people are surprised at this admission. They question me
regarding this. After all, if I am a yogi, shouldn't my guru be
an Indian man? Well, the gurus of my gurus are Indian men, but
in my case, I look into the soft brown eyes and pale skin of my
gurus when I bow before them.
It's funny. yoga has taken such a hold in America, yet some
misconceptions are still etched in the practice. For example, we
think yoga is practiced in hot rooms just because it is hot in
India; we have this image in our minds of ancient yogis
practicing warrior two and sun salutations, and we think that in
order to be a true guru, your nationality matters.
In this day and age of yoga, its evolution has taken a major
turn, one towards the west. More westerners are doing yoga
today, at least the practice we define as yoga, than Indians.
There is a saying now that there is more yoga on the lower east
side of Manhattan than there is in all of India. Westerners have
taken yoga to the next level--a level of fitness, industry, and
fashion--yet many yogis still try to remain close to the roots
of yoga.
One of the ways that yogis strive to remain closely tied to the
true purpose of the practice is by tightening their grip on what
they think is most "classical," the finding of a guru. This is,
in my opinion, the most important piece of yogic philosophical
principles. While the west has shaped yoga and turned it into an
amazing practice that many people need right now, the one thing
that hasn't seemed to catch up with this tidal wave is the idea
of a guru.
Many practitioners think that it's not important. In truth, some
think that guru is a bad word, and those who get over the stigma
of what a guru tends to represent think a practitioner has to go
to India to find one. This is simply not true. Yoga, as we know
it, is largely a western phenomenon, and it is western yogis who
have created it and helped it to evolve into the practice we
know today. It is they who have crafted the practical
application of yoga for modern day living, so why should we not
turn to them to learn all we can of their designs? Whether it is
Ashtanga, Iyengar, Kripalu, Jivamukti, Viniyoga, Power yoga, or
any of the other multitudinous options, all these practices have
very strong roots in the west and truly adroit western yogis at
their respective helms.
Yoga came into my life in a fairly traditional (American) way. I
started going to classes during college simply for health
reasons, which is the way most people enter into a yoga
practice. Something very strong took hold, and I've been an avid
practitioner since. A nagging desire sent me to study with
Sharon Gannon and David Life, and my whole world turned upside
down. In their presence, I learned what the term "guru" meant.
In short, I learned to surrender to another being who could show
me my true Light.
I know what you're thinking, Wow, that's some pretty esoteric,
frou frou talk for a western girl! Believe me, I would have
thought so myself before I stood in their presence, but
something in me shifted as I listened to them talk at my teacher
training. I felt that strong sense of individuality that
Americans prize so highly start to slip away. Suddenly, life
wasn't all about me anymore, and for the first time, I didn't
feel alone. To put it bluntly, loneliness is nasty. A study by
the National Institute of Aging says that, "People who feel
lonely have more health problems and a shorter life expectancy
than those who do not feel lonely." Loneliness plagues
Americans; it causes stress, shortens our lives, and, in
general, makes us a despondent and sorrowful lot.
Well, I've found the cure for this common American disease
called loneliness, and it's a guru. Yes, finding someone who
will 'ru' (remove) your 'gu' (darkness or muck) is a surefire
way to find peace and a release from the ills that plague you.
You see, we are all like tiny drops of the ocean wandering
around, and until we get back, we don't have the great vast sea
of knowledge or bliss from which to draw. One of the quickest
ways to get back to the ocean is to find yourself a guru, a
person or group of people, who can teach you life's greatest
lessons without your protest and without your ego saying, "I'm
going to do it my way." Some people think that surrender to a
guru makes you bland and uninteresting, but by adding your drop
of the ocean back into the voluminous sea, you actually have
more to draw from and can become a much more rich and vibrant
individual.
You don't have to travel to India; you don't even have to be
Indian. You don't even have to practice yoga very much to find a
guru. The great thing is about this tradition is that "when the
student is ready, the teacher will appear," so, sit back, relax,
be receptive to all the lessons life brings to you, and get
ready to discover yoga's untapped resource--the tremendous power
of surrender to a guru.