Chapter 2
Vladimir Vysotsky
The twentieth century has buried many hopes and expectations, including arisen in depths of the western science the idea of infinite progress. In the course of its realization, the population of our planet proved to be split in two parts: a bigger one, busy exclusively with their survival, and a smaller – the countries of the «gold billion». The prospering minority has, however, collided with the own degradation, degeneration, and total ecological catastrophe.
Long time, the moral and spiritual perfection was considered possible only as submission to will of God, and Church, His Vicar on Earth. Attempts of literal following bible commandments were unreal, but in every way welcomed.
Today’s situation is different, and as the natural pace of social development has died, the destructive effect of the misunderstanding of a difference between culture and civilization had been showed. The culture is reproductive, its task is to preserve and prolong itself; it is knowledge of the history and its people, following the traditions. At the power domination of one culture in the territory of others, the local nationalism assumes extreme forms; the opposition to alien influence by any means including terror amplifies.
What is the civilization? It is, besides knowledge of own history and traditions, the respectful interest to all alien, and also understanding that the Earth is small, and it is possible to create on it a viable society not with the violence or imitation, but only by means of mutual respect and cooperation.
Also the Russian Orthodox Church could not escape a certain decline of civilization, one can see it in its attitude to yoga and its followers in Russia. Its persistent diligence to put yoga on the same plane with occultism, theosophy, «alive ethics» of Roerichs, sectarianism and the other "spiritual" rubbish of the modernity either are intentional or results from ignorance of essence of the subject.
At the end of XIX century religiousness has fallen so, that Nietzsche has expressed it with a phrase «God has died». It had been passed the point behind which the influence of traditional confessions on minds of the population of the advanced countries had been reduced actually to zero. Decline of religiousness was accompanied by a weak acquaintance of the average person with the model of the scientific picture of the world, created by the fundamental science. After loss of pagan rites, which were carrying out the compensatory function for unconscious displays, the latent mental activity which is shown also today with a not smaller power than by Cro-Magnons, has generatedesotericismand mysticism.
The conquered, but not apprehended East began its Reconquista. Initial rumors about miracles of yogis had been exported from the pearl of the British crown – India. In 1897, Svami Vivekananda has based «Ramakrishna Mission» and yoga began to be distributed to the West as philosophy.
At the end of XIX century, Blavatskaya was materialized on the boards of the history having intended to replace with her "doctrine" all world religions, though postulates and conclusions of theosophy were in essence not verifiable. Blavatskaya was a trailblazer; it was just she who planned the main speculative themes of yoga, Shambhala and Mahatmas. As the theosophy is a nasty parody of the east thought and the western science, its popularity in due course has fallen. Fresh ideas were required, they were formulated by Elena Shaposhnikova (in the marriage – Roerich) together with her spouse Nikolay. From his youth the gifted artist had been fascinated by the East, he did not pass a Masonic lodge, and already as a mature person, accompanied by his family and Blyumkin, lama-chekist, undertook the known travel on the route of the Altai-Himalayas.
The teaching, which has been thought up by Roerichs, was addressed first of all to aristocratic circles of connoisseurs of art. And, certainly, the Agni Yoga or «alive ethics», «given by Mahatmasfrom the Himalayas», had a claim on the world supremacy in sphere of spirit, filtering in the USSR through the communistic Mongolia and the states of the pre-war Baltic.
In the beginning of XX century on the crest of the wave, there appeared George Gurdzhiev. In 1910 the Sadhana of Shri Aurobindo began,the founder of the integrated Vedanta, the Indian radical and terrorist.
The Second World War has irreversibly shattered ideals of humanism. In the middle of 1950`s from depths of theGulag (Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps), Daniel Andreevhas returned with «The Rose of the World». The Russian Orthodoxy Church was gradually coming to life; in the USA, John Lilly has started his experiments; on the approach, there was Castaneda, Stanislav Grof, corporally oriented therapy, and NLP.
Svami Shivananda had initiated the appearance of some Indian and western teachers, and then B.K.S. Iyengar and P. Jois have started to export to the West pseudo-yoga of their guru Krishnamacharya. While Europe was healing wounds, and Russia was rising from ruins, in safe America have appeared sects, which then, similarly to gangrene, have stricken also the Old World. The first swallow of «new spirituality» had become over nine hundred corpses in Guyana – so the «Peoples Temple» of Jim Jones had declared itself. Since then the quantity of victims of this version of madness is beyond all calculation.
In 1964 «The Razor’s Edge» was published by I. A. Efremov, and the leitmotif of his adventure novel was yoga. Approximately at the same time, thousands of experts have been directed for industrial projects construction in India, and information about yoga has started to penetrate into the USSR. Also Khrushchev Thaw had played its role in it, in the middleand at the end of 1950`s, a number of classical works on the old Indian philosophy has been translated and published by small circulations. In the Ashhabadian deportation B. Smirnov, a polyglot and neurosurgeon, translated "Mahabharata", and in the film theatres of the country there was triumphally on the film «The Indian yogis: who are they?». At the same time the first legal propagandist Anatoly Zubkov published a cycle of articles in «Rural youth» journal («Сельскаямолодежь») had made his way in mass media, and yoga began to conquest Russia. Unfortunately, in the form distant from the authenticity. However, up to 1989, yoga had been officially forbidden, what did not prevent at all establishment of lots of semi-legal sections, headed in Moscow by self-appointed "pupils" of Zubkov.
Soon after removal of the ban, the Empire had collapsed, and yoga equally with all the rest became the goods of the wild market of esotericism, against which regardless of its own health the Russian Orthodoxy Church is fighting. Though (it agrees to the data of one of the sociological questionings in 2001) Orthodoxy had been named their religion only by about 7 % of the population of Russia.
And now a little digression. Once, for decrease in losses of alive power in Afghanistan, our soldiershave been ordered to master a bi-monthly special course of retraining in Geok-Tepe. Its zest was surprisingly simple: after the morning rouse, each fighter fastened on his back a thirty-kilo sandbag and spent then with it inseparably the whole day up to the very lights-out. At the same time, the battle training remained standard: quick marches, «strip of pleasures», shooting and other things, but to the bag, one had to get used. Those, who could not do it, were sent to Russia. As a rule, soldiers having gotten used to the bag survived in Afghan, as without it they moved on mountain relief faster than any "dukh". Suspecting nothing, I have once fastened to my life a similar "makeweight" in the form of yoga with the single difference: it was not material. However, this action has brought subsequently, a completely unexpected result.
«And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by power.» (The Gospel according to St Matthew, 11, 12). This phrase, IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) can be understood so: if development goes without complications, all people are approximately equal on their vital start (if they have not rough genetic defects). But in process of fulfillment of the program, inevitable distinctions between individuals are shown, including abilities. One of them will be, that some people make superfluous efforts for a typical course of things (Leo Gumilevhas named such subjects as passionaries) and others not. The destiny depends on it. The yoga is a version of redundancy, and for its adherent is a strong one.
The theory of Drucker asserts that the Christians occupying the Western Europe has (at each stage of development of social relations and accompanying technology) a model of the ideal person, and the one who aspired to it, hoped to find his happiness. In Middle Ages, the way to it ran through religiousness; Renaissance had generated the image of an educated person, and under conditions of the scientific and technical revolution, a businessperson, an entrepreneur became a sample. At last, in the countries with totalitarian modes, the ideal became a hero giving selflessly his life for idea («Simple is our work, we have only one care: let it live my native country, and there are no other cares … »).
– It is already clear – writes A. Maslow – that not one of the previous formulations of happiness has sustained checking up by time, and the concept of a psychologically healthy, "natural" person is actual today.
Leaning on my experience, I can tell that it is yoga that keeps in the best way physical health and mental equation what leads to the condition called happiness.
Seemingly, what can give practicing asanaswithout habitual diligence, physical efforts, and self-overcoming? Actually here, it goes off the effect of the raised sensitivity of system to perturbations of an average and a small power; just in the field of their influence, the traditional yoga will be realized. At preservation of the mental relaxation, the physical loading (and it can be in asanasvery big!) causes a special state of mentality similar to effect of medicinal electric stimulation (MES): «The nervous system does not only hears such "tender" interventions, but also obeys them conformably» («The Healthy and Sick Brain of the Person», 1988, p. 48). In other words, stimuli of a small dimension possess a restoring and healing effect. After mastering a deep relaxation, the loading in asanas can be considerably increased, but the prevalence of parasympathetics remains intact. «… Under extreme conditions when the organism is entirely given to itself, to its internal reserves, it shows miracles of biological activity and wisdom, and these facts are still waiting for their researchers» («Motivation and the Person» p. 132).
The opportunity of entry of psychosomatics to the mode of self-restoration – that is a striking difference between the traditional yoga and other "styles" and "schools" where the pupil carries out asanas, developing his physical and strong-willed efforts of habitual dimension what leads to prevalence of sympathic. Those whose self-adjustment has come to the end receive the highest quality of internal rest, which has been spontaneously translating outside, such transfer of his internal balance to the environment is the main evidence that the person has reached a certain level in yoga and can teach it.
Basis of classical practice of yoga is action by not action (in the Chinese tradition the "ou-way" method): I simply carry outasana as far as it turns out, not trying to bend «as in a picture» or to imitate the instructor. The main thing is to dissolve in the body sensations from the taken form by means of muscular relaxation and the form’s dosage. At preservation of it even without any sensations in the support-motor apparatus, an active work, but not perceived by consciousness(if not to listen specially) is carried out. The form of asanasand waiting time inevitably influence this apparatus, internals, circulatory and lymphatic systems, but the criterion of the optimality of influence is a full absence of unpleasant and in general obvious (preventing the devastation of consciousness) sensations. At a usual walking (if the person is healthy), one does not feel anything special in the body, but we come where we want. And without sweat, anguish and special efforts. Sensations do not arise, when you do not try to bend your body more, than its physical standards allow today. If you are comfortably sitting on the sofa and reading a book, is it necessary to try to sit down better? Better than what? Only the form, which the body can take and be in it some time freely and without any sensations (let alone the pain!) is optimal and useful. And if the mental vanity is stopped in it that is an asana. Only "loss" of usual mentation responds in the body by "fluidity" of the form.
If poses of "yoga" are carried out in the usual state of consciousness and with the habitual effort, it is an ordinary physical activity, an imitation of asanas, just as strasses are a visibility of brilliants.
«From the point of view of synergetics, a poor control of the natural … system consists in imposing a certain form of the organization, unusual to it. Such control – at the best – makes all human efforts vain, and at the worst – even causes the real damage and results in undesirable and difficultly recoverable crises» («Foundationsof Synergetics», p. 149).
In classical yoga the accent is transferred from the usual and understandable principle «I do all personally from the beginning to the end» on «I create conditions». And already then, it is possible to focus the adjusted system on switching in any known and accessible mode (for example, practicing asanasor samyama).
Carrying out yoga competently, the subject «finds an opportunity to initiate the desirable further developments (of the same flexibility in asanas- V. B.) correctly, to follow natural tendencies of self-development of processes. The essence of approach to the control consists in the fact that it is focused not on the external (the form of asanasand its complexity – V. B.), but on the internal (state of consciousness in asanas- V. B.), on something immanent to the environment itself. Differently, it is focused not on desires, intentions (ideas how it must be – V. B.), projects of the experimental, reformatory, restructuring and similar activity, but on own laws of evolution and self-organizing of complex systems. At the same time, the main thing is not the power (size, intensity, duration, all-embracing, etc.) of influence, but its coordination with own tendencies of self-structuring of the nonlinear environment» (ibidem, p. 150).
If asanas were executed without silence of mind, so either I receive an effect of usual dimension (the developmental work of muscles, the increase in their power, "hot" flexibility, etc.), or a negative one (an overload and traumas). If the practice causes CVN (chitta vritti nirodhah)and is accompanied by them, so the result is to the great extent weightierand more useful, the system is not capable to operate damaging itself what is typical for the limited human mind poisoned by desires and emotions. Flexibility and stretching as function from a correct (in the mental sense!) process of the execution grow up in due course to the absolute limit peculiar to each concrete organism.
As soon as in daily practicing asanas, themental vanity begins to calm down, psychosomatics, using the appeared chance starts to acquire actively the relaxation distributing it on structure. It is started then the process of intrasystem "repair" eliminating functional defects at all levels of the organization.
Strange as it may seem, this regeneration (a possibly full rehabilitation) is only a by-effect of practicing asanas in CVN state. But for a huge quantity of people this effect is the main interest and a pressing need, and quite often also the last hope.
So, weak stimuli induce the system (enable it) to proceed to a higher level of stability, and to household influences it adapts in the habitual way (illness is also a version of the adaptation).
The imperceptible difference in initial conditions starts two opposite scripts of development: one can prick a finger and right now, as always, safely forget about it, but at times after such injection, the person dies from blood poisoning. As soon as physical exertions in asanassurpass the certain limit, or sensations in the body break silence of mind, the sympathic begins predominate, and the yoga smoothly passes in sports.
«The person has a lot of protective mechanisms, and more often, they work on the principle of self-regulation … He has learned (a little) and can study further to strengthen and use protective powers reasonably» («The Healthy and Diseased Brain of the Person», 1988).
«To the principle of reformative act formulated in the European culture during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, one can oppose as alternative the principle of Old Chineseculture "ou-way", demanding non-interference to behavior of natural process. The principle "ou-way" (non-action) was understood as the minimal action coordinated with rhythms of the world" ("Synergetic Paradigm», p. 15).
So, suppose that from the stream of the ordinary, mode "A", I drop out daily into the mode "B", devoting to yoga a pair of hours. Gradually these two modi of activity become mutually complementary stages of united process. The daily practicing of asanasin CVN staterestores psychosomatics much more effectively than habitual forms of rest. In any case (and age) when the beginner starts to master yoga, he passes the following stages:
– Physical adaptation;
– Psychological;
– Mastering a necessary depth of the mental relaxation (silence of mind);
– A mode of self-adjustment and a full (possible for today) clarification of the body and mentality;
– And only after that with some probability of success, one can proceed to samyama.
«A complex structure, most likely, is only metastable. To support its integrity, overcoming periodically the tendency to disintegration (a stage of asymptotic instability), it should exist in the oscillatory mode, allowing to slow down processes and to restore the general rate of development of substructures inside this complex structure» («The Foundations of Synergetics», p. 73).
The «kitchen» of psychosomaticsin its overwhelming part is inaccessible to consciousness and cannot be supervised by it, and processes of such rank are called by Christian mysticism «self-moving». At self-adjustment, the system from which the cargo of daily strong-willed compulsion is removed comes gradually to itself, it is visible, as they say, by the naked eye, otherwise who would begin to be engaged in yoga? Already in one-two years all in the body of the person and his vital space takes their places, is understood in the best way, as if somebody all-knowing and invisible supervises it.
There is nothing supernatural in it, the unconscious part of mentality where all information on the subject and the so-called full (systemic) mind are concentrated, corrects gradually perception and behaviour of ego, releasing them from errors and deformations peculiar to the former, unpurified and "overheated" consciousness.
Firstly, practicing asanasin the aspect of non-actionturns out not too qualitatively, in fact, if I usually do something, so the result of action should be something real, even weariness! The mind refuses to accept the situation whose parameters isnot the presence of something, but the absence of sensations, efforts and visible (one-time) changes. The logic says: if there is no habitual work with all its attributes, where that useful effect will come from?! However, the work just in such keykeeping the thin web of the world in inviolability generates surprising consequences because of which yoga always was considered as a magic. Its technology does not depend on retransmitters as it leans not on someone's personal abilities, but on the structure of the human organism and laws of its functioning.
One can think up an innumerable quantity of ways of meals delivery in the mouth cavity, rules of chewing and swallowing, but it will add nothing to the real fact: in order to live, one must eat. And if everything is all right, the person simply does it without any focuses, observing only the traditional pragmatic rules inherent to each culture. The further transformation of food is the business of organism; it is out of the competence of mind. In much the same way works the technology of Patanjali yogabeing the art of switching of natural processes of life-support to self-healing, and then to improbable modes of functioning. Technology of yoga is an algorithm based on the principle of action by non-action, a competent satisfaction of needs of ego and his material carrier.
Each time I leave the “B” state (the qualitative practice of yoga at silence of mind) and pass into the “A” state (daily routine) being a little different one, while in psychosomatics there is a next short step of regeneration, an increase of the new order. Hence, since this moment, I perceive and estimate everything a little differently than yesterday; the degree of actions mistake has also decreased, what has improved their result.
Besides, being in the “A” state (daily routine), I understand more precisely what I do in “B” (yoga), therefore my practice has continuously been improving and, accordingly, its result becomes weightier. Thus, the existence of the subject mastering yoga without isolation from social medium consists of an alternate interchange of these two "genres" optimizing gradually each other.
Yoga is a systematic action stimulating the movement of system to the order of a higher level; at the certain stage of this process, the relationship between the person and systematic mind has been optimizing.
But a regular exchange of the positive effect between “A” and “B” states arises only at their rhythmical alternation!
End, one of the participants in the realyoga. ru forum, has noticed: «It seems to me that at the correct approach, there is no division into yoga and the ordinary life. They should mutually support each other: the creative energy is shown in the secular world, and the experience of the existence is converted in the spiritual one. Then you really are engaged in yoga twenty four hours per day and night».
Jazz added: «With reference to our situation: the practice is another reality, it is as it were movement of the point of assembling. The system under the name “person” gets here new qualities, but to fix them it is possible only in the ordinary life. Otherwise it is a dead theoretical knowledge and practice is useless wanderings in the illusive worlds, but there is zilch of the real power».
Feodor has finished «The everyday increment of limiting opportunities of the body/organism and consciousness results in an increment of limiting opportunities in the social medium, in the increase of the stability factor in communications with environment. I.e. the internal stability "overflows" in the external one. And external "circumstances" start to support the internal stability».
One can say easier: All usual human life impedes his regular yoga practicing, but, on the other hand, yoga helps this life. The art of self-adjustment had therefore remained in centuries, because it always gives everyone exactly what he falls short, what the soul and body really need. Cultivation of yoga is a returning to yourself, to your nature, to that you would be if you would not be crumpled by stresses, overloads, failures and misfortunes. It is an art of self-improvement which is not prevented by a "wise" management of ego generating an infinite chain of problems.
As a rule, changes accumulate in the “A” mode so homeopathically that the adept of yoga and his environment do not notice it. But at some moment it becomes clear that today's state of the subject differs cardinally from what was before the beginning of practice. And obviously from the state of things that continues the former march of events. The destiny of the person starts to diverge from the "line" which he would get not changing himself by stay in the “B” mode. It arises the delta – a radical difference of destinies without yoga and with it.
For self-modification there are two generally accepted scripts, the first is the most simple and formal: having realized my bad habits, I refuse them by a strong-willed effort.
The second, which can be both independent and the continuation of the first, is the following: I start to add to my life something new and useful demanding additional efforts. It is already more complicated, there appear many of the factors demanding the analysis, the account and the control, because actions can be erroneous and their result negative. If in the first case a refusal strains system passively, so in the second one, there is a risk to overdo with the quantity of useful influences what can turn out not less harmful. At times, both these approaches (stages) are simultaneously combined what generates inadmissible power inputs, besides there is a struggle against stereotypes, and this business is almost hopeless, because, as is known, the habit is a terrible power. The basic lack of both variants consists in the fact that in this case the strategy and tactics of behaviour is realized by the same ego, which has led the whole situation into a blind alley.
But there is also a third opportunity – spontaneous optimization of life and destiny, as a consequence of burning of samskaras,which begins in Hatha-Yoga. It is in the “B” mode that psychosomatics is given «the green light» for clearing and self-adjustments, whose mechanisms and essence cannot be imagined by ego. It is impossible, to cure the stomach ulcer by any direct actions (except the operation), one can only create conditions at which its mucous membrane will be restored. Exactly non-interference in this process is a guarantee of its faultlessness and safety.
The self-improvement can be realized either in the midst of the social medium or under special conditions, though monasteries and ashrams are poorly useful for those who do not cope with the commonness, there is no such place on the Earth where it is possible to escape from himself. O. Wild has told about it in «The Ballad of Reading Gaol»: «We sewed the sacks, We banged the tins, And sweated on the mill: But in the heart of every man Terror was lying still». The aspiration to run from the reality, what would not it be justified by, is a bad sign.
In Bhagavad Gita,«… Krishna declares, that the "acting person" can save himself personally, i.e. avoid the participation in the life of the world and at the same time continue to operate in it as there is no opportunity to leave the usual life and to give himself up to the work upon salvation completely. The sole condition is to renounce the fruits of his labor, to operate … passionlessly, impersonally, serenely as though you operated by proxy of some other person» (M.Eliade, «Yoga. Immortality and Freedom», p. 215).
In the novel «The Glass Bead Game», Herman Hesse has shown a society where people are engaged in the exclusively spiritual development by comprehending a certain abstract Game. The main hero of the novel becomes already at an early age its Master. Certainly, Castalia is a utopian community living the pure spirituality and at some moment, the Master starts to understand, that this community is similar to a flower, which does not know what its roots use for food. However, the lack of information of the flower about humus on which it has grown does not mean at all that the flower can do without it!
Outcasting the commonness is not an admission to the spiritual progress, there are no special conditions for the perfection! Therefore, the Fathers of the Church had always asserted that the way to the God could begin from any place, even from a dirty pool. There is no such place and such action on the earth, which leads automatically to the truth; the spiritual work happens in the person only indirectly. The soul varies due to work of body and thought, but these changes occur outside of the human competence and control. There is no ideal material with which one can create himself anew, and Saint-Exupery spoke: «You will not move from the place if you don’t take what exists around you».
«The person is like a fortress. Here he breaks walls dreaming to escape to freedom, but stars look at helpless ruins. What has the destroyer found except melancholy, the resident of ruins?
You never win, because you are searching for perfection. But perfection is suited only for museums» («The Citadel», p. 155, 77).
If in the life there is no place for creative (hence – spiritual) aspirations, it is fraught with the loss of sense. But if someone being in the society devotes himself only to these aspirations, the result will be the same! The truth, which, IMHO, should be recognized by any sensible person,sounds so: yoga is for the life, but not the life is for yoga! The most reliable way of the development (including the spiritual) is a median one, the combination of yoga and daily routine, alternation of "genres" of being, the cyclicity. In any process we can stay only in the variable mode of life: between periods of a full submergence, pauses of the same falling-out are necessary.
It is a virtue of an active person to aspire to go out of his own limits, to something greater; and for this purpose there are two ways – belief and knowledge. Stanislav Lem has noted once that the person is not only a thinking, but also a believing "machine" as he always operates based on the incomplete information. In this sense, our whole life is impregnated with belief in our actions, though their positive result is never guaranteed against an accident, mistakes and incompleteness of knowledge of initial conditions (except for simple and single-valued acts taking place before our eyes). The intellectual narrow-mindedness of a big number of believers is in the certain sense also useful to them: the faith gives simple answers to any questions; it is a universal crutch for poor minds. Yoga is also a support, but independent of the creed, what most likely irritates the Russian Orthodoxy Church as earlier communists.
There is no teacher or master of yoga without a specific feature, which is named the power with a helping hand from Castaneda. It is a version of siddhis, one of the attributes of technical (not spiritual!) progress in the practice, not guaranteeing, however, a harmonious development. If mental and ethical purposes of a subject from the very beginning do not meet the requirements of the yama-niyama, the power accumulated in yoga can become huge, but it will be dangerous for those around one. If the person initially stays within the framework of mental and ethical standards, yoga will provide him with growth of spiritual power.
The yogic transformation of the person can be divided conditionally into three stages.
The first, from two to five years of practice – mastering the technology and accumulation of power.
The second, from five to ten years – full purification, adjustment, beginning, and increase of power.
The third, from ten years and more – intrapsychic integration (down to the possible contact with the One God).
The superiority over social surroundings is a very big temptation, however the ancients knew already: «Where is a power, there is no love, where is a love, the power has no value there». The power can become a big problem also for its owner; Don Juan has noticed not without reason in one of Castaneda's novels: «I can not be responsible for what will take place with people who can meet me in this life». The power can be applied only to optimization of the spiritual growth of pupils and extra-help for them in the emergency, but not for receiving lucre; in this case, it will disappear or destroy its owner.
Yogi should be light and fluid, and such requirement is met by water best of all: it has not its own form, and its surface in quiescent mode is glassy. The reflection of the patient and his problems implemented by the master of yoga is not a Freudian impassivity of a therapist. From three basic styles of interpersonal contact (subordinational, democratic and aloof one), the master should perfectly handle every, as well as a combination of them. Possessing properties of a smooth surface – power and rest – the master of yoga should be a feedback for the pupil (or the patient), with the help of which the pupil gradually realizes contours of the problems latent from his perception like the fifteenth stone of the garden of Reandzi.
One of the high quality’s signs of power is a continuous transit of reflections without "sticking", an absolute non-interference in the private life of pupils (patients) at the exhaustive (when necessary) awareness of their real problems. If the teacher prefers collective forms of training, so the pupils will not receive skills of independent work. If he teaches yoga authoritarianly as in India thereby he obviously accustoms students to be conducted what can turn out for a dangerous habit of controllability.
In the pseudoyogic esoterics, the theme of the latent knowledge is deliberately exaggerated. There are no and can not be any secrets in yoga, a competent teacher simply does not put into use the information premature for the given person which he can not apply because of his state. Personal nuances of the practice or therapy are always confidential. Once Castaneda has wonderfully said: «I got evidence of my own experience that not so many people want even to listen and all the more to operate according to what they have heard. And from handful of those who will want to operate, only a few have so much personal power to benefit from their actions. So as a result, any secrecy boils away in routine – the same empty routine, as well as any another» («The Teachings of Don Juan. A Separate Reality. Journey to Ixtlan. Tales of Power», p. 567).
In 1993 «Classical Yoga» Center has organized a meeting of Muscovites with Amritananda Maya, the Saint from southern India who has arrived to the country with a group of Americans, thirsting to see capital of the collapsed Empire.
The hall average in size was cram-ful by a variegated public. Accompanied by several Yankees, a dense black woman of average years, low growth, in scarlet sari, appeared on the stage; the company together with interpreters took their seats without embarrassment on chairs. It began a spontaneous contact of audience in the hall with Amritananda, there were absolutely empty questions, expectation of translation, more precise definitions, laughter and hubbub. The Saint laughed infectiously together with the entire audience, but Americans glanced at the public with expectation. After 20 minutes the hall has grown quiet, the atmosphere has imperceptibly changed, but nobody could understand what had happened. Actually everybody, I emphasize – all taking place in the hall! – have suddenly felt happy without any cause, as on the best day of their life. Many of them sensed this effect not less than three days, people especially sensitive experienced it about a week. With all this going on, Amritananda had not a burning appearance, a fiery look or bewitching passes, power need not advertising. The impression from contacts with Iyengarwas for me another, if from the Saint, one can perceive a wave of tranquilization and rest, because of nearness to Guruji hair stands on end as from a fireball. Certainly, both of these persons had self-fulfilled themselves, but in case with B. K. is S. Iyengar, his means was yoga. Only it enables self-improvement without ignoring daily routine, and if the given book will facilitate this task for someone, it means, my task fulfilled, if not – «don't shoot the piano player, he plays how he can».