Namaste - or - "nah-ahmm-gonna-stay"

Anusara - the corporation - is continuing to go through either death throes or birth pangs. And I am continuing to act from a platform of hope that it is birth pangs.

Some of my good friends - teachers who came up with me in the method as my litter mates  -  have resigned. It feels like a tearing of a fabric each time another one leaves. Any kula or sangha shares an energetic nervous system and I have felt the truth of this in my flesh and bones the past few days.

A far greater number of dear friends and amazing lights are sitting tight in Anusara.  I have litter mates on both sides of the line.

I have considered resigning - have been considering it for some time now - ever since the news started coming out that John Friend had apparently behaved with gross malfeasance in the domains of sex and drugs (apparently rock and roll was not a problem:).  I've not wanted my affiliation with Anusura to hurt the diamond like brightness of Garden Street.

So - for me - as painful as it is to say - I have been divorcing myself from the personality of John Friend who has been one of the most important teachers of my life. That is a painful tearing of the fabric for sure, but it has been a long time coming. I became a dedicated student of John Friend years ago in 1995. I watched him go from a brilliant, centered, funny and great-hearted teacher, devoted to his own Teacher - Gurumayi -  to being over-extended, inflated and surrounded by adoring and ambitious groupies. There were no checks and balances -  no way for feedback to take root. And his teacher -  Gurumayi stopped public teaching just as John's fame started to swell.


I am not divorcing myself from Anusura. Not now. Not yet. For me - in my context and local circumstance  - that would be the easy way out at this point. I'll stay in the trenches and work to save a beautiful method from being trashed by the effects of popular culture and blind ambition and inflation (and I don't mean just John's)

I don't want to teach any other method - I already did that.  I don't really want to teach "no method". And I don't want to develop my own method. Of course I will do one of the above if Anusara at the national level cannot separate itself from the personality of John Friend.

I am holding steady and praying that Anusura can rise up as a method and survive and thrive without a sole dependency on the charismatic figure of John as its leader. That will be a whole new evolution. I know that Yoga does evolve itself and I think the method of Anusura can continue to be a strong carrier wave for that evolution.

Meanwhile, John is acting with extreme humility. He is being honest, real, humble and totally taking responsibility for his actions as a human who made mistakes. He isn't hiding. He has publicly apologized, taken ownership and spoken to all of the accusations with humility and truth.

So - I continue hold to the mid-line. I continue to aim to be a bright and steady carrier wave for the intelligence that is Yoga.

I am sorry to post about all of this. It is the sort of thing that so easily devolves into a feeding of a voracious appetite for gossip.  And It can be a tawdry distraction from what is real and is right in front of us.......our own community and our own practice.

Please practice.
Thanks for reading.