Yoga Scams

David Forsee aka Swami Gopalananda came into my mind yesterday. I had read a tweet by a psychotherapist saying it was unethical to put her needs ahead of the patients needs.

I am a teacher of fine art. I got there by deprogramming from the notion that my needs are subservient to expensive yoga teachers who were highly charismatic charmers like David.

I was lonely and vulnerable depressed and anxious. My cultural background was/is orphan poverty hippie new age so to meet people I attended 12 step, tai chi, yoga and didn’t really meet anyone that had much to offer until I stumbled upon a yoga group where the teachers were trained to convincing pretend that they loved me unconditionally. I was their target market, highly intelligent and in transition and in pain. I had been criticized out of a 20 year career by the childish office politics of supposed friends.

This fake love was/is not sustainable but it took years to unhook from these charming narcissists. They made sure to keep enough social distance through hierarchy so it was hard to smell a rat. I wrote a book about it. Essentially the harm comes from the criticism they hand out creating anxiety and then medicated by the distraction of the yoga mindfulness practises, a nice little dependence cycle. The Dali Lama uses the same technique when he lovingly tells you are an uncompassionate loser. These cult recruiters have been successful for centuries.

People distracting from the anxiety they created through criticism

I got out of it by learning to ask myself if there is any evidence for the criticism, internalized or otherwise. At the same time I was training in art where criticism ideally means, ‘What were you going for and how do we get you closer?’ My likes and dislikes as a teacher don’t enter into it.

So I got unhooked from these charming leeches including Edi, the one that I was living with for 9 years.

What remained was the residual love affair with a convincing liar like David. I needed his approval, like food. I was convinced he loved me and was a friend, and was in many ways a superior human being so if he liked me I had some self esteem. My psychotherapist wrote a book and it deprogrammed me from the notion. I learned that if you have self esteem you can lose it and then you can be manipulated by threat of loss for other peoples purposes, typically financial. Now I don’t have self esteem I have strategies for satisfaction and I leave myself the hell alone. I simply ignore the con artist guru in all her/his forms.

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Jerald W. Blackstock First Person Reflections
Jerald W. Blackstock First Person Reflections

Written by Jerald W. Blackstock First Person Reflections

Fine Artist Still and Time Based Fine Art and Social Satire by any means possible. Buy me a Coffee 😁 https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/JeraldBlackstock

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