Guruji answers questions on teachers and teaching - Sequencing the asanas
by Geeta S Iyengar

[Yoga Rahasya, Vol A, pp 250-253]

What are the characteristics a yoga student should look for in his teacher?

A student of yoga has to look for a teacher with qualities which I mention below: There are three types of teachers explained in our scriptures. Students too are of three types. They are compared to the mother cat, mother monkey and fish. Mother cat catches the kitten with the mouth and carries it wherever it goes. The baby monkey sticks to the mother and lastly the fish having no lids, the eye balls are ever alert and attentive.

Some teachers forcefully make the students work like the mother cat, some make them dependent like the baby monkey holding onto the mother. The third group of teachers makes the pupils to keep their eyes and ears wide open so that they can observe the teacher. These are the three types of teachers.

In addition to these I want to add one more quality in a teacher. The teacher should be filtering and purifying his sadhana to guide the pupil to do, redo, learn, unlearn and learn so that perfection is touched by both. This technical word perfection was known in the early days as 'divine' practice. This is what the pupils should see in a teacher and the teacher and the pupil. There should be a close interaction between the teacher and the student.

I have spoken as an academician on yoga and the associated subjects. I have sweat and toiled in my early days unmindful of the pain and suffering. To be a yoga teacher is very difficult. It can be both a blessing and a curse. It depends on how one looks at it - a positive or a negative outlook. The positive outlook will be rewarding. The negative attitude will be frustrating and stunt the growth of the teacher. If one is not growing as a teacher? it is self defeating. We as teachers have to grow tremendously in stature and outlook if we are to remain as sincere teachers working from the bottom of our hearts.

A yoga teacher has to constantly try to be one's own critic. A yoga teacher has to be aware of the functioning of the entire human body and the different behavioural patterns of people. They have to interact and protectively mould the student. The yoga teacher has not only to be strong and positive in his approach, affirm his position and authority based on his deep practice but also has to be willing to be a learner all his life by bringing about reflective contemplation on what he himself is doing and changing. Besides being chaste and calm which come out of integrity and character he should be candid, clever, confident, challenging, cautious, constructive, courageous, conscious, committed and critical. These attributes must go hand in hand with his caring and daring outlook which brings cheer to the student boosting their morale. He has to learn to live with a spiritual bent of intellect. Then alone can he help the student to go within the 'interior' and peep into the super consciousness of the soul. Yoga which is a spiritual science and philosophy requires a fine body and the mind. He must have a right attitude to cross over the minor mile stones on the eternal journey. This alone will help him to achieve clarity of intelligence and cleanliness of mind. Unless the teacher feels in himself the supreme strength of peace, joy and delight through his sadhana, how can he convince his students about the value of yoga. The teacher has to be a real student at the same time to become a real Guru who removes darkness and leads towards light. To quote Rabindranath Tagore, 'Light has to be burnt not for the purpose of diminishing it but for giving light to the lamp'. I can go on about the attributes that transforms a teacher.

What advice do you have for teachers who fall prey to their very human egos and revel in the power given to them by their students?

I see no use of power equations between the teachers and students. Intelligence and instinct guides the good teacher to do his duty. Powers are not given by students - they ignite teachers. This ignition is for growth and not power.

Your advice to yoga teachers?

Dr. Radhakrishna said, 'Yoga is an art of opening the unconscious parts of our being which will enable us to feel the direct touch of cosmic consciousness.' It is all very well said but it cannot come that easily for a yoga teacher. He must realize that his body has dignity and intelligence of its own as much as the mind or even more than the mind. The body can be the springboard for animal incontinence and divine strength.

If the teacher cannot imbibe the understanding of yoga as a science and philosophy his approach to teaching is truncated. Yoga as a science conveys truth. It is a kind of vision, seeing, acting, showing and exhibiting, all combined. The component of yoga also conveys it's artistic aspects, its precision and beauty. Art of any kind takes us to the domain of learning, involving, imagination, transmission, practice, exhibition and finally revelation. One should know that when one accepts and practices any art, one becomes a fanatic to some extent but the yogi does not express it.

The teacher has to strive for this. But this is not the end. A genuine teacher has to be soaked into the philosophy of yoga which breathes the ethos. What if the yoga teacher does not breath the ethos. That means the teacher has lost the spiritual path of yoga.

The pole star of our yogic seeker, sadhaka, is the 'divine'. The teacher is not worth his salt if he is not deeply involved in Chintana (objective thinking). He has to understand yoga objectively. The next stage is Manana (contemplating and subjectively indulging on ways to apply it). Mathematically, chintana plus manana is equal to dhyana. So the stage of reflection sets in. Reflections alone lead to perfection.

The normal connotation of perfection is not acceptable to me. Whether it is the theory of relativity of Einstein or Newton's law of gravity. They were moments of 'divinity' and 'creativity' in the evolution of mankind. Vichara involves the churning of the thoughts over the pros and cons and the numerous permutations and combinations of things 'to be'. For me, any teacher, however humble, who thinks and works for divinity (perfection) is worth his weight in gold.

My advise to the teachers is that they should involve themselves not only in the art of doing but be totally involved with the students who come and seek spiritual food. Both the teacher and pupil should go together to find the hidden aspect of yoga as yoga becomes the God for both when they embrace yoga. The seer and the seeker has to become one.

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