An Open Letter to John Friend, and All the People He Disappointed Greg Liotta, RYT 200 Dear John,

I hear you have decided to go on a retreat, to collect yourself and reflect on your situation. Good idea, John. Get ready to deepen yourself and emerge with a new level of mastery. But just for now, alot of people are upset with you, people feeling betrayed, expressing rage and indignation over things like fraud, abuse of power, and hypocrisy. Seems people are defecting from Anusara like the plague, sadly. In all my years as a yogi, rarely have I seen so many people become so inspired as they did when they caught the anusara bug. Something about it really opened peoples hearts, but now, because you made a mistake, people are running, I guess back to Shiva Rea. The worst part, perhaps, are the attacks on Yoga from people who dont understand much about yoga. Calling it a sex cult and such blasphemy. (Sigh. Poor Tantra. Just cant get any traction in the USA. Dang association with sex, and you know, sex is bad. More on that later.) So, as you go into reflection, I hope you pay attention to a few things worth noting. But mostly, John,this is a letter to all your fans. Um, I mean, your students or devotees. Call this a story about The Myth of the Perfect Guru. Because, really John, (and I think you know this) the only thing that really happened was that you - and a LOT of other people - drank your own Kool Aid. You became a good ol fashioned Rock Star Yogi, this new breed of American Yoga Celebrities that wants to choke the life out of something that cant really die: yoga. But this isnt just about you and your other Celebrity Yogis, John. (Note to Shiva Rea, David Life & Sharon Gannon, and the rest of you - you know who you are). This is really more about all your fans. The millions of yogis and yoginis who go to a studio to find themselves but instead end up throwing rose petals at your feet. In the beginning, I bet, like everybody, you started out very altruistic. Wanting to share the love of yoga. Wanting people to experience freedom and healing. But, after a while, well, thousands of hot yoginis adoring you, all at one time. The sellout studios. The travel, the money, the fame, the power. All stimulating your kleshas (latent tendencies). Was your sadhana strong enough to not get sucked into that? Patanjali warns us about that in the Yoga Sutra 3:38: cultivating superphysical siddhis become an obstacle to samadhi, but are helpful in worldly pursuits. Like, you know, tacking a name on the front of yoga and selling it as your own business.

Fact is, Americans in particular have been drinking the Kool Aid for many years now, ever since these gurus started coming over from India at the start of the 20th century. Well, to be fair, one might say people have been drinking the Kool Aid since the times of Christ, so lets just lay it out on the table, shall we: there is no such thing as a Perfect Guru. Any true enlightened master will tell you: a flock of people devoted to worshiping the guru is evidence of a failed message. Because the message of ALL realized masters is the same: YOU are the light, NOT me. The fact that entire ashrams grow up around gurus in the first place is because people remain mired in denial of their own divinity. Spiritual hunger is evidence of self-denial, and drives millions toward the most charismatic, scripture quoting holy person, whether they are enlightened or not. There was a time it took quite a lifetime to become a true guru. Mastery of self takes many, many years of self reflection, solitude, quiet, and spiritual practice to accomplish. But today, if you want to be a guru, all it takes is a certificate from a teacher training course. You can do it in a few weeks. Dont want to put the time and effort in? No problem, go online and get your certificate. This gives any 22 year old the right to sit up in front of a class and, in addition to instructing asana, preach about how to find peace and remain non-attached in the face of lifes hardships. (You know, the hardships theyve read about.) If you know some sanskrit, that adds some nice juice to your teachings. Sanskrit impresses people. If you are articulate, charismatic, and - better yet - funny, you can do pretty darn well. And if youre good looking, youve got yourself a flock of devotees. You can cultivate your own persona, a slicker version of yourself, and heck, start a business. Maybe even profit. You can write a book and put some celebrities in it. If youre really good and particularly attractive, you can made videos, and then, wah la! Youre a Rock Star Yogi. Om Namah Shivaya. We all know how easy it is to become a guru these days. It doesnt take much self inquiry. It takes packaging and promotion. But thats not really a guru, is it? The great saint Ramana Maharshi, who self realized at the age of 16, left the world to go live in a cave. People began seeking him out, and built up an ashram around him. What did he have to say about it? Not much. The story goes that a man traveled many hard miles to find him, and when he did, begged Sri Maharshi for the key to liberation. Its said that Sri Maharshi laughed at him. Made some comment about mistaking the moons reflection in a puddle for the moon itself. Sort of a different spin on the old mistaking the finger pointing at the moon for the moon. But all you people so disappointed in John Friend, you just loved that finger, didnt you? You forgot the Light was yourself, and believed he could deliver you the moon. But instead, he did you a bigger favor: he showed you he is...just a man. NOW what are you gonna do? OK, you have a right to be angry. I was angry at the priest that I thought was my hero back when I was a young man needing a role model. Yeah, the priest who pretended to be my mentor, who is now a Big Shot one-step-away from being a Cardinal. The priest who invited me into his bed more than once, the man who

spelled out the word pedophile and told me to look it up in the dictionary. I spent many years feeling like the victim, angry at him, angry at the Church. Betrayed. Been there, done that. Was he duplicitous? Was he taking advantage of his power? Perhaps, yes. Or perhaps he was just an uber-charasmatic guy whos skill and influence outpaced his own emotional development. Been there, done that also. Does this mean John Friend is not a great teacher, or has plenty to offer to those hungry for what yoga has to offer? NO, not at all. Our own dualistic value system will shame him and topple him from his perch. Whatever you do, dont drink THAT Kool Aid, John. Now you can cultivate proper humility and deepen your mastery. But, for those of you feeling betrayed, what will YOU do? Because our collective value system has nothing to do with reality. This is about your need to project perfect onto a mere man. At a certain point, the man cultivated great siddhis (powers). Anybody can do it. The right breathing exercises can do it. A million mantra chants and a ton of kundalini yoga can do it. But if the psychological maturity is not developed enough, the average man will use these powers to his own profit. For most men, the profit is power, greed, sex. In western society, sex is bad. Not so in the east. We havent quite caught up yet. Sri Swami Satchidananda happens to be the guru at the ashram I lived in for a year. I will admit that, for a while, the allegations were very distracting to me. Did he do these things, or did he not? Whos telling the truth, the alleged victims or the holy sages who lived with him and were now my teachers? Back and forth I went, until one day it dawned on me: what the hell difference does it make? I dont need him to be perfect. Its got nothing at ALL to do with my own agenda: realization of the SELF. I dont need him to be a GuruDEV to gain from his wisdom and his love. I simply need to realize that I AM GuruDev, and stay within that. I am made up of nothing but Love, or God. Behavior not withstanding. Whatever it is I was seeking is right HERE. Not out there. The fact is, Sri Satchidanandas love is palpable and alive in anyone who was ever touched by him. His wisdom and grace was superior. It does not mean he was without human predilictions, from his love for Cadillacs to his temper to...who knows what else? Look, all these gurus are accused of having sex with a few yoginis at some point. In the old Indian culture, this is not something to be vilified. But when these Indian gurus come to the western world, and try to fit into the heavily moralistic model we have in the states, having sex is usually the death knell. It is a particular proclivity of American culture: we love to topple powerful men. Even Gandhi took his lumps. Clinton. MLK, Jr. And lets face it: JFK would have gotten it if he wasnt martyred. Most, if not all of the yogi gurus get exposed. At the Satchidananda Ashram, the devotees there protect his image with all their lives. I did not feel the need to do that. Whatever he did or did not do is is okay with me. It does not mean he was not enlightened, powerful, loving and wise. It means he was human. Hi might have made some mistakes, even in his enlightened state. This vilification of these masters speaks more to our own weakness than theirs.

We need to stop doing that. We need to stop propping these people up as perfect masters elevating them to Rock Star status, and we need to stop tearing them down when they reveal their weaknesses. Most of all, we need to stop projecting our own divinity onto other people, making them responsible for carrying our perfection, and then mistaking perfection and wholeness for good behavior. So, for all of you who have run from Anusara over this, turn around. Get back on your mat and remember what this practice is: Yoga. Union of breath, body, & mind. YOU are that Holy Trinity. If you have failed to remember that, get down into Childs Pose and surrender to life as it IS. Surrender to your own divine nature. Withdraw your projections. Let the teacher be a simple person working on a path, just like you. Nobody ever claimed that yoga teachers were supposed to be perfect. It is a yoga PRACTICE. Not a yoga perfect. Im sure John probably said that once or twice in your class, and alot of people went oooohhh and ahhhhh, hes so funny and wise. OK. You get it. May all beings be free from harm and suffering. May all beings who have been harmed by teachers be free from suffering. May all teachers who have been harmed by students projections be free from suffering. May all beings who forget who they are be free from suffering. I AM THAT. Greg Liotta, RYT 2012