Recently I was at dinner with my husband and a friend at a restaurant that had a yoga studio attached to it. Part way through our dinner there was an influx of young women and I later noticed they were all drinking a bottle of Moet champagne. This seemed so unusual that I asked the waitress what was happening. Her answer seemed unbelievable to me:
“They are here for a ‘Moet and Meditation’ class.”
Yes, you heard that correctly! This completely flabbergasted me, as putting the two together seemed like anathema to me – for I knew (from my study of Raja Yoga) that meditation is used to re-connect you to yourself, and alcohol takes you away from yourself. Further, the class involved drinking champagne before the meditation!
Then, recently I watched a video by Business Inside UK titled ‘People in London are doing yoga while drinking ice cold beer.’ I watched horrified as the video showed people drinking beer in a pub at the same time as practising yoga. The yoga teacher justified it thus:
“It (beer) adds a little bit more relaxation because people tend to be tense when they come… The goal is to make people stress-free, relaxed and happy, and if this means we have to incorporate beer I think that’s perfectly fine and I think that’s encouraged.” (1)
The video ended as follows:
“They say it complements the joy of drinking beer and the mindfulness of yoga.” (1)
Whoa… did this shock me!
In addition to this there is now ‘hot yoga’ (yoga practised in a very hot room), ‘naked yoga’ (self-explanatory), and ‘fat yoga’ … the list of so-called ‘yoga’ goes on. Add to this the evidence in recent years of yoga ‘gurus’ being accused of having sex with their underage followers, raping young girls, or embezzling their employees’ pension funds, and you start to get a very disturbing picture of the present yoga consciousness.
I practised yoga for 25 years and taught it for 15 years. Although I still teach ‘stretch, strengthen and stillness’ classes, I stopped teaching yoga about five years ago when I could feel in my heart that the yoga I was teaching was no longer true, and in fact was far from what I now understand true yoga to be. I have found that I no longer have the sense of superiority I felt because I ‘practised yoga’ – a superiority that I notice many yoga teachers and practitioners seem to have. Also, since letting go of this consciousness and changing what and how I teach, I have noticed that I am stronger and more flexible than I was before!
The decision to discontinue teaching and practising yoga the way I had been for many years has been very much confirmed for me by the path modern yoga appears to now be going down.
It seems to me that we are now very far away from the source of true yoga that the very wise Indian sage Patanjali taught us in his Yoga Sutras somewhere between 200 BC and 400 AD.
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (‘threads’) consist of 196 very short aphorisms (statements), which bring awareness and deeper understanding to how we are living so that we can make changes to support us, thus:
“providing the wherewithal for us to reconnect to our Divine nature and true state of being… The goal of the Yoga-sutras is no less than entire transformation of ourselves, to reconnect to our true Divine essence.” (2)
To deepen our understanding of ourselves and the universe, Patanjali gave us the practical path of yoga, which was given to support human beings to stop being dominated by the mind and to stop taking everything personally, so we could re-connect to our Divinity, to who we truly are, which is so much more than the human body.
So how does drinking alcohol whilst practising yoga support us to re-connect when most people who drink alcohol know that when they drink alcohol they turn into someone else entirely, i.e. they dis-connect even further from themselves?
It appears to me that practising yoga whilst holding a bottle of beer, or drinking champagne before a yoga meditation class, is a complete bastardisation of true Yoga… and that those who teach it are being very irresponsible.
It seems that today we – including, and perhaps especially, some yoga teachers – have moved very far away from the classical Raja (kingly) Yoga of Patanjali. Perhaps we could ask ourselves, why?
Those who have studied yoga in its true essence know that it is a way of living that is simply about union – union with our self and with God: in other words, union with our Soul. Many have experienced the joy of truly connecting to their Soul and to God, and from there have felt the Oneness that we are all from. Is this not what, deep down, we all truly want? To live a life full of purpose, to develop the ‘kingly body’ that Patanjali spoke of, so we can let go of our hurts and emotions and re-connect to each other and to the simplicity life can be, and – most important of all – to be the love that we naturally are.
This divine connection with our Soul is yoga in its true, and ageless, essence. Alcohol has no place in that connection.
By Anne Scott, Auckland
References:
- Business Insider. (2017). People in London are doing yoga while drinking ice cold beer – this is how it works. [online] Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/beer-yoga-london-vinyasa-flow-yoga-drinking-beer-funzing-uk-pub-drinking-alcohol-2017-6/?r=AU&IR=T [Accessed 20 Nov. 2017].
- Unimed Living. (2017). Patanjali: The great Indian sage and teacher of the Ageless Wisdom | Unimed Living. [online] Available at: http://www.unimedliving.com/ageless-wisdom/the-lineage/patanjali-the-great-indian-sage-and-teacher-of-the-ageless-wisdom.html [Accessed 20 Nov. 2017].
Further Reading:
Esoteric yoga: union with me and God – at last
Esoteric Yoga – yoga for our world today
Feeling the Divinity of God through Esoteric Yoga
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
We have a historical habit of taking the truth and peverting it so that is suits what we prefer it to be. If we learn one thing, let it be that the key in life is integrity.
If we don’t read the people standing in front of us, i.e. yoga teachers, we will never be able to discern their integrity. The person leading the class can have the most out there sexual fantasies about their students, they could be picturing having sex whith them while leading the class thinking that nobody know what’s going on in their head. But, with our natural ability to read energy we can discern whether the person standing in front of us is harming or not, this way we can discern whether what they are saying to us is harming or not.
We twist and bend to get a ‘unique experience’ but maybe we could say to bastardise what we know is true. Where are we when we start with a glass of champagne or beer, or feel we need to be naked to connect to what, to our Soul? it is like you say Anne ‘This divine connection with our Soul is yoga in its true, and ageless, essence. Alcohol has no place in that connection.’
“This divine connection with our Soul is yoga in its true, and ageless, essence. Alcohol has no place in that connection.” totally. Neither does any other form of numbing agents (food, drive, being hard on ourselves, drugs, sport etc…) I know that because I have felt the divine connection with my Soul and when I do those other things, I no longer feel that connection. It is a loving work in progress for me to keep choosing my Soul.
In the reference article 1.”The goal is to make people stress-free, relaxed, happy, and if this means that you would have to incorporate beer I think that’s perfectly fine and I think that’s encouraged.” It is a sad day when we fool ourselves into believing that numbing ourselves from feeling makes us happy, relaxed and stress-free. When the truth of yoga is about connecting and reunion.
A sign of our times and the insatiable desire for more, different, unique experiences – but these are distractions that make us feel more disconnected from our souls, more distant from ourselves and one another, instead of more closely connected.
“This divine connection with our Soul is yoga in its true, and ageless, essence. Alcohol has no place in that connection” – and in truth no place in our world either as well.
Whilst the combination of drinking beer and yoga may not make sense on one level, on another level it shows us very clearly how we are living life and the relief or the time out needed to escape from the life we are living. If we look at everything else in life and see the extremes, which are fast catching up as our new normals, then we could also see this as no surprise either.
This is exactly what happens when you live from the parts in expense to the whole they are a part of. Everything gets all jumbled up and has no reference point and even worse, the one-unifying truth we each in essence know to be absolute, gets layered with the many half-truths and deliberate untruths that abound in the guise of ‘my truth’ versus ‘your truth’. Welcome to creation – the world we humans have shaped, where lies get sold as truth and we drink it all up, every last gulp of it until we reach a point of saturation where the body cries ‘no more’. Only then will the being within it begin to make more loving choices that support its return to the whole it first separated from.
I walked into a designer store the other day and saw a slogan on a t-shirt glamourising Moët and Yoga. We must have drifted so far away from truth if this is what we are now championing.
The authority that comes through this article is tangible. Coming from pure lived experience and no theory which can feel flimsy.
Yoga is about connection, union with our ‘being’. It exposes how ridiculous some of these trends are, a complete bastadisation of the truth of the word and its lived quality.
Now I have heard everything; adding two things that couldn’t be more opposite and probably expecting something amazing to come from it. Its like adding mud to the purist water and expecting it to make you fly.
Honestly coming back to this blog, the idea feels just as absurd as it did the first time I read about it! The expectation that yoga and alcohol in combination will do something amazing just exposes how blinkered into checking out we want to be!
Such a good analogy in seeing just how crazy it is.
What a comedy/tragedy this is to combine the sacredness of meditation designed to connect us to our inner essence and alcohol designed to take us out of our body! I have no further comment.
We are incredibly skilled at twisting things away from their truth, making them more comfortable or acceptable
It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic, and defiling and bastardising such a glorious truth – the Union of Yoga.
Beautiful Anne – you show us how we tend to take truth and twist it to suit the way we prefer life to be. We go for relief not true understanding. Shifting this perception inside of us is a kind of yoga itself.
When we do not listen to our body we accept all sorts of things that simply are not true, like doing yoga whilst having a beer.
It is quite absurd to be using substances that take us away from ourselves when doing yoga that is supposed to reconnect us to ourselves and God,
In our mind everything can be ‘logical’ or complete lies repeated over and over again regardless if it’s true or just a ‘little white lie’ (a lie being a lie no matter what size we choose to give it). The body cannot lie as it feels what it feels and thats that.
Yes, we seem to change everything and invent new ways of being. We pride ourselves on being creative and breaking tradition. Yet, what are we really doing when we change the core teachings of things such as Yoga? What is the purpose behind that?
The interesting part here about this article, is how you came to your own awareness about how yoga feels in your body, and made the decision to stop, in your own time, in your own way. And this feels important because are we not all on our own journey’s? Figuring things out, trying things out, letting go and picking up what may or may not work? This seems a fundamental part of life, and even though something may look not quite right or definitely not true from the outside, what that person is experiencing and hence learning is priceless and deservers all the time and dedication in the world.
Reading this again after doing esoteric yoga for a week in the evenings and the power and beauty of it, gave me a kind of sad feeling that we have strayed so far from that, to having to add alcohol to the mix.
On reading this blog, it’s incredible to see just how far we are willing to create realities that stretch and twist so far from an original truth… so that in the end we have no idea what the leading impulse was.
It is great to call out the obviously insane that happens in the world. But it is also good to know that no matter how crazy, harmful or anti-evolutionary our experimenting in life may be, our soul keeps steadily pulling us back. One day we will all get sick of the distractions and heed its call.
Well said Fiona and the steps we have taken away from it will be felt on our return.
With many ‘words’ or things we have strayed far away from its true meaning and simplicity in order to keep us away from the truth while being in the illusion of pursuing truth.
Well that is a new one I hadn’t heard of alcohol and yoga. For me the original Sutras of Patanjali ” providing us the wherewithal to reconnect to our Divine nature and our true state of being” are wonderful teachings I have read and in practice support me to reconnect to a stillness within me, with my Divine essence and with the all and and after practising yoga of many different types I know this to be the one I choose.
Once you know to recognize the one true quality meditation or yoga can connect you to and or deepen it, everything else that claims to do so but doesn´t is exposed not just for the error but the great harm it does.
Reading this blog gave me the opportunity to connect back to my divine nature / essence – thank you.
‘Moet and Meditation’? Sounds like a past time I would have seriously considered in the past! As I never seriously considered doing yoga but used to love a drop of the bubbly, add the two and it would be another activity to not feel how I truly was and how life was truly going.
I practised yoga for years and went away on retreats and on one of these occasions I injured both of my knees, and that was while I was sober. Add alcohol to the mix, and there’s no telling what injuries might occur.
These practices reflect the desperation in people seeking to quell their inner restlessness which cannot be truly quelled by managing symptoms. The truths in life have not changed throughout the ages and neither have the many ways in which we try to avoid those truths.
Some catchwords, concepts or methods like yoga, meditation, sports etc. in general are considered to be good. We would do good to discern much more the ‘content’ and or quality of anything in life and not just when the ridiculousness becomes obvious, like in beer or chocolate yoga or similar.
Great point Alexander Braun, things do tend to stand out when they become extreme, but its in the quality of even what appears ‘normal’ that reveals if it true or not.
I was in a shop the other day where the radio was playing, and they were talking about one of the hosts that had been sent on a week’s exploration of loads of different fitness trends, one being something like ‘hot R’n B yoga’ or something along the lines of combining yoga and dance. Hearing it on the radio, I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at the ridiculous combination, so far away from the true origins of yoga, and I thought of this article. It is true, that we can develop a connection with our bodies that can be related to movement, but it first comes from a connection to a quality in stillness.
In my experience, when there is a known quality that can be defined as divinity, and this is felt to the core, then what is clearly not from that same source is easily exposed. But, never is there a judgement on what is not from divinity, it simply is left to be as it is, because despite all that does not make sense in this world, there remains and continues to be the greatest beholding love available to us all. It is the light of our soul which gives us this and it is never tainted by activities that are untoward, or harming.
incredible the lengths we will go to, to distance ourselves for truly connecting and instead checking out from our bodies
This is one of those absurdities that can only happen when 1) someone is willing to compromise a truth (the teacher) and totally sell out, and 2) when the customers / people are demanding something so absurd. A sort of ‘I’d like to experiment with this way of living but only if its on my terms and does not press any of my buttons’. I’d laugh at the absurdity if it was not such a serious bastardisation and its awful to think that something so godly is being used to promote the exact opposite of total disconnection from self.
“The goal of the Yoga-sutras is no less than entire transformation of ourselves, to reconnect to our true Divine essence” – reading this sentence clearly shows that modern day yoga has taken a huge detour from the truth of what yoga is all about.
“…meditation is used to re-connect you to yourself, and alcohol takes you away from yourself”. I am sure people would agree that meditation is used to re-connect but I don’t think it’s generally accepted that alcohol takes you away from yourself, especially amongst the moderate drinkers. Many people would argue that it brings out more of their true self, especially if they lack confidence. However, having now felt my true self and remembering what my alcohol affected self was like they are worlds apart. I may have been louder and sillier, but I have never had so much true confidence, now that I am connected and present in my body.
I feel I did so much harm to my body by practicing yoga, I dread to think what happens when you drink and practice yoga as you will have no sense of how much you can do because your senses would be numb from the alcohol. I imagine people are going to get hurt so I’m just asking myself why on earth is it legal?
We have forgotten where the word yoga comes from. It is union, union with God, union of body and mind, it is a soulful activity and allows us to connect to the stillness inside everyone of us. Alcohol is a stimulant, it excites and takes us away from all that true yoga represents.
When we seek relief that is exactly what we get, which has no true healing in it whatsoever.
While it is convenient to take substances or practices which give the body relief, nothing does anything better for the body then being truthful with it.
I wonder if the current version of “Patanjali’s” yoga, as practised now, is perhaps also not quite in keeping with what Patanjali taught and Beer Yoga, is simply a step further down the ladder into murkiness?
This is exposes what we say is normal, some say it is a novelty, but when alcohol is used to entice Yoga participants, well it says a lot about how we want to be continually stimulated as a humanity, rather than committing to actual healthy pursuits.
I can remember justifying the reason I drank alcohol by claiming that it gave me a feeling of being more confident in myself, and in one sense this was true as I would not feel anxious about speaking to anyone after I’d had a few drinks. However how I then interacted with people would make me cringe the following day when I realised how far away from myself I had come in order to do that. So introducing alcohol into a practice such as yoga which is ultimately about connecting more deeply with ourselves and the divine, is completely back to front, inside out and upside down.
I was talking with someone last night about their diabetes while they were having a drink, and pointed out that a big part of alcohol is the sugar in it. It struck me, as with your situation Sandra, how quick and well thought through was the justification. Amazing at how clever our excuses are to ourselves.
We can roll our eyes and be shocked all we want to all the bastardized versions of Truth in this world, which is truly all expected, but the only way to all of this is to keep getting on with Life in steadiness and consistency nominating all that is not true along the way, but still getting on with it, for it would be wise to not waste any more time and simply to just live what is Truth.
I have never been a fan of yoga but one thing I do know makes sense is that for it to truly work, it must be taken forth out into life and not practised in intervals with life in between. Otherwise it just becomes a relief mechanism.
Yes, yoga is more than exercises.
‘To live a life full of purpose, to develop the ‘kingly body’ that Patanjali spoke of, so we can let go of our hurts and emotions and re-connect to each other and to the simplicity life can be, and – most important of all – to be the love that we naturally are.’ yes this certainly is the life I would like and it is possible as I see people living it and choosing to know that it is not yoga and beer, or moet or anything else that doesn’t support a ‘kingly body.’
We all know absolutely that alcohol disconnects us from who we truly are and clearly has no place with true Yoga which is our way of deepening, our connection with ourselves, our bodies, our soul, our essence and so much more. Wow where are we going to, to allow this bastardisation to occur?
Yoga and alcohol, is a reflection of how far society/humanity has separated from true health and well being, to practice yoga while drinking alcohol not only feels unnatural it also to me feels criminal for anyone who wants to truly connect with their inner self, because under the influence of alcohol this only keeps us further in separation.
‘”Moet and Meditation’? ‘Beer Yoga’? – Where is Patanjali’s Yoga Today?” – and we wonder how come the world is how it is today, in its dire state of affairs of everything opposite to love and the love of Patanjali’s yoga in its origination.
Another trend which is popular at the moment is to smoke weed before, during and after exercise to enhance the workout and to override any physical discomfort.
20 years ago I would have been tempted by this, such was my low self-esteem that I wanted attention and recognition and I thought being flexible could bring me that and that it was sexy. Cannabis is known for its numbing of pain so how easy would it be for someone to not even hear what their body had to say on being stretched too far.
101 ways to bastardise yoga. They are certainly trying! Since the emergence of the esoteric yoga as presented by Serge Benhayon, other forms of yoga has become even more bizarre. The beautiful simplicity of connecting with our true essence, and being able to move through our day knowing who we truly are, is a timeless treasure that esoteric yoga offers.
We have misinterpreted connection with relaxation and loosening up, we think the goal is relaxation and loosening up and have lost the connection that is possible with our essence, our soul. Even though alcohol might relax our muscles or make us lose our boundaries this is not true connection, Next to that definitely we do not need something from outside of ourselves to connect with ourselves and let go of tensions, we can only truly do this by a way of living that is supporting this connection and letting go, never can this be done by a pill, a drink or a substance we take in.
How can beer-goggles help us see anything clearer. It may make us bandier, but we will pay for it later.
“Those who have studied yoga in its true essence know that it is a way of living that is simply about union – union with our self and with God:” The craziness of drinking alcohol, be it beer or champagne, is ridiculous whilst ostensibly practising yoga, which is so far away from the true meaning of yoga that it should be called by another name. Not many people are aware that the asanas – poses – were a comparatively recent addition to yoga practice. I so appreciate Serge Benhayon for returning us to the true essence and meaning of yoga – the union of body. mind and soul.
Much has been basterdised over the years and yoga is one of them. Drinking alcohol while practising ‘yoga’ could not be further away from the truth and it doesn’t surprise me as it seems we want to continually control and manipulate things in order not to feel the truth. Thank absolute goodness for Universal Medicine.
It is great that we are shocked by the likes of beer yoga and moet meditation because the truth is they are shocking in that they make absolutely no sense when we consider the affects of alcohol on us. Alcohol relaxes us by dulling down what we are feeling, true yoga and meditation are tools to support us to connect with ourselves and feel what we are feeling.
The reality of true yoga brilliantly presented, our divine connection with our soul lived by our stillness and movement.
It seems a very important part of life, to have some form of practise which holds a sense of re-connection to our divine essence or source. And this can be seen as important throughout time, our human history is a rich tapestry of rituals and ceremonies all with the true knowing behind them that there is something else besides or beyond this earthly life, with some rituals trying to make sense of it all and some practises offering a kind of guidance or support. What is interesting now however is the way that it would appear that this very fundamental part of being human is becoming somewhat distorted, where the divine source we can all re-connect with does not seem to be so important anymore, and the ritual, practise or ceremony has taken centre stage, thus loosing its true purpose – and so perhaps that is why alcohol has now become a part of some modern yoga practises, because the yoga has lost its soul. Which brings up for me, the question of why…
it seems that we will do anything to avoid connecting to the love we all naturally are. Seems crazy but it is true. We all say love is what we want but we avoid it like the plague.
Our modern day distractions are a long way from what was taught by Patanjali. So what have we actually progressed from and to?
This is how we bring comfort to something and think it is OK. A classic example that means something is not the true imprint of what it is originally there to offer. What Serge Benhayon continues to present is the truth of yoga, what it means and what our relationship with it can be. A very different experience to mindfulness.
Absolutely Serge Benhayon has re-imprinted the truth of Yoga, the true purpose, the truth path to our connection within. When one allows this connection of stillness, the magic is felt within.
I saw a shop the other day that combined yoga and tattooing. Initially a strange combination but then I started feel into the energy behind the combination, perhaps it was to appeal to what is trending at the moment rather than the consciousness that they came with.
I have heard of these sort of events, what is going on…there are also countless yoga teachers and health practitioners etc selling people the dream of ‘well-being’ but are self-abusing with unhealthy patterns of behaviour and emotions that do not support anyone, let alone themselves. It is really up to us to really make a point of discerning the truth or not truth of what someone is saying heals us.
Esoteric Yoga as taught by Serge Benhayon is the most amazing, simple and powerful way for truly bringing Union. The spaciousness I feel in my body after an esoteric yoga session stays with me as I move in the day… beautiful.
The beauty of Esoteric Yoga is that, it is connecting us back to the stillness within of physical body, through the stillness we are able to connect to the divine-ness we are from.
When I took my first yoga class, I could feel that there was something there, beyond just stretching and exercise, I eventually went and lived at a yoga center for a while and started doing more ‘advanced’ yoga classes. Eventually I realized that what I needed was not more rigorous yoga but gentle yoga. But everyone wanted to advance there practice by doing more strenuous yoga. I realized that the yoga had been ‘america-ized’ . Doing more was what it was all about.
I realized that if people truly listened to there body, they would do very gentle yoga.
I feel most of the yoga being done in the world has nothing to do with the true meaning of yoga.
In the past I was a dedicated yoga student and I went along to a 3 week yoga retreat in India one year, each morning we did at least an hour of meditation, one woman was having trouble relaxing during the mediation and the well respected yoga teacher advised her to have a joint before the class to help her to relax. I was astounded by his advice, and from this moment on I began to question yoga and the teachers that where present. From here on I started to see through the illusion of yoga and the consciousness that I was trapped in and how no one was really connected to their heart or practicing true yoga, much the same as your experience Anne, thank you for exposing these behaviours that are in truth harming us and keeping us further away from love and truth.
Avoidance of responsibility is age old, for example bastardising something that is true to make it suit our irresponsible way of living rather than actually examine and change the way we are living to be more supportive.
Words have become cheap, as you have raised here with the case of yoga. It’s always wise to discern whether support is being truly sought to heal, or whether one wants to simply relieve themselves from the tensions and stress of life. Equally, it is for oneself to discern what is truly supportive for one’s body and soul, and what is not.
Beer Yoga … just another one of the many fashionable fads that leads one to the end of a cul-de-sac, nowhere near home (Soul) nowhere.
Having practiced esoteric yoga it is so obvious and clear that anything you do which affects your natural state of being works contrary to the true purpose of yoga and not with it.
And it’s as simple as that.
The mind loves excitement- esoteric yoga has no ounce of excitement, as the soul does not have any kind of drive or needs any enlightenment as it is the light already. We just need to reconnect to it, that can seem kind of “boring”, because it is simple and very quiet, compared to the other, I call them, excercises.
I watched some footage of beer yoga and thought it must have been a joke – I thought it can’t be real? But it seems it is. It seems yoga has become such a thing that you can do to tick the “I’m taking care of my body” box or the “I’m into enlightenment” that you can make it as trendy as you like and it’s still acceptable. My concern is the discernment of humanity.
Yes this is totally concerning Nikki. People have found a way to bring comfort and abuse into an otherwise totally sacred modality. What does this say about us as a human race, that we would choose to bastardise something so sacred and not blink an eye.
How lost humanity is not recognising that these forms of yoga are ‘not it’ and they serve only to take us further away from the truth of our essence.
Absolutely Stephanie – and just how much is humanity seeking new ways to stay lost from what is becoming more difficult to hide from?
I have just completed a 6 day esoteric yoga program and it felt incredible to connect so deeply to the stillness within, I have tried other yogas but none have been so fundamentally life changing as esoteric yoga.
The never ending inventions show us that humanity need to find more and more ways to numb themselves as the awareness that is on offer today is calling us constantly to be more responsible. Everybody can feel this so much instantly, who ever resists that have to find ways to escape this. Because the mind gets bored and get used to things quite easily, so these extremes has to be invented.
The calling is so strong to accept our responsibility that an even greater force must be used to fight this pull!
Something is truly amiss if ‘medication’ is required to meditate. However it is a very clear indication how far humanity is moving away from the essence of truth.
Well said Sandra – meditation is in essence a re-connection to our inner essence, our core being, any type of sedation or ‘medication’ would prohibit that connection and take us further away from our true selves.
There is such a strong call for the reflection of truth by humanity as the degree of denial seems to be flourishing, as you say Eva taking many further away from their essence, the actual connection they are searching for.
Yoga and alcohol is the ultimate in illusion and disconnection from self. A reflection of how we are living today -we want it “all” but the drift is further away from truth.
To answer the question, “Where is Patanjali’s yoga now?” I would say that it is very much alive in Esoteric Yoga. His teachings which focussed on developing awareness and livingness to re-connect with the divine are the central foundation to Esoteric Yoga. There are no bells and whistles, just you, your body and your awareness, which leads to a life rich beyond imagining (and anything beer, Moet, chocolate etc. could never provide!)
Yes,all is not lost. Esoteric yoga has brought me an appreciation of my body that no beer or whatever can bring. I’m writing this knowing there is a depth I am only skimming the surface of, whereby the wonders of the universe lie through the vehicle that is my body.
Great question. Where is the Truth but in us. In our body and the way to let it out is to consistently express it no matter what goes on in the world. Truth is nothing if it is not lived and lived continuously. There is no time to indulge in hurts.
I find this very sad, that as a race we should be so lost that we think alcohol and yoga go together.
It is definitely as Joe indicator that we are way off course.
The alcohol numbs the body and this allows the practice of exercises that the body would find unpleasant or unsuitable at that moment. If the movements were supportive of the body then why would the body need to be numbed by the alcohol and sugar?
“This divine connection with our Soul is yoga in its true, and ageless, essence. Alcohol has no place in that connection.” Absolutely true. Yoga and our connection with our soul as our natural union through stillness in our body is everything .
“I knew (from my study of Raja Yoga) that meditation is used to re-connect you to yourself, and alcohol takes you away from yourself. ” I completely agree, it is the simple truth taught in Raja Yoga, how can alcohol and yoga be mixed, a true bastardisation of the true yoga taught by Patanjali. Complete lack of responsibility from the yoga teachers practicing this way.
They may as well call the Moet and Meditation class .. Disconnection and Distraction class, there is no true yoga there from its true origin.
I’ve noticed that yoga has become more of a ‘tick box’ event than medium through which to connect, as it satisfies the criteria of doing some kind of stretching or stress-relief activity that makes life look okay without addressing the reason WHY we feel so overwhelmed…
I used to want to be a yoga teacher and got really into it all… then I grew out of that phase and I am glad I did because I now see yoga with a very different view point. It is so far from what it was originally all about. Today it seems more about what you look like and a trend and I work as a massage therapist and often meet people who have torn muscles and pain from their over pushing in yoga. What is the point of that?
How much further do we have to go before we see the waywardness of our behaviours? We can go on catering for dysfunction or start a way back to standards that make sense, actually support well-being and call us to take some responsibility for our health.
Well said Matilda – I love your expression ‘catering for dysfunction’ which sums up so well the array of ways we have tried to appease what we truly must know by now is not working.
Yes, alcohol is a good way to manage our awareness, or so it seems.
I find it interesting that the reason given for combining Beer with Yoga, is that it ‘relaxes’ people. As far as my understanding goes, alcohol of any kind is a stimulant! Is the purpose of relaxation not to support the body to come to a point of deep rest or stillness? And if so, the combination of alcohol and any kind of ‘therapy’ that is supposed to be relaxing is surely juxtaposed.
My feeling is that you drink the beer, so you don’t have to feel and in that, you could really damage the body by pushing it way to far than what naturally feels okay. Its actually dangerous.
Oh please don’t get me started here! I get a little bit reactive when I think of all the millions of dollars and time spent on people in hospital because of their crazy behaviours from drinking alcohol. The tax on alcohol does not cover the cost of this. It is us all as tax payers who are paying for it.
“yoga in its true essence know that it is a way of living that is simply about union – union with our self and with God: in other words, union with our Soul.” So if yoga is about union then even if we feel tensed it is good to feel this and let this go by this union with God and our Soul and not to get relief from the tension by alcohol a substance that takes us away from ourselves.
I practised yoga for six years, and if I remember correctly, a lot of the poses required balance, so it makes no sense to bring in a substance that would impair the function of the body.
We entertain truth like an artwork in a gallery. We walk around it, when we find it and admire its qualities. We become experts in its origins, but when we walk back to our life away it is just an abstract idea we think we can take or leave like a slice of cake. What we are here to realise is that true truth has a living reality in your cells and your body that speaks loud. It is known and so conducts your body in a certain flow. Truth is everything that you live not the black and white characters on a page we think it is. The living movements of this truth is real yoga. Thanks Anne for highlighting this bits that don’t add up.
Glamorising yoga and catering for the lowest common denominator is a bastardisation of what true yoga is about, in the name of notoriety and commercialism.
I dabbled in yoga under a guru and definitely found myself overriding my body – I, for one, was not designed for cross legged seating! But you’re right, yoga is the union between body and soul – and thus it should be a practice which encourages this, not just a fad or marketing ploy to get people into yoga studios.
It is interesting that such bizarre and bastardised versions of yoga are appearing at a time when the True Union that is presented in Esoteric Yoga as initiated by Serge Benhayon is available once again for us to choose.
Alcohol stimulates and excites and then numbs one from feeling anything remotely true, Yoga in its true form stills and deepens a person, brings greater awareness of their body, themselves and their connection with their soul, the divine and everything. There is no integrity or sense in putting alcohol and yoga together.
I have just completed an esoteric yoga class and I couldn’t think of anything less appropriate than a glass of champagne. I feel so lovely, why on earth would I want to ruin that?
Yoga as presented by Serge Benhayon, which is aligned to the same Patanjali’s Yoga from before BCE. is so simple because it becomes about our connection with our body and Soul and not about the stretch or move !
Yoga, as anything that could inspire us to re-connect to our essence/Soul has been totally flipped on it’s back, which means the complete opposite of the truth is what’s on offer. I am constantly surprised by how many truths humanity lives in a barstidised form. This is all done to simply keep us away from re-connecting to the lovely flow that is within.
As I was reading this I was wondering if there are yoga chatrooms/websites??? This blog would offer so much if it were re-shared on the internet yoga platforms as an offering of truth.
Great point Toni… a drop of gold in the chaos and madness ‘out there’.
Reading the quote from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras it is incredulous to imagine how drinking alcohol and practicing what is now often considered as yoga can really bear any resemblance to the majesty from which it originated and was purposefully changed to conceal the possibilities it offers.
We have not cherished and protected and upheld the integrity and original quality of many teachings in our history, that have been allowed to become bastardize, muddied and misinterpreted – the question to be asked is why? What is it about the truth that we want to wriggle out of
Behaviors and activities these days are becoming more and more extreme as a means to call out for help. People are feeling so disconnected and so they make choices that do not support them, and are drawn to do things they get to realise were crazy or dangerous only afterwards. It makes me wonder when those who do naked yoga or alcohol yoga will stop to realise what they are actually doing. But whilst we are caught up in an activity or a beahviour, it is hard to see clearly until such time that our true vision returns.
It is crazy that Patanjali’s true yoga has been twisted to the point that it has been today. But what is more crazy is that this has taken off – in other words there is a demand for these things. It appears to me that people are not wanting true connection and are shying away from true union with themselves, but this is also a huge cry for help. Bringing back true yoga is paramount – thankfully there is the movement of True Esoteric Yoga that brings it back to the principles that Patanjali taught, and when presented by a person who lives the Truth, this form of Yoga is super powerful in its true sense of connection and Union.
Yes – the teacher would have to have been very sold out to promote alcohol and yoga together and yet this teacher had traction because those who walked through the doors were aligned with the concept. There would have been no class had everyone else nominated the truth of it. We all have a collective responsibility for expressing and living the truth.
Great point Michelle; what we get is what we ask for even if by default. If we are not living and expressing the truth we are adding to the lies we live with.
Moet tends to stimulate whereas meditation tends to have a stilling effect. It is only the arrogance of the mind or spirit that could possibly conjure up such a combination and justify it as being good for us.
“To deepen our understanding of ourselves and the universe, Patanjali gave us the practical path of yoga, which was given to support human beings to stop being dominated by the mind and to stop taking everything personally, so we could re-connect to our Divinity, to who we truly are, which is so much more than the human body.” The more opportunities humanity gets to interact with this purity and truth the clearer and lighter will be our way forward.
Perhaps it will be Moet, meditation and medication next…
If alcohol affects us by numbing and disconnecting us, it is certainly at odds with a true yoga practice which is about re-connection with our inner essence.
Having lived most of my life in my mind, celebrating my so-called ‘intelligence’ the Esoteric Yoga has brought me to a realisation of the importance of being connected with my body. I lived an exhausting life because my body was always physically doing one thing while my mind was distracted doing several other things at the same time. Staying connected to my body, feeling its response to everything I was doing or thinking has helped me to be aware of the natural gentleness and tenderness that is always there and that I can take into everything I do.
“History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, then as a farce”. I am reminded of this – first yoga got bastardised, then the bastardisation becomes ridiculous. Tattoo yoga? Piercing yoga?
One day we will all wake up to the fact that we are run by one of two energies and start choosing truth over what is not, but in the mean time lots of us still get it wrong. I used to drink a lot of champagne and beer but never ventured in to yoga with it, sounds like a double hammering for the poor old body.
Yes, deep down we all would like to live purposefully. Connection to purpose comes from my body. If I am off I am not in connection to that purpose. Yoga has the ability to support my connection with me, with my divinity but not as it is described here. Here the yoga and Moet is a novelty that distracts from the feeling of emptiness that disconnection from our bodies and our purpose it creates.
What a description of everything that is not true Anne, I had never heard of hot yoga, naked yoga, or the moet and mindfulness. They are all bastardisations from the truth of the true union with yoga to bring us to who we truly are. When this is experienced, there is nothing better than that.
Yes, drinking beer is a sure fired way to prevent us from re-connecting to our divine essence.
It is interesting, your mention of feeling superior about practicing yoga , and whenever I see this with people now, it always looks like an unreal cloak with words and gestures coming from them that do not match the true beauty that is living inside.
Moet and meditation exposes how nuts humanity is, as this is ridiculous
Its a sad reflection of where we have got to as a society, that the very notion of ‘Moet and Meditation’ is an option, let alone a good idea. Where does our own responsibility lie that we have allowed anyone to reach a place where they are able to offer something like this on the basis that it is ‘good for us’?
Of course when we haven´t got our values right and ‘The goal is to make people stress-free, relaxed and happy…’ the methods we use also will only provide what the outcome requires. The moment we align to a true value, ie. something that furthers our true beingness, we will not compromise or confuse the method as we already have a marker in the body that will navigate us to the lived realisation of it.
“It (beer) adds a little bit more relaxation because people tend to be tense when they come… The goal is to make people stress-free, relaxed and happy, and if this means we have to incorporate beer I think that’s perfectly fine and I think that’s encouraged.” (1)
As a fitness instructor i see it as my responsibility to support my clients to observe and release the tension and stress that they may bring to the session. By offering movements that re-align posture, weight dispersal and encourage greater bodily awareness, clients can bring themselves to a point of relaxation and homeostasis which can then be walked into their everyday.
An alcoholic beverage will serve to bury this tension and stress and dull the clients bodily awareness – this fad is an involutionary/counter healing contract between client and teacher and I find it hard to imagine taking payment for this session!
I have never been much of a yoga person before I attended Esoteric Yoga. I am glad I have not had to undo all the false versions of Yoga from my body and mind. I have always been presented with the simple understanding that Yoga means Union, with our divine selves in everyday life. This is the way we cook, sleep, work, make love and has nothing to do with pretzel like positions, Moet or chocolate!
For us to accept that alcohol has no true place in meditation lies hand in hand with our acceptance that alcohol offers zero, zilch and absolutely no true good for us in any way shape and form.
True Joshua. The introduction of alcohol into yoga just shows how the truth that alcohol is actually a poison to the body is not widely known or accepted. In fact it is a fact that is resisted. It’s an intentional step away from divinity.
It’s interesting how the very essence of what Yoga truly means, as presented by Patanjali is distorted, manipulated and re-packaged to mis-inform and keep a person distant from the truth of what it ‘Yoga’ means… to be in union with your Soul.
It really does highlight the responsibility we have when we present on anything when we set ourselves up as a ‘teacher’ or presenter.
I agree Victoria – the integrity and responsibility of the presenter is something to truly discern.
Although we may all truly want to return to the connection to our Soul and to God it is not what society, overall, is asking for. This means that these untrue versions and combinations of yoga with other things is answering that question instead. As more people experience the reflection of those who are connecting to their Souls so will more make the same choices and eventually the solutions will need to change to truth.
If true yoga is about union within and without, is it not something that can be developed in all our daily movements and a quality that we can carry throughout our day rather than being just confined to a set of postures?
Two options available to deal with the unsettlement we all have with life and ourselves – facing it and exploring the path of return by identifying the what is and the what is not as Patanjali taught or indulging deeper in all forms of numbing and distraction of whatever colour or shade like Moet-, beer- or chocolate-yoga. Both deal with the unsettlement, one by resolving it, the other by increasing it.
Yes so true, do we react to what we feel and the call to union, or do we respond and begin to walk the steps back to our reconnection.
It’s the pure modalities like this that help us make the powerful steps forward for all humanity.
The difficulty may be that one would have to go to the roots with Patanjali, perhaps not the more accessible versions of each?
I found this article on Patanjali very inspiring, http://www.unimedliving.com/ageless-wisdom/the-lineage/patanjali-the-great-indian-sage-and-teacher-of-the-ageless-wisdom.html.
Well said Alex – it feels we always have this choice of two options in life in all situations we experience, we can be open to letting go of what is not and healing or pulling in more to try and bury deeper that which we have held on to previously.
Perhaps for people who feel a little bit threatened by the depth that is offered through yoga it is easier to bring in things that take away from the power of it. Doing a yoga class drinking alcohol is no different to going down the pub. It only serves to make people feel more comfortable about their ill choices, and does nothing to help them heal or to be more vital. They are totally missing out on the love and union available, and the sacredness they can connect to in their own bodies.
I am equally shocked, I find it quite unusual what you are describing, I cannot believe they are now promoting beer and yoga?? What a great article that clearly exposes how far we have drifted from true connection over the years.
It says much about a yoga ‘practitioner’ who, is unsteady in themselves and are incapable of bringing a group to stillness, and then resorting to alcohol. It also shows how vulnerable and desperate some people are, unable to discern between truth and the blatantly false and corrupt.
There’s so many different types of yoga that you can join, try out and move onto if you still haven’t found what you were looking for in the first instance, but it seems that these varying forms are getting more and more extreme to ‘catch’ humanity and get them to join. You could spend your whole life jumping from one form of yoga to another, but what if it wasn’t truly for you and/or it was actually a big distraction from something else that would support you to accelerate, evolve and connect truly?
Yoga in this case is just a word, a word like many that has lost its true meaning and there must be thousands of people out there practicing so called yoga after smoking weed as well.
Indeed, in this case yoga is ‘just’ a word, a word that brings big business.
It’s interesting how, when something is introduced into circulation it becomes easily accepted and the norm when prior to that it’s a shock of disbelief. It’s like the world is getting more shocking and what was once felt to be at odds with our inner wisdom is now diluted by things being a reality that were unimaginable previously. So it’s so important to not get side tracked by what is deemed normal and continue to listen to what one’s body feels.
I find it interesting how we seem to have dismissed the ability to be discerning about what is of true support or not – it seems like whatever new and ‘cool’ concept is invented, people go along without any reservation.
This is so true Eva. We really are getting to a point where it seems like many people are not even wanting to discern for themselves what is ture and what is not, and are all too happy to be swept along by the latest craze. However the price we pay for not feeling what is true for us, gets bigger the more disconnected we become from ourselves.
There seems to be no end to the ways we can distort truth, love, health etc and still be convinced that we are doing well and right. Probably to somehow stand the lack of truth in our lives we need to have the illusion of truth otherwise the pain would be too obvious and unbearable. But it is even worse, we love to be unloving as long as we feel in power of the creation we choose to create.
It seems that yoga has such a consciousness attached to it that you can tick that box and it means you are doing something about self enlightenment, so drinking beer or Moet or even doing it naked are all irrelevant and are perhaps seen as modern yoga or even yoga “evolving”, they all are irrelevant as that enlightenment box is ticked so you need not look at anything else. It’s not quite how evolution works and is a clear example of something being side swiped.
If we have reinterpreted the original meaning and purpose of yoga then what other healing practices have we changed to be far less than their original purpose and impress?
The true purpose of Yoga is to raise awareness, now we all know from experience, that eating chocolate is a surefire way to avoid awareness, hence now I see it like this, definitely this form of ‘yoga and chocolate’ are just ‘belt and braces’ precaution against connecting to truth.
It should not surprise us that modern day yoga has been de-based out of all recognition, it simply reflects how de-based as a society we’ve become. Anything goes, and without mandatory ethical standards attached to yoga teaching this is the consequence. No more is yoga about union with our divine essence, it has become a marketable product used to make money, not further the evolution of mankind.
‘Anything goes’ – Exactly Kehinde, we have dismissed our inner compass, which really would be the only ethical standard needed should we choose to apply it.
Beautiful EvaI, connected to God our inner compass is the only ethical standard needed.
Yes, it’s very much is a reflection of society how anything goes that even what is promoted as providing wellbeing is so far from this.
Yoga has become a ‘business opportunity’ not a commitment to serve and enlighten with integrity.
Well said Kehinde – a business cashing in on the desire of the masses to not feel what life has become for them through their own choices.
“…doing yoga while drinking ice cold beer… ” Its interesting how such fads and fashionable ideas pop up as a way to reduce the very essence and original purpose of Yoga. The intention here to reduce the original essence and truth of Yoga is very clear.
There are many shocking things on earth and they are shocking because it has diverted so far from the truth. Because of this shock I have worried, sympathized, felt hurt, detached from this mess for a long long time. To come back to simply saying it as it is and accepting this, is where we have collectively chosen and are at, holding myself steady and light, appreciating all that I find challenging and in the process, I am supported to keep going by none other than the quality felt within, which is asking to be expressed.
I love the quote ‘it complements the joy of drinking beer and the mindfulness of yoga” – the paradox of drinking which is generally used to check out, numb ourselves, take the edge off, or find relaxation in the artificial stimulation. And then there is Yoga, designed to reconnect, develop a relationship with ourselves and our bodies.
How is that? instead of evolving from what a teacher like Patanjali offered to humanity, we bastardize and reduce the most liberating teachings to indulge in something that takes us completely away from who we are, in the illusion of still practicing the truth? It´s a choice, a choice to delay evolution for as long as possible.
This is crazy and no different from a chocolate & cheese pizza or a cotton wool ball diet (I kid you not, curbing hunger by eating orange juice soaked cotton wool)
In seeking greater extremes we are actively choosing to self abuse – there is a desperation in this behaviour that is deeply unsettling.
And it is no ‘accident’ or fluke that yoga is being so twisted, with versions lapped in chocolate, beer, sexual overtones etc. Yoga in truth is absolutely sacred, a profoundly simple and powerful practice where you cannot but through your own body feel the divinity of our origins. This is a fact. And hence the drive, deliberate and evil to sully this sacred modality and make it more and more difficult in its true version to be accessed.
I agree Katerina – this is very true Katerina and it feels that to bastardise true yoga with these things, would not be possible in one step, such is the deviation away from truth first to false forms of yoga with only part of truth, until it can reach a point when it is practiced with chocolate, champagne etc. Of course this too would not be possible if people were not asking for something to hide the effects of the way they have lived and moved over time.
The true sacredness of yoga has been bastardised for a long time – now the ridiculous extremes that are being adopted reveal the desperation that is there in our society – a desperation to go to whatever extreme is possible to stop the deep seated pain of disconnection – a disconnection that is chosen and held on to with stubborn pride.
This blog goes to show that when we are presented with a modality or practice which is of truth, we want to carry in all of what we so called want or ‘need’ to be a part of that, but it may not necessarily be a part of the truth.
I have noticed, on many occasions, how these kind of groups can be attended mostly because everyone actually just wants to be with other people, to share in an experience together. I suppose however that it is the next step to look at the quality of this meeting as a group and to learn about responsibility and integrity in group work.
Indeed Shami we come together to connect and here we walk away separate.
The irresponsibility is enormous….if they want to stretch and carry on naked, drinking etc fine, it’s you’re right but just don’t call it yoga! This is actually testimony to the true yoga that is now being brought back to us through Esoteric Yoga founded by Serge Benhayon, which is in turn founded on Patanjali’s teachings….feels like a pretty huge knee jerk reaction from a consciousness that knows it’s had its day.
‘ I have found that I no longer have the sense of superiority I felt because I ‘practised yoga’ – a superiority that I notice many yoga teachers and practitioners seem to have.’
This arrogance is something I’ve noticed in many activities that people put time and effort into to become good at something and the hope of getting recognition. I’ve done this with many things to hide the insecurity I felt as a result of not being in connection with my body and committing to being present. Instead, especially when I was younger, I committed to ‘making sacrifices’, ‘going through pain barriers’ to get attention and kudos and prove I’m tough and shouldn’t be messed with (!). I overrode my body letting me know I didn’t have to do this at all, I could just have a relationship with myself and others based on love, not protection.
I agree with you, is very sad to see how some people just want to deviate this practice to something that is not. Unfortunately, this is what happens when something is buzzing, but I gotta believe true yogis will never surrender to this kind of classes.
It seems that the yoga that is being practised nowadays is actually not doing anything for them just leaving them more empty and to not feel this emptiness alcohol is being introduced. One has to just shake their head.
Patanjali’s yoga is long forgotten. Yoga these days is more focused on the physical aspects rather than a deep connection with oneself and God. Including alcohol is totally absurd.
Revealing how we try to turn our unhealthy behaviours into anything to do with health so we can justify continuing to do them…clearly this is all unhealthy behaviour no matter if it’s called ‘meditation’ or ‘moderate alcohol consumption’.
Returning to the true meaning of Patanjali’s Yoga being union with self and the divine is the only way forward. No other re-interpretation , fad or gimmick is going to support anyone to get their connection, and the idea of alcohol and meditation could not be further from the truth.
What a great article Anne. The roots of yoga are simple, to be in union with one’s divine nature. I agree alcohol has no place in this and it has turned yoga into a distraction, like going shopping or for a night out with your mates. I found this quote very poignant. “Since letting go of this [yoga] consciousness and changing what and how I teach, I have noticed that I am stronger and more flexible than I was before’! This shouldn’t make sense if it supports you to surrender to your divine self. If people need alcohol, heat, chocolate, nakedness etc to relax at a yoga class, this says there is something seriously wrong with the practice.
Well the good thing about this is that it presents to us the possibility to discern what is true and what is not. The soul does not judge. If we think that doing yoga is about stretching, getting sweaty and perhaps in this case also getting drunk, tipsy, or perhaps relaxed then so be it. If this is true, which it most clearly is not, then let those that think it’s true do their thing. If we connect a little deeper and apply what yoga is actually about, union with our true essence, as you shared, then we can get on with it, and not dig our heals in the decadence we live in right now. The great thing is that these things expose themselves as ridiculous.
When I look back to when I was younger I would do many things for ‘a laugh’ and joined the culture of ‘oh it doesn’t matter’ and I feel this is a similar thing. Instead of seeing alcohol as the poison to the body it truly is we kind of jokingly incorporate it into our lives. For example lately I have really been aware of how Proseco is in everything even to front door mats with ‘we drink Proseco here’. So I am not surprised that someone thought of beer drinking yoga. The beautifull things is though despite just how far we have come from our truth it cannot be ignored and at some point it HAS to be felt and we have to come back .. the choice is how do we want to do this?
Condemning anyone because of their choices or behaviours is a judgement that does nothing to support them, but making the commitment in our own life to reflect responsibility and in this case truly connect with ourselves can offer other people an inspiration, step up and evolution.
Beautiful Susie, we’re called to be aware, observe what is out there, false and corrupted, not to condemn but hold steady and true to ourselves inspiring others by how we live and the choices we make.
And don’t forget Chocolate Yoga! How to get totally our of our body and as far away as possible from the Divine Union that true Yoga offers, in one session. Too silly for words, and laughable – if it didn’t have such utterly serious consequences – the desecration of our connection with our inner Divine Essence.
Chocolate Yoga?! That even goes against general dietary advice of don’t eat whilst exercising. I wonder if I can guess at why they say it works- something about chocolate producing certain chemicals in the brain and this enhancing the experience or allows greater access to whatever is trying to be achieved? If we don’t choose to discern we allow ourselves to be freely led away from our connection with self.
It could be the tryptophan in chocolate (that raises the serotonin levels in the brain) that adds to the bliss – that they’re using the yoga to deliver.
Where have we come to when we believe Moet and beer is the way to union?
A very very long way away from who we truly are, there is no doubt….
Do we even consider that our movements that make up our living each day are either walked in connection or disconnection with union? To be presenting yoga in truth our connection within our own bodies is essential.
Yes, great point. Do we need to numb out from listening to our bodies say this way of moving in yoga isn’t feeling so great!
“They are here for a ‘Moet and Meditation’ class.” Yes, you heard that correctly!’ – I certainly understand why you emphasized that Anne, it is hard to believe what is playing out under the banner of ‘yoga’.
It is ironic that alcohol, a known depressant is also used as a social lubricant. I used to drink and party a lot. When I stopped drinking, at parties I would find it sad to observe how much people rely on alcohol to feel more ‘free’ so called and confident. There is nothing freeing about the impact alcohol has on ones body as it is depleting.
This “lubricant” is pretendingly lubricating us leaving us dead stiff the next day. The greatest form of “lubricant” is to connect and appreciate that connection with other people. There is nothing greater than saying yes feeling the loveliness of other people.
Yes, the recent sexual allegations about Tibetan lama Sogyal Rinpoche also illustrate that corruption can slip into any teaching, once we take a single irresponsible step and lose sight of what is true for the continual evolution of humanity.
Hear hear Janet – what’s behind the facade is not always what it appears to be – true discernment is of great importance.
True Janet, and something for us all to deeply ponder. We are all, without vigilance, open to the same degree of corruption ‘once we take a single irresponsible step and lose sight of what is true for the continual evolution of humanity’.
Reading this article, I’m left with a sense that we, as a society, are looking for ways to ‘justify’ and ‘feel better’ about doing something that we know isn’t good for us, but we want to do it anyway – we want to drink the champagne and beer to numb how we are feeling, rather than getting honest about the way we are choosing to live, and ticking the yoga box allows us to feel better about doing so. Yet, in doing so, we are digging an even deeper hole for us to fall into, and the climb back out just gets harder and steeper as we fall.
I thought yoga was supposed to help you relax and re-connect, that’s why you do it, so why would you want to have a beer to make you go all fuzzy and disconnected?
This is a great example of how we sugar coat or hide the truth of what we’re seeking out; beer hiding behind the facade of yoga and yoga hiding behind beer… Regardless of the way you see it, you can ‘justify’ either action in society with the excuse of the other, e.g. “Oh but there’s beer included” or “Oh but it’s still yoga”.
Within we know absolutely that these extremes do not serve us, in turn we use justification to counter this knowing.
There is much about our world that we have created that has become so far removed from its original purpose and/or meaning that some things are almost unrecognisable from their original meaning today. Its rather like Chinese whispers, in that it only takes one person to misinterpret or misunderstand the true meaning of something, and so the bastardisation begins until it escalates into something almost unrecognisable.
I love how you have raised the topic of ‘Chinese whispers’, Sandra. It so illustrates how such a pure form of yoga came to be in so many astoundingly disregarding ones nowadays. Many have been given the inspiration of how to change it to suit the needs of the time, but one could stop and ask just where do those whispers/thoughts come from? They certainly are not from a divine source.
As someone who taught yoga for 15 years, I can honestly say that it would have been more honest of me to have been pulling pints in a pub because the type of yoga that I taught numbed people out in exactly the same way as beer does. At least if I’d been serving beer everyone would have known what I was doing but with the yoga I was actually doing the complete opposite of what I was purporting to be doing. Basically I was teaching disconnection rather than connection.
That’s a really good point you make Alexis. Not that beer yoga should be applauded in any way, but it’s certainly more honest and transparent than the arrogant Vinyasa poses that purport to take you to enlightenment and back again.
I agree Alexis, the consciousness of modern day yoga is corrupt to the core and a lie.
Having done all the drugs and alcohol bit, I now know that true union can never be achieved with such substances. Facing the raw truth of how I treated my body and my self has been challenging at times, but choosing to face and feel that in my body has over time enabled me to un-earth my very genuine, beautiful qualities buried beneath all the alcohol and rubbish. True yoga needs nothing more than a gentle breath and a commitment to re-connect to our authenticity.
The list of things that alcohol is a connection with, is like a wedge! The union of a marriage has a raised glass. Wetting the head of a new child. Victory’s of any competitions, including war… are all places that alcohol should be an uninvited guest!
Wow Jane, I haven’t considered this, what a great point you’ve raise here. It shows how much our bodies do know what is true and what is not because if we are not willing to listen to its messages, the most common way to numb it is the use of alcohol.
“Many have experienced the joy of truly connecting to their Soul and to God, and from there have felt the Oneness that we are all from. Is this not what, deep down, we all truly want? To live a life full of purpose, to develop the ‘kingly body’ that Patanjali spoke of, so we can let go of our hurts and emotions and re-connect to each other and to the simplicity life can be, and – most important of all – to be the love that we naturally are.” This paragraph is music to my ears and body-it feels true!
Wow, it is amazing how far we will go to try and take something originally designed for connection and turn it into something for further disconnection.
‘To deepen our understanding of ourselves and the universe, Patanjali gave us the practical path of yoga, which was given to support human beings to stop being dominated by the mind and to stop taking everything personally, so we could re-connect to our Divinity, to who we truly are, which is so much more than the human body.’ – thank you for sharing this, Anne, it is so important to understand the true origin of any practice we are choosing to be a part of, without this we are partaking in someone’s re-interpretation of the original truth and, therefore, what energy are we aligning to as a consequence?
When you consider that Yoga in essence is about Union and reconnection to our body and being, it is a complete bastardisation of the truth of yoga to associate it with alcohol, chocolate, paddle boards and the many other creative takes which have nothing to do with connection to Soul. How far removed and ridiculous can we get?
With our free will, I am sure we have not seen the end of the limits we can take to distance ourselves further away from our Soul.
Yes our ‘creations’ have no freedom at all in truth, and that’s the falsity we can fall for… leading us further not closer to that which we are looking for, communion and connection.
This is truly shocking how it has been twisted and re-intepreted so far from the truth of union with the body. Being in the mind and drinking alcohol are not the way to find connection, this is just the latest fad, but very false and untrue.
Just commenting earlier on this thread on how no drugs can ever compare to the feeling of connecting to your soul, then I had the understanding that when we take drugs for euphoric feelings, we may be seeking something we know innately – what love feels like – but we have not lived and hence we search most often in places that will never deliver the truth. How appreciative and humbled I feel to have had the experience many, many times of being connected with my soul through the healing modalities and teachings of the Ageless Wisdom. It really is something to know in your body without any doubt that there is divinity and it resides within your body.
I agree, Vanessa, the blessing of feeling the soul within the body is something worth more than any amount of money in the world, and with it comes the responsibility to reflect that divinity in every day life so that others too have the opportunity to recognise it within themselves.
A very brilliant expose of the madness we have come to when we are mixing alcohol and yoga and considering this as normal and/or making sense in any way.
How far away we can venture from our truth…
This really exposes how crazy our world has become when we can think that drinking alcohol goes fine with meditation and or yoga… how can a mind altering substance possibly support a person in meditation or yoga?!
I find this really fascinating, Anne. It is being acknowledged that people are struggling more than ever to relax or be content in themselves, but there is little deeper reflection about this, instead adopting an avoidant ‘have a beer’ approach.
From reading your blog is seems there is a great misinterpretation of what true yoga does, which is connecting us to our Soul, when the goal is for relaxation and stretching the body. Alcohol takes us away from our body and our Soul and has no place in True Yoga.
The trend for such activities as ‘beer with yoga’ is a reflection of just how much people are aware that their life is unfulfilling and has no true purpose that they are so desperate they will try anything.
I feel this exposes that intentions of those seeking the meditation and yoga – not to reconnect and develop awareness and presence, but to check out and not feel the effects of the choices that they have been making.
And further down the slippery slope humanity slides – further away from a true and natural way of being that is equally possible for all. The Ancient Wisdom Teachings as presented and lived consistently by Serge Benhayon, offers the true reflection of what living from love is when me make different choices..
There are not many things that surprise me, I’ve seen cat yoga (cats jump all over you) bunny and dog yoga (same thing, different animals) and a whole host of other ‘yogas’ that have left me shaking my head… but the Moet and meditation thing is even crazier than the rest – Even in my drinking days I knew that there was no point meditating after alcohol consumption – it’s a glamourised version of zonking out at best! Honestly cannot believe it. Thank you for presenting true yoga. It is disturbing that something so pure has so many seeking to bastardise it.
The decision to couple alcohol, yoga and meditation together is clear evidence to me that the quality of the classes are dropping, as the teachers are having to compromise the integrity of the practice to entice people to attend. I know from my own experience that when a teacher embodies the true purpose of yoga, connection to the God within, the integrity of the connection is all the advertising that is needed, with no artificial enticements required.
The interesting thing about free will is that there is no line that cannot be crossed! One only needs to look at what is now excepted as normal. We have done the drugs and meditation but that was a limited audience. But, most people like to drink! How far down this road are we willing to go, or is it truly endless the means we will take to keep us away from who we are?
I find it very interesting that Anne is stronger and more flexible today than when she was practicing yoga. The consciousness around practicing yoga every day has been a big one for me, thinking I had to practice every day to stay supple and flexible, but I am beginning to have a sense that this is not the case. Boy, the beliefs and ideals I have taken on around exercise and yoga are huge, but by simply calling out that which is not true in my unfolding, is supporting me no end to deepen the connection to my body in my movements through exercise and practicing what I know now to be true, Esoteric Yoga.
Anne I was not aware of how far away yoga has gone from its true origin. Perhaps these days it is not everybody “cup of coffee” to walk the way back to their soul as it is much easier to stretch the original meaning of yoga to yoga and beer or champagne – as to face what is underneath.
“Those who have studied yoga in its true essence know that it is a way of living that is simply about union – union with our self and with God: in other words, union with our Soul.” One cannot connect with Union with ones soul with substances that disconnect you from your connection to God.
Anne, I too am shocked to have just read what you have shared. It sure is a true bastardisation to what Patanjali taught in the True Yoga Sutras. Where is the responsibility of these teachers incorporating alcohol with yoga and bastardising the pure teaching of the ageless wisdom.
The ways in which we choose to delay our return to God are getting more and more elaborate but none the less they still all remain ‘ways in which we choose to delay our return to God’.
I have tried Yoga a few times in my life but nothing brought me the sense of stillness I get from Esoteric Yoga sessions that truly help me to connect with my body. I am becoming much more aware of how often my thinking takes me away from my body.
Our spirit knows no end to vairiety of flavours it will make, but what it fails to grasp is that everything is embarks on is the same, all a futile attempt to delay realising its true divinity. Thank you Anne.
I do wonder what will come next… Pimms and prayers? Cognac and communion? All just our way of feeling good and being irresponsible.
Every movement we make amplifies the energy that we are aligning to within our body. When we are moving with our soul energy, love, the love and light that we are is felt very strongly throughout each and every cell in our body. When we drink alcohol, it numbs our body, making it harder to feel anything, having alcohol flowing through our veins encourages separation and the energy we are aligning to is the complete opposite to love, it is harming us. Therefore, every movement we then make throughout a yoga class, is harming us and being amplified throughout our body.
To see people are falling for this type of enticement into doing Yoga or any other meditative exercise shows how gullible we are, and also desperate to be seen to be keeping up with the latest trends. Unfortunately with this, we are doing great harm to the evolution of Mankind!
“It (beer) adds a little bit more relaxation because people tend to be tense when they come… The goal is to make people stress-free, relaxed and happy, and if this means we have to incorporate beer I think that’s perfectly fine and I think that’s encouraged.” – we can manipulate the truth and justify anything we want to when we are set on doing something, if we avoid feeling the truth in our bodies first.
Wow Anne, beer and yoga, what can I say? It really says it all. It’s the complete opposite to what yoga is all about, separation compared to true connection.
Time for truth, our bastardisation of all things true seems to have no limits what so ever. Oil and water do not mix, neither is the tool to support connection with divinity a union with the ingredient that is the direct opposite of this – something that contracts us and alters our understanding of what is true. It is well know that driving and alcohol doesn’t mix – why would we think alcohol mixes well with our true-well being?
It feels like trying to blend the two is an excuse to soften the abuse and excuse of alcohol. The question that comes to me, is it ok to hurt someone if we give them sweets? In fact as I type this, I wonder how many children are lured into a false sense of ‘trust me – I’m your friend’ for example, like the beer yoga.
As people we can be very good at making certain actions ok by attaching some semblance of logic to them. Many people say a drink relaxes them; add this onto another activity that is meant to relax people – yoga and meditation, then surely you’re got a winner?! If I evaluated this from my body I know this isn’t true – just a taste of alcohol sends my body into a panic and many meditations and yoga are at odds with me being more in my body. The less present in my body the more I disregard its voice, the more I accept mind-fed justifications which allow the mind to dominate at the expense of my health – both mentally and physically.
The Divine word Yoga has been thoroughly bastardised as have pretty much every other Divine word such as Love, Religion, Soul, God etc. Some of these are reclaimed with great audio and quotes at Unimedpedia: http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia
The twisting of true offerings on living as a soul in a human body is a clearly recognisable pattern throughout history. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise alcohol takes you away from who you are and that going to an body movement class to reconnect whilst drinking alcohol at the same time, is ridiculous.
Amazing – this week I have my first experience of parties and drinking. Having before now never spent time around drunk or drinking people I never really saw the way the alcohol takes a person out so they are no longer there and it is like something else is in their place. How is this state of being conducive to re-connecting and developing a relationship with who we are?
The means to deal with the stresses of life are needing to become more bizarre and extreme to counter the very natural quality of love that calls us from every angle.
Indeed Anne we have come a long way since those first early Patanjali’s teachings, so far of track! As you say what we have nowadays is a complete and utter bastardisation of those teachings.
It is utterly ridiculous that this is offered to people in the guise of increasing their connection to the body while drinking beer. Anyone who drinks alcohol knows they check out form whatever is going on in life. It exposes the level of ignorance and arrogance of the presenters but also there is a demand for something different, no matter what it is, to distract and check out more.
How good are we in fooling ourselves. Yoga is, just for the word yoga, considered to be good for you. With the examples you share the word and the true meaning of yoga are bastardized and we get role models that represent it is ok to check out and numb yourself everywhere.
Although not the same I remember being at a Christian wedding ceremony in which the vicar opened a can of beer and drank half of it likening it in some way to the qualities and values of marriage. Poses the question of where do such crazy thoughts/ideas come from.
The existence of beer yoga and moet meditation tells us that the way we are living is not true because if it was we would not need these practices.
Feels like the false yoga and meditation just are doing the trick on their own now that adding alcohol bring more opportunity to check out and not feel.
Moet and Meditation exposes how far away from ourself we can go when we are caught up in spirituality.
I am interested to know whether the waitress you asked the question to responded with a straight face. I would love to do a bit of a survey and see whether others think this actually supports your body and soul.
If you can murder and rape in the name of religion I guess you can combine yoga and alcohol.
It seems to me the body relaxes when it has alcohol because it is drugged by the poison that alcohol is. How can this be seen as a way of connecting to your soul? I feel we are choosing to be very blinkered if we see this as beneficial.
True Yoga: “Those who have studied yoga in its true essence know that it is a way of living that is simply about union – union with our self and with God: in other words, union with our Soul. ” – we cannot accept anything less than this as a True form of yoga.
If it were not so misleading and damaging, I would find this activity of beer and yoga or Moet and Meditation absolutely hilarious! Sadly, to me though, I see this as something that is not supporting our women to be true to themselves and care for themselves. Women in our society are already lost enough, we do not need activities like this to take advantage of them. But at the same time we have to realize that these women are choosing this for themselves, and putting themselves (dare I say), in a position of ridicule no different to the Emperors New Clothes…So true self care and true self nurturing are called for in this case and neither of these deeply building activities goes hand in hand with beer or moet or alcohol, nor any form of yoga that aligns with such a philosophy for that matter.
Knowing the fact that alcohol separates us from ourselves and that yoga is about union, connection to ourselves, it makes no sense whatsoever that there is any benefit in combining the two. In fact, it would seem to be absolutely harming to a body that I have come to know, hates having alcohol poured into it but loves the connection and the joy that yoga offers. It appears to me to simply be another money-making venture that takes advantage of the fact that so many do not question what they are being presented with and whether it is healing for their body.
Very well said Ingrid, what you’ve shared is so true. It is horrible when we can see so clearly that people are being taken advantage of because perhaps they are not considering to stop to question what is true and what is not. To me this is a classic example of giving our power away when we follow a trend or what is being sold without discerning the energetic quality first.
Unfortunately with how yoga is currently taught (and I must add, how I taught it for 15 years), drinking beer is actually my preferred option to practicing yoga. I was going to add that this is because drinking beer doesn’t disguise itself as something it isn’t, but then I reconsidered because the marketing industry has glamourised the drinking of poison (beer) to make it appeal to the masses as something very alluring and almost seductive.
Wow thanks Anne for talking about the true origins of yoga and its original purpose. It is very interesting how things get reinterpreted and twisted from their original meaning and purpose.
One of the saddest things about what’s currently happening to Yoga, is that we are moving so far away from the meaning of what Yoga is, that it’s meaning will eventually change so that no-one will know that Yoga is about Union – living a life in union with our soul.
Yes, Jennifer, what this blog exposes is that humanity is at a point of great disconnection and very far from from a state of union with the soul. What kind of crisis will it take for us to come to our senses?
The two modern versions of yoga you mention Anne, reflect the way things are developing in other areas – especially food and clothes. It is the mix and match syndrome, joining ingredients together to bring in sales and make profit. It’s a big sell to use as bait for all of us, it is like unconscious fish swimming in the ocean with the promise of a “better life” which is an illusion.
I remember being quite shocked when I stayed in an ashram in India and during one of the yoga classes a girl passed out because she had been smoking marijuana before hand. Smoking was very common in the ashram and most the staff looked ill, zoned out and depressed. It was the turning point for me where I realised that yoga like this was not the answer.
Every time I read this title about Moet and Meditation it hits home to me how far away from truth we have wandered. Universal Medicine stands as a beacon of light to help us come out of the shadows of irresponsibility and illusion.
I have always been interested in yoga and meditation but never took it up because I couldn’t pinpoint why I didn’t feel drawn to practice it. Now, it makes sense to me why I had hesitations, because it is a version of yoga and mediation that is very far away from the true essence of yoga.
For me reading the title is running a vibration through my body of how far has humanity gone to corrupt the true teachings of the ageless wisdom. How empty of love and responsibility has humanity become… absolute shocker.
The yoga that most indulge in is far from the origin, and for a lot of people it is just a trend and not a way of life, or it is a way of life but far from the truth that can be connected to.
I agree for most people it is a trend and a way of life that is far from its truth. It is an excuse and another form of indulgences, the true essences is lost.
It is so supportive to read about the true origins and purpose of yoga – very inspiring as it touches the purpose we all feel inside.
So…we are feeling a bit outside of ourselves, so we decide to attend a yoga class. We are served alcohol that takes us even further away from ourselves and then we proceed to move our bodies in a way that cements and expands that separation…but, the real evil is that, having drank the alcohol, we are then shutting ourselves down from the one form of communication (that which our body tells us), making it impossible for us to discern whether these movements are actually supporting our body. I make no judgement on each specific type of Yoga, but to actively turn off the truth of our bodies by poisoning them with alcohol is a sign of the very deep hole we are in.
Unfortunately many people who do yoga believe that they are being more ‘themselves’ when they are practicing yoga and I like many other people felt exactly the same way when I drunk alcohol, I thought that it was ‘loosening me up’ so that I was able to be more honest and therefore more of my ‘authentic self’. Not true. Not true at all.
I agree Alexis. I believed that when I had a drink I felt more confident, but it was a false confidence and not the true me at all. I was more aware of this being the case when I witnessed friends at parties after a few drinks, where they just became loud and very self oriented. Yet we accept alcohol (poison) as a normal part of society despite the havoc it can play out in families, with addiction and money that could be used for good nutrition etc. instead.
“Providing the wherewithal for us to reconnect to our Divine nature and true state of being”, as a yoga teacher not only did I not teach this but what I taught actively prevented people from accessing the true purpose of yoga. How cunning and sinister that something that was originally designed to re-connect us to God is now used to prevent us from knowing who he is. Traditional religion has the same bastardised bent.
Some super interesting comment about what we have done with the original purpose of yoga and the realisation that this is the same as we have done with many ancient and true teachings.
Yoga has become about identification of self, when in truth it is a process that eventually leads to the total abolition of self.
Brilliant Alexis, it is so true. The bastardisation of Yoga is a delay to this process you are referring to and it will eventually be fully exposed.
People the world over are choosing to check out from the underlying tension that they constantly feel and it doesn’t matter how they do it, as long as they manage to scramble the body’s messages in some way. It’s like the whole world has it’s fingers in it’s ears and is saying ‘nah, nah, nah, nah’ in an attempt not to hear the body and what it is saying.
It’s a little like Alice in Wonderland asking for two impossible things before breakfast – the idea that yoga (intended to bring you back to yourself) and alcohol (take you away) can somehow work together makes no sense, and it reflects something broader in how we’ve allowed the bastardisation of something true to fit our current lifestyle and suitable truth, and we will find any excuse and combination under the sun to do so. This is pure irresponsibility – true yoga is to connect to the stillness within and in doing so we know our own divinity.
“Where is Patanjali’s Yoga Today?” – yes, we may well ask that though the thing is also Anne , is that the name “Patanjali” let alone “Patanjali’s Yoga” has also been resolutely corrupted and perverted.. the name alone doesn’t give something authority or credence unless what it bestows is true energetically i.e fiery and from true source i.e. soul… All else/usages/labelling are just abuse and ways to gain grandeur out of something that is truly grand through being true of God’s light.
People know how much alcohol disconnects them from themselves – we having sayings like ‘they were beside themselves, I’m a different person when I drink (alcohol), they weren’t themselves’…etc, so we do know how it affects us. So to add alcohol to yoga is a great way to deliberately bastardise a modality that offers true union with self and deep connection with our bodies.
What I felt reading this blog was, what is the true intention behind this offering? It is clearly not to teach and support people to re-connect to their divinity, therefore, there is another intention, maybe it’s financially driven by people trying to find a way of promoting yoga to make it more appealing to drum up more business. However, when something is presented in truth, the pull is there for people to come. This wreaks of self interest and self gain and in the process the harm caused on so many levels is enormous.
Take THE truth, adjust it to your personal needs and purpose and you get the same just without THE truth, i.e. it is now actually the opposite of truth while you are in the illusion of applying truth.
There are many bastardised versions of yoga and people are falling for them and I feel we have a responsibility to bring true yoga, Esoteric Yoga to every corner of the world. ‘This divine connection with our Soul is yoga in its true, and ageless, essence’ because our world is calling out for it.
There are so many ways that we disconnect ourselves from our relationship with God, and with ourselves. Overeating is a classic one. It is a loving work in progress for me to eat to nourish and to live, and not to live to eat.
It may be there are always cycles of a popular technique being more and more bastardised and then a counter-reaction of going back to its ‘pure roots’ sets in and the cycle may then repeat again. The question is how much the technique is an expression of love. If it isn’t, then this cycle may just be a sophisticated form of entertainment.
The fact that there is the call for this shows that people are not coping with life and wanting to escape and check out more and more.
MW great point, regardless of what people say about it it does show the extremes we are going to to deal with life.
I did not know that the true yoga teachings came from Patanjali Anne, but I do know it feels very different from what is being offered as a distraction to get people to think they are doing yoga when they couldn’t be further from the truth if they were trying. It is a very sad state of affairs how people are being so deluded.
Yes Gill and what is an even more sad state of affairs is when we see how much we are actually choosing to delude ourselves!
Thank you Anne for being honest and so open about your past and sharing with us the reality of what is going on in our world.. So we perhaps can change this crazy cycle around. Truth before anything, and to lose any identification with behaviors that lead to loveless living.
Well said Danna, and I agree we need to know about these crazy things that are happening around us. We can no longer rely on media for the truth, but we do get to see it and hear about it through other people and this gives us an understanding of where our society is at.
Reading this I’m reminded of the arrogance in the bastardisation of yoga. I remember being taught yoga by people who weren’t more connected with themselves or God than I, but because of their dedication to yoga thought they were. I desperately wanted their help to find this connection for me. But what they reflected actually made me feel even more disheartened, as what they were communicating was that connection with divinity was some very far off goal that had to be reached through years of dedication and even then wasn’t guaranteed.
Hearing about these new practices it seems that anything goes and an obstacle is put in the way of the simplicity of looking within to reconnect with our essence.
Putting ourselves as less is inevitably going to make us feel terrible. When I used to do this false form of yoga I believed too that I’d never be able to achieve enlightenment, that it was only something for Indian yogi’s. The arrogance around that form of yoga is intense, domineering and does absolutely nothing to bring you to the understanding of the truth, that connection to God is simple and natural.
‘Those who have studied yoga in its true essence know that it is a way of living that is simply about union – union with our self and with God: in other words, union with our Soul.’ – How beutifully simple, and how incredibly far we have strayed from the true understanding and practice of yoga.
Yes it just goes to show that the purpose of yoga is far more than being super stretchy!
This connect you and take you away reminded me of when I visited an expo in London as a child and they had a pull-me-push-you which was a llama with one body and a head at either end.
…although on second thoughts this one is really a push-you-push-you – not a pull-me-push-you. Push you away and away again because when you offer yoga and alcohol or yoga and anything that harms, the yoga is not true Yoga ie True Union as true union would never come with something that disconnects you from yourself and others.
“So how does drinking alcohol whilst practising yoga support us to re-connect when most people who drink alcohol know that when they drink alcohol they turn into someone else entirely, i.e. they dis-connect even further from themselves?” in simple terms looking at this, there is no way that anyone could consider it to support us to reconnect, and that highlights that for a number of us, what we end up doing is using these things not to connect, but to escape. And in that escape we think we have a relax, break, time off but when we then get to feel true connection, its obvious the benefits that it brings.
WOW – we are so far from the original teachings of yoga. This is a reflection of how we adapt and twist things until they suit our comforts.
Where is Patanjali’s Yoga Today? A long, long way away from its origins and true meaning! So true HM, you sum it up so simply, ‘This is a reflection of how we adapt and twist things until they suit our comforts’ Taking a step back its easy to see how we do this in so many, (if not all!) areas of our lives.
This is pretty shocking Anne, I agree. I too had recently heard about ‘Beer Yoga’ and had thought that is was indeed some kind of joke. It really does raise the question of where we have got to in society, that we are seeking some form of connection with our ‘higher’ selves, but at the same time don’t want to really go there. To be using alcohol as a way of preventing this really does make a mockery of the true meaning and purpose of yoga and those supporting it would be wise to take a look at their lack of responsibility here.
Beer yoga… it shows just how far astray we have come from yoga in its true meaning. This one aspect and example of life, simply highlights our capacity to stray far, far, far away from truth.
No coincidence the truth of yoga is being bastardized in the ultimate form with alcohol or drugs, for the power of true yoga is beyond what we can imagine: connecting us back to the universality we are ar part of and from there live the love that we naturally are.
Yoga is a way of living which has been totally bastardised with all these new forms that are a complete distraction away from the union that true yoga facilitates.
Using alcohol to ‘relax’ is a farce, because yes it numbs us and so we may temporarily (while the numbing effects last) not be aware of our issues. And this has never been a true purpose of meditation, although when practicing meditation this and many other exquisite outcomes may be a by-product. The website Unimed Living has a wonderful section on meditation (http://www.unimedliving.com/meditation) that beautifully describes it all in a way that helps us avoid getting fooled by impostors to the real thing.
When we take all the abuse, bastardisation, checking out, numbing and so much more that is happening in the world into account .. and there will be some things that many are not fully aware of, then it can be easy to either go into reaction or overwhelm. I am learning more and more how important it is in how I live in the world to reflect something different to others. And yes, great to absolutely call out here that alcohol certainly does NOT support true re-connection.
What’s frightening about this article is, if I was 18 now and feeling like life was too much for me to handle, which I very much did when I was 18, I would be doing this and thinking I was cool. I would definitely have mixed yoga and champagne if it was ‘the thing to do’, I would have done it to fit in. It wouldn’t have taken away from the fact that I would have known the harm I was doing to my body and I would have run stories in my head when I was alone about the impact on my liver. Would I get liver failure or cancer later down the line? What actual permanent harm was I doing? I would know that it didn’t feel right, but in order to fit in, be cool and have something that was very effective at taking the edge off life, I would have been choosing this and who knows how it would have ended. Young girls today are finding life more intense as each new generation comes through, school work gets harder and the pressure to be something they are not intensifies and so they are looking for more and more ways to not feel the lovelessness of the world around them.
‘Add to this the evidence in recent years of yoga ‘gurus’ being accused of having sex with their underage followers, raping young girls, or embezzling their employees’ pension funds, and you start to get a very disturbing picture of the present yoga consciousness.’ Mixing yoga and meditation with alcohol is a sure way to leave girls more vulnerable to abuse by combining yoga with alcohol. Yoga speeds up the flow of blood around the body which would mean the alcohol would give a quicker and bigger hit. Girls would lose their sense quicker and be left vulnerable to abuse.
By doing yoga whilst drinking you are speeding up the time it takes for alcohol to take effect, why is it that we are looking for quicker and more intense hits all the time?
The fact that some yoga teachers are thinking that alcohol is good for you and helps you relax shows how disconnected they are from their bodies, therefore not likely to be the best teachers of the true form of yoga which is about union with the body and soul.
I agree. That said; I wonder if anyone who has chosen to attend an ‘alcohol and yoga class’ is actually even remotely interested in expanding that union? For there is not one of us that does not know the truth of what alcohol does to the body.
It is a great way to look at the human pysche and see what really is controlling our thoughts when we could even contemplate meditation/yoga with alcohol. We know meditation/yoga is something we do to connect back to ourselves and our bodies. We also know alcohol is a stimulant, something which alters our thoughts, the chemistry in our bodies and is essentially a poison to the body. So we have one aspect which is seemingly a good step for us and the other that counters it completely. So the question begs, what quality would the meditation or yoga be under the influence of alcohol, surely not one that is truly supportive. So this shows us that even though we may think we are intelligent we can easily be fooled.
Great point James… there is great stupidity in our seemingly ‘intelligent’ choices, and we certainly do not like being fooled. Even the fact that we consciously choose to put a poison in our bodies puts our ‘intelligence’ into question.
Intelligence is something we think of as a way of bettering ourselves, but just like we would choose to put a poison in our bodies, so too do lung specialists choose to smoke, or nutritionists eat sugar laiden foods – it makes no sense, especially given all the knowledge but as said, shows there is far more at play than purely what our eyes see. So the question is what really is driving us and beneath our choices?!
Yoga is such a huge business now and as you say, carried with it the arrogance of identifying as a Yoga student or teacher, being able to push and do advanced moves and claim enlightenment. However, what you share here for me just confirms that once again, Yoga is something we are taking and morphing into what we want it to be to fit our waywardness, rather than leaving it as the truth it is, a tool to reconnect to who we are and our divine essence and feel the true distance away from this we live. Instead, we make ourselves comfortable by incorporating alcohol or physical strain so that it simply becomes a pursuit of dis-connection, checking out, bliss, physical prowess and strength, but never truly delivering us the truth of who we are and a way of living that maintains that connection everywhere we go.
I remember having started Hatha Yoga about 16 years ago. My yoga teacher at the time invited the class to attend an event with another yoga teacher who she looked up to. I remember watching him as he warmed up, doing all these bendy poses. The thing was it looked all wrong. He wasn’t naturally supple and you could see that he had to push his body to do them. I remember this because I overheard someone commenting on the expression on my face as I watched. I do seem to remember an expression of incredulity and perhaps horror! The thing that got me the most was that his body didn’t confirm the words he spoke, whilst he spoke about healing that’s not what I was getting. I couldn’t articulate this clearly at the time but something felt off. If we are in denial of our bodies at this stage it seems to me that the next stage would have to be something like mixing it with alcohol because in denial where do you go next if not into a deeper level of it?
I agree – and often the body speaks very loud and so adding in an extra numbing element to support in maintaining the ignorance
We do know that alcohol is a poison to the body, and we know this because we feel so ill the next day after having drunk. Then with our best attempts, we try to make ourselves feel better by eating to soak up the alcohol in the system and by drinking more water to flush it out. But what we cannot deny is that there is a marked difference from feeling clear of the alcohol and the feeling of being hung over – this alone tells us the body is not coping with the alcohol.
These two offerings of ‘yoga’ only offer to take us further and further away from the truth of who we are. We must be super powerful to need ‘beer yoga’ to take us off track.
If the only way we can so called ‘relax’ is through drinking alcohol, then we need to seriously address how we live, not find ways to convert this into a ‘good’ thing.
Surely common sense would tell you knowing that alcohol dulls the senses, reduces focus and makes you tipsy or drunk… so how on earth would one consider this would mix with meditation or yoga?
It is sad that so many people lack so much self-love that they succumb to such deceits as these, yet what is more sad is that these are so lost that they provide a demand that draws others to provide the attraction to fill their emptiness with poison and thereby poison themselves.
“They say it complements the joy of drinking beer and the mindfulness of yoga.” When you meet the real deep constant joy of your soul, you realise that no amount of beer drinking is ever going to deliver the truth.
Very good Rowena, yes until you have that experience of connection with your soul, nothing else compares no drug even comes close.
So well said Rowena, it clearly exposes our need to find ways to stimulate and check-out of ourselves and our lives. This type of yoga will not bring evolution.
I would say that ‘union with the Soul’ and the desire to drink alcohol are examples of opposing forces. A true connection with the Soul negates any desire for mind altering substances and so the notion of mixing beer or champagne with yoga is not one that works for me.
Truly this is common sense–alcohol being an influence that takes us away from the connection with ourselves and yoga in its true sense is to come back to this union. And there are so many discrepancies in the world that we can point out, and it can feel overwhelming as what is not true is moulding what we call life on earth. So we have to be aware and to be crystal clear of what truth is, expressing all that is felt and simply go about living amongst all that is untrue, offering another reflection and simply being that in joy.
Is alcohol really stupid juice? It allows us to try and do stupid things with the full guaranty it will work from a mind that is not firing on all cylinders at the time!
Meditation with alcohol is not meditation at all, but a sophisticated way to find evasion…not surprisingly this happens, when most of the meditations nowadays have the same purpose of ‘finding another reality’ or looking for some sort of ‘ectasy’. Nothing to do with true Yoga and meditation, which is pure connection with our body and Soul.
Yes, Amparo, true yoga is not about escaping reality but deepening our intimate relationship with the body and who we are in essence.
‘Finding another reality’ is increasing at an alarming rate, yesterday I drove past a virtual golf course, a friend of mine has just made a documentary about virtual sex, what is it that we are avoiding to want to live such disconnected lives?
I can imagine that there’re plenty of people out there that smoke cannabis and think they are doing yoga or meditating as well.
What you describe here Anne, with the way people think they are working on their issues in combining alcohol and yoga or meditation, is showing the waywardness we are able to live and too are able to rectify in our tempting mind.
Anne, yes I’d heard about the beer yoga though not yet the Moet & Meditation… how low Yoga in its truest meaning and sense [union with self and so with God) has been brought. Pure sacrilege on not just the word but its meaning and activity too.
I appreciate what you say Zofia, that the combination of alcohol and yoga is pure sacrilege of the word yoga and its activity which is from the divine in its true meaning and movement and is exactly how we should classify it.
It’s become a game that is marketed towards whatever flavour of distraction is fancied – chiefly to avoid the awareness that true yoga builds.
We were given the keys to the Kingdom to Heaven through Patanjali’s teachings of the Yoga Sutras and we do this with it.
It is incredible what we can justify when we want something!!!. Beer yoga and Moet Meditation–surely this must set off alarm bells for most people.
If Yoga was harming, would this increase or decrease the harm?
Firstly, on a very practical level, drinking alcohol while doing anything physical is extremely dangerous to our body. Alcohol impairs us, we all know that, and doing any form of exercise or movements is impaired and you are more susceptible to injury or an accident. Secondly, the demand is there….instead of truly looking at why we need to take the edge off life or why we are so stressed, many want a quick fix or way to numb out. There is no inspiration in this consciousness… only a keeping ourselves down and comfortable.
Very well said Aimee and I agree, the supply only exists because the demand is there. It highlights to me that people are probably getting to their wits end with exhaustion and stress, and in this state they are more likely to fall for the quick fix instead of dealing with the root cause of their exhaustion and stress.
Great sharing Anne. I was not aware of these practices of yoga. I agree that these practices support dis-connection from the purity and divinity we are from. We need nothing from the outside to connect to our divine essence.
Anne, I too was a yoga teacher for many years and have had many similar revelations to you. Looking back most of my years teaching yoga were spent with the emphasis on me as a teacher. I was caught up in my identification as the teacher (although would have sworn blind that I was not) and therefore being a teacher in complete separation from who she really was and also from who all others truly were, then all that I was able to teach and promote was separation .
Alexis, I love your unreserved honesty – how powerful to expose your own identification with the role of yoga teacher.
Love your open-ness and honesty, Alexis. It feels like in this offering of yoga and alcohol, all that is being taught is a false way of being, where you think you are doing something soulful, when in fact the complete opposite is true, it’s numbing and taking you even further away from your divine self. Energetically, the harm caused through this bastardisation of yoga is huge.
I saw a post on social media about the beer yoga but I hadn’t heard about the moet and meditation. It really is strange to me, but everyone is different.
If true Yoga as I have experienced it, was taught, the world would have not the intensity of bastardized yoga it has at the moment. Knowing there are energies that just don’t want us to be in harmony with ourselves and our bodies, its no wonder yoga has been bastardized to the extent we know of today.
“The goal of the Yoga-sutras is no less than entire transformation of ourselves, to reconnect to our true Divine essence.” – Why would we want to drink something that is going to disconnect us from our Divinity if we are seeking re-connection? It makes no sense at all, suggesting that there is no intention to reconnect, rather, for people to have a drink and tick the box of being a ‘yoga’ student at the same time. The problem is, its practices like this that completely bastardise the true imprint of yoga for everyone.
I agree with you Anne on many levels. It does seem that the current trajectory of modern yoga is taking an alarming tangent from its true roots, a discipline that encouraged abstinence from alcohol, not married it together. I too relinquished yoga over 10 years ago because I no longer felt that it nourished me or my body, evidently somewhere inside me I was sensing the beginning of this rift. Yoga and meditation is about nurturing our connection to our kingly bodies, it is not and can never be an excuse for a ‘Booze up’.
Yoga and meditation have come on like the internet very quickly, without any overarching body monitoring and assessing the integrity, but that just exposes the many so-called modalities that are being made available to us all. One of the principles I was presented with in Universal Medicine was the difference between 2 energies, Soul and spirit, to empower you to discern if it truly supports your body or not.
“This divine connection with our Soul is yoga in its true, and ageless, essence. Alcohol has no place in that connection.” Hear hear!!
‘Also, since letting go of this consciousness and changing what and how I teach, I have noticed that I am stronger and more flexible than I was before!’ – shows the importance of understanding exactly what we’re aligning to energetically when we choose to do something. If something is not true, it will have a significant impact on our body, both physically and energetically.
As shocking as it may well seem to combine alcohol and yoga, at least it exposes the adopted, well established and accepted yoga consciousness as being far removed from true yoga which is simply a union with Soul, God and ‘the all we are all a part of and living within’, despite our behaviours to the contrary. In particular it clearly exposes the fact that we as a society are currently living in a way that is so far off what is true or natural for us to live, that in order to cope with the stress of this way of living we have had to employ measures to help us ‘relax’, that is, moments in which we can check out and pretend it is not all happening. The more we ignore that this behaviour is in place, the more ridiculous we allow it to become and then condone it as ‘normal’ due to the fact that it is common, no matter that it is such a perverse abstraction of our true normal which is simply to express the love and light we all naturally are in essence.
True Liane, this is the obvious case which is actually laid bare for all to see. It is the subtle corruptions that need microscopic attention that we must watch out for.
I always found as a kid that if I wanted answers to something, the best place to seek them was actually within me and I used to ponder and reflect on much in life feeling how it all felt to me and responding from there. I have not always lived this way through life but if we are seeking something outside of us like alcohol to find some form of connection, what are we connecting with and what is the quality of this connection?
Yoga seems to have become a hot topic right now where people are doing anything to make it exciting and original. But drinking whilst doing yoga – that is just weird. It makes the whole process a complete check out and it just makes no sense. But as a
Society we are set on trying to push things as much as we can and add in anything that takes us away from being in our bodies.
The sinister thing is, and what happens with numerous activities in life, is that they are sold as healthy and good for us and we are happy to tick the box and be in the illusion that we have done something truly supportive for ourselves and our body. Connecting to our body will expose these harmful activities for what they are.
The consciousness you are describing here is huge. The first thing I get asked, when people talk with me and they feel that I am very reflected in life, they ask me, if I also do Yoga or if I am vegan. Although I can say, that what I live has nothing to do with the Yoga that is on offer in todays world people instantly go into the consciousness to describe what they think it is I am reflecting.
The ways we will find to distract us away from the truth we are actually seeking is clearly endless! Who would ever have thought alcohol and yoga would one day go together, or are even ok to go together?!
This is all we need to know ‘This divine connection with our Soul is yoga in its true, and ageless, essence. Alcohol has no place in that connection.’ So simple and so true. It is Esoteric Yoga for me all the way. Amazing how much we bastardise things to make ourselves feel ‘good’. When in a restaurant the other day the Manager said to me beer is good for the Soul and absolutely meant it!!!
It is incredible the lengths our minds will go to to justify our choices… as you say Anne… alcohol has no place in our Divine connection.
It is getting worse and worse, what else can we ‘invent’ to seek comfort instead of the truth of who we are.
Reading the words of Patanjali really brings to life his dedication and commitment to the divinity that he knew so well, was and still remains to be living inside of each person. What an inspiring life he has left behind for everyone.
Wow this is so sad , but the difficulty people have in life is that there is so much selling of how to get tuned into ones life and ” alcoholic yoga ” is just another one of many , for in truth there is very little been presented to the world as to what is the truth of the glory of living from ones true essence.
This made up yoga is just another way to add to peoples empty lives, creating more emptiness. Rather than showing them the true path of connection to God.
What a classic form of ‘yoga’, and looks as though things have well and truly strayed from where the truth of yoga lies. While it may seem extreme, for some reason I am not surprised as many things have walked away from the truth of what they are. Why are we needing things to be extreme and how does it not ring alarm bells when things like this just keep coming? To me we have all fallen into a state of almost dream-land where we think that these things are ok and what’s more what can it hurt? Like all things, the further they are allowed to walk away, even subtly, the more we are faced with the quality of these things.
How far away we have strayed and are willing to stray from knowing the amazing tenderness, beauty and grace we all have within us and that we all come from. Behaviours are becoming more and more extreme, more and more ridiculous, to the point now that it’s blatantly obvious how desperate and lonely so many of us are.
I’ve heard of Beer and Yoga sessions as well as Disco Yoga, but champagne and meditation? Well, there’s no stopping the yoga bastardisation freight train it appears. Surely it will be ‘Ice and Yoga’ next. We are in such a state of disarray if we are attending this kind of session. It makes me very very sad indeed that this is what’s on offer for people who are looking to settle into their bodies more. Makes no sense at all.
Anne, your final sentence says it all: “This divine connection with our Soul is yoga in its true, and ageless, essence. Alcohol has no place in that connection.”
We will forever find ways to satisfy the unease we feel in our bodies, till one day we realise that the ease that lies before us is so much grander.
Anne, thank you for sharing about this crazy (sorry that’s the only word I can come up with!) demise of yoga! The roots of yoga with Patanjali indeed feel sacred, but what we are seeing today is a bastardised form of yoga that does not even come close to hitting the mark with true Union. The comment of the yoga teacher is very telling too – the fact that people are so tight and stressed out before the class is a testament to the stress that is in most people’s lives, but with the addition of alcohol, which is a known toxin that not only disrupts the digestive tract function, but adds to the liver’s onus of detoxification, and affects mood and mental health…this is simply just crazy….Sadly there are people who are gullible enough to go for this, though perhaps gullible is not the right word as it is still their choice and they know full well what they are doing.
“Is this not what, deep down, we all truly want? To live a life full of purpose, to develop the ‘kingly body’ that Patanjali spoke of, so we can let go of our hurts and emotions and re-connect to each other and to the simplicity life can be, and – most important of all – to be the love that we naturally are.”
Yes I would agree that is what we all truly want, deep down, but we are so far from living that as a human race, that it really is no surprise that these XX & Yoga sessions are popping up (there is a whole Vin and Vinyasa trend happening around the world). When we don’t want to let go of our hurts and emotions, there are a plethora of offerings out there to keep us in ‘comfort’. But this ‘comfort’ is making us very uncomfortable as a human race.
It’s something remarkable that we combine such activities, almost as though we instinctively know that yoga in its true form is the absolute opposite of what alcohol brings. We could say that it’s outrageous or crazy in some way but what I get from what you share Anne is that this behaviour actually shows that we all know the truth inside.
Brilliant exposure of the ill-consciousness that seeks to justify the drinking of alcohol to be of any value. Yet as much as this consciousness may seemingly have us hoodwinked, at the end of the day our bodies tell and reveal the truth of all. These are the ageless teachings of Patanjali that are very much alive and of true value today. Teachings that guide us to understand that through our connection to our bodies the light of our Soul is brought to life, and through our every move thereafter our union with the divine is realised and reflected to the world. Alcohol can never support this connection or union as it serves only for the disembodiment of our body and being to the divine union we are innately held in with God. Just ask our bodies and be open to honestly listening, and the truth will be known.
Beautifully expressed. I have never seen the sense in someone wanting to get fit and stay healthy, watch their diet and then after a cycle, walk, run, a visit to the gym, yoga session and so on feel they ‘want’, ‘need’ or ‘deserve’ a glass of wine or beer. The one is the antithesis of the other and logically do not mix. Add in everything you have just expressed and it is clear that there is an ill energy we allow to run the body at the expense of committing to what deep down we know to be true and making those movements towards the soul.
The Raja yoga and more recently esoteric yoga is the only yoga I have stayed committed to and have found has deepened my relationship with God. I can see the yoga discussed here is a means to an end – to reduce stress – with no real building of a foundation that addresses why they are stressed in the first place.
Brilliant blog Anne, I was pretty shocked after reading your blog about people combining alcohol with yoga. But then after watching a bit of the video of people in the pub practicing yoga I realised this form of yoga will most likely become a huge trend because people are feeling more tensed, stressed and exhausted than ever. This form of relaxation and relief offers a quick fix and I am can see that people are most likely going to keep seeking more and more extreme forms of coping with the raising levels of tension, stress and exhaustion. This way of living I can see is feeding the cycle of disconnection and harm.
The question raised for me here is how far have we let ourselves go in life that we need to consume beer, wine, champaign, chocolate etc whilst practicing yoga to relax? Is it an oxymoron here or are we realising that the way that yoga is currently being practiced is not true, so we are choosing to numb this fact with our choice of beverage or food.
Great point Jennifer and I also feel that these harmful practices are exposing themselves in a way of how far they have veered off track from expressing and practicing its true form of yoga. When we start to question what is going on, it becomes very clear that the current trend is comfort and numbing, and lacks responsibility, integrity and truth.
Well said Jennifer and chanly88. The trend of the harmful practices in yoga is a reflection of the lack of responsibility, integrity and truth in the daily living of life, not just various limited forms of exercise which are becoming more extreme too.
Some people seem to be willing do anything to earn a buck, to entice and hook, attract clients and gain notoriety. And in that pursuit, they don’t seem to mind a few casualties, as in fellow human beings, the true meaning of yoga, truth and service.
I am not sure why we are so shocked ? It’s totally the antithesis of the purpose of yoga but looking around the world at the moment I am not surprised the levels of ways to cope are become extreme. Yes it is affronting to see something as sacred as yoga when practised in truth being bastardised but which is worse, this or the yoga practised that takes you further from the connection sought? It is all pretty crazy but it’s not really shocking, compared say to the dark net and kids using devices 8 hours a day.
When we take all the abuse, bastardisation, checking out, numbing and so much more that is happening in the world into account .. and there will be some things that many are not fully aware of, then it can be easy to either go into reaction or overwhelm. I am learning more and more how important it is in how I live in the world to reflect something different to others. And yes great to absolutely call out here that alcohol certainly does NOT support true re-connection.
We have such a responsibility when we hold groups of people to ensure we are representing their best interest and not our own.
Absolutely Abby.
As Yoga teachers we have a responsibility of what we are sharing to groups, as our movements and reflection will harm or heal another. Therefore it is only with full understanding of responsibility do we share the true paths or Yoga, as Yoga is a gift from God to show us a way to reconnect to our divine connection.
I can honestly say I thought the title of this blog was some kind of joke and after reading that people are actually drinking alcohol before meditating or yoga, I felt a sense of sadness for the current state of affairs. Years ago when I used to drink alcohol I would sometimes feel that there was another force separate from myself running my body and changing my usual thoughts and behaviors. So how could alcohol possibly bring someone closer to reconnecting to their true selves? Impossible, I say!
Anne having read the same article I was amazed at the extent that we go to avoid connecting with ourselves, today I would see the craziness in this yet if I wind back to my early twenties and I would have thought this was a great thing to do. Perspectives of truth certainly play a big part in life and for me the more truth I live, the more I see through what is clearly an extreme behavior,.
Really well said DN. There are so many things that I now consider an abuse which years ago I would place them in the ‘having fun’ category. It’s very humbling to look at those things from the perspective of understanding and non-judgment.
We have research manipulating the figures to tell us alcohol ‘in moderation’ is good for you – advocating that a poison to the body which throws every system out is good for you. Everyone knows deep down this is a lie, but many of us want to believe it to justify our choices.
Now we have gimmick spinners who claim alcohol complements activities we are trying out in our endeavour to build a ‘healthy lifestyle’. Of course loads of people will use this to further justify the choice to carry on an activity that is so harmful to themselves and each other.
It is great to call out that the Emperor has no clothes, this is the first step towards us choosing a greater level of honesty.
Definitely the emperor has no clothes! We all live this to a certain extent so we have to mindful to not judge.
I didn’t know there were so many types of yoga, wow. It seems crazy that we’re trying out so many different techniques, types and modalities – some that are actually much more abusive than supportive – without understanding the initial purpose of the activity. I love what you’ve shared about Patanjali; it brings a whole different depth to yoga and it makes a lot more sense as to why it’s existed for hundreds of years.
When we truly understand and know the roots of yoga and how Patanjali shared the sutras we can truly appreciate the wisdom that was being shared and brought through with the Yoga Sutras. Todays yoga has become a fashion and no one really wants to understand the true purpose of Yoga.
Wow! that is amazing that we are using an ancient technique that Patanjali taught that would support humanity to reunite themselves back to their divineness, in such a disrespectful way.
It is rather jaw-dropping to see our waywardness in these terms. However, I remember being shocked when mobile phones came out and my friend dared to take a call while we were out to dinner! Whilst I certainly still don’t condone this behaviour – how normal has this now become? How far are we willing to go as a humanity before we stop and take stock of our choices and realise just how much we want to avoid feeling what is going on for us?
The things we will drop to validate our comforts.
There are many people who will drink alcohol and then go and ‘purge’ themselves with a visit to the gym or sauna or whatever. That is one behaviour that I see often and used to do myself – but this at least shows an awareness that the alcohol is a poison and thus we try to get it out of our system or just do something ‘good’ to ease our guilt. Ultimately there was no question in my mind that whenever i drank alcohol I always knew it was bad for me. But what is so insane about what you share here (it really is insane!!) is that alcohol is now being considered as a viable and supportive tool for reconnection to our true selves; which is the same as saying that alcohol is good for us?!
Having stopped drinking alcohol over ten years ago now, I can report that in my experience, I feel much more ‘connected’ with my true self than I did through any alcohol induced state. I love my life without alcohol and do not regret giving it up one iota.
It really amazes me what we can come up with and accept as ok when we are so desperate and empty. I so wish Esoteric Yoga becomes more available to people far and wide so that more people can experience a taste of what it is like to be in yoga in truer sense.
I shuddered when I read of the yoga and alcohol combination. I have studied various forms of yoga but stopped when I felt that it wasn’t really serving my body to get into such strange contortions. I love the Esoteric Yoga because it has such gentle movements and helps me to feel my natural inner stillness.
The practise of Moet and Meditation classes exposes how far away we have strayed from our bodies. If we were connected to our body we would know that this practise is abuse of our bodies and being, not healing.
Holly Chariots of Fire, Is this what the people are asking for So that what the truth can bring has to be undone by alcohol.
Yoga has become a buzz word. It’s cool to do yoga but the truth of what yoga is has been lost so no one knows what they’re doing. Great that you bring this to the fore. Let’s re-establish the original intentions of yoga and bring some true healing to the world.
There’s something very sacred about the way Patanjali taught yoga, it was a way to connect, develop and build a kingly body, to use that very same tool to instead harm the body is a complete bastardisation of the practise of yoga.
Moet and Meditation is incongruent for me too Anne. Alcohol is a known poison and the change in behaviour that is seen after one glass, confirms the disconnection from our essence.
“This completely flabbergasted me, as putting the two together seemed like anathema to me – for I knew (from my study of Raja Yoga) that meditation is used to re-connect you to yourself, and alcohol takes you away from yourself. Further, the class involved drinking champagne before the meditation!”
Gosh… it’s bizarre how we are changing the nuances of old practices. I have not heard of yoga being practiced with alcohol before. I have heard that we are now eating ice-cream pizza and having chocolate in beer and caffeine in beer… what extremes will be get to before we crash and our bodies simply pack up?
I made several forays into various Yoga classes many years ago, but always left feeling something was missing. What was missing for me was the inner connection with my essence. Over the past few years I have attended Esoteric Yoga sessions (the Yoga of Stillness) and have found exactly what I had been missing and seeking externally – the innate stillness and re-connection to my essence. These Esoteric Yoga sessions offered me a bridge to return ‘home’ – I now love sharing and presenting this simple and yet profound modality. See more at http://www.unimedliving.com/yoga
Thank you for sharing this, Anne. I had no idea about these bastardised versions of yoga, and they are indeed a sad reflection of how far removed from our innate sacredness humanity has become. It is interesting to observe how the divine teachings of Patanjali have been corrupted throughout history, since they were brought through to help us return to our true kingly nature.
Yes the extent of corruption is huge and begs the question what other teachings have been corrupted to such an extent?
I love what you’ve shared here Anne – a reminder of what yoga is truly about – a reconnection to our essence and divinity.. an absolute knowing of who we are, that we are part of something much greater than ourselves, accessed through what we can feel in our body.
Golly Anne, this exposes how far away we can go and change things from their origin. I can feel how your description that yoga is ‘about union – union with our self and with God: in other words, union with our Soul.’ is the truth, everything else is anything but the truth.
In the very same way words can be used in a way that no longer represent the truth of the word, modalities which were heavenly in their origins could be bastardised endlessly. The bastardisation can be ‘subtle’ ‘moderate’ or ‘extreme’. Whatever is the bastardisation, bastardised remains. That means that its true impress is gone and the purported union no longer holds. Hence, they do not represent truth any longer (moet or any bastardised alcohol- free yoga type alike).
‘This divine connection with our Soul is yoga in its true, and ageless, essence. Alcohol has no place in that connection.’ Thank you Anne for exposing just how far some yoga teaching has strayed from its true purpose. It is interesting but actually not surprising that since you let go of the yoga teaching consciousness your strength and flexibility have increased as it really feels like much yoga teaching has been bastardised and so many have lost their way with it.
I know that initially I found doing Esoteric yoga challenging – partly because it exposed how exhausted I was as I frequently fell asleep but also how hard I found it to just be with my body and allow things to surface. As I stayed with it gradually I found a beautiful stillness within that sustained me in life and opened me up to going deeper in my relationship with myself.
Anne – what an authority and power you write from your lived experience of Yoga. This blog is a powerful exposure of the various yoga styles being introduced now that are far from the TRUE purpose of Yoga – Union – as presented by Patanjali.
“It seems to me that we are now very far away from the source of true yoga that the very wise Indian sage Patanjali taught us in his Yoga Sutras somewhere between 200 BC and 400 AD”.
We seem to be getting further and further away from the true meaning of yoga. The word ‘yoga’ means ‘Union’, which means union with God. We have gone horribly wrong.
As you so rightly share, yoga and beer is a contradiction in terms in relation to the classical Raja Yoga of Patanjali.
The twists and turns that these yoga styles take to attract and satisfy those who want to numb-out, but satisfy themselves they’re making a healthy choice, is endless and know no extreme to the denaturing of a modality whose divine purpose is to build awareness and reconnect us to our essence – that we know who we truly are.
‘To deepen our understanding of ourselves and the universe, Patanjali gave us the practical path of yoga, which was given to support human beings to stop being dominated by the mind and to stop taking everything personally, so we could re-connect to our Divinity, to who we truly are, which is so much more than the human body.’
I agree Ann, yoga is there to reconnect us to the grandness we come from and are part of and Esoteric Yoga is a divine modality that offers exactly that.
Interesting how the bastardisation of the true meaning of yoga has been taken to such extremes and yet to me this is another example of the general numbing we as a society want to be in. Generally, we do not want to feel what is going on for us and because life is getting ever so more intense, the strategies for coping are following suit. The irony is that if we were to connect in the true meaning of the word and not avoid what we don’t want to see or feel, then we would have all the tools we would ever need in our kit bag to handle life and it would surprise us not to see the general level of intensity start to dissipate.
A very real sharing on the way yoga is being perceived today and the bastardisations happening everywhere. The truth of yoga and Patanjali and the ancient wisdom, with our connection to our soul, our innate stillness and our real settlement and beauty, I have found and know to be absolutely profound and very special. A far cry form the alternate interpretations happening today. The sharing of people using alcohol with yoga to relax, is a real assault on who we all are and feels really shocking and a far cry from the truth of yoga.
Agreed Anne, Yoga and alcohol have no symbiosis, perhaps a parasitic relationship if one has to depend on the other.
Humanity is feeling so uncomfortable in it’s body that it will go to any length to avoid the uncomfortable comfort that it has been living in for aeons. To recall how my body felt when I was drinking in desperation of it’s dis-ease is the complete opposite to how my body feels when I truly connect. This connection has been expanded and deepened by the practice of Esoteric Yoga.
My understanding and experience of mediation is to reconnect to feeling my body and the quality of how I walk, breathe, move around etc. The only thing I’d want to do after drinking is fall asleep! And alcohol 100% ensures that I cannot feel my body.
What energy are we tapping into when we are drinking alcohol and practicing yoga or meditation? Discerning what is true is key.
Enlightened from yoga? More like extreme headonism – how far do we need to go before we start to be honest about what we are really choosing?
For a long time I practiced yoga and drank alcohol and it never sat well with me, I knew it wasn’t true and was concerned that the two together was not great for my health. In yoga postures you are getting blood to flow to your organs and when you drink alcohol your blood is full with toxins which your body works very hard to get rid of, so surely by drinking alcohol whilst doing yoga postures you are putting exceptional strain on organs such as your liver and kidneys as they try to clear the toxins. Will yoga and alcohol be the turning point where we finally start to be honest about how harmful they both are even when they are not used together?
“…Those who have studied yoga in its true essence know that it is a way of living that is simply about union – union with our self and with God: in other words, union with our Soul…” When you know this, it exposes the practice of ‘beer-yoga’ or ‘Moet and meditation’ to be leading the unassuming person down the garden path and well off track. How irresponsible…
In recent years there has been an explosion of forms of yoga that really have nothing to do with connection anymore. In fact I would say they are tailored to those who want to be hip and happening but have no interest in true self reflection or connecting to what they hold within. There is a huge demand for this bastardisation and as always the demand is met in full and then some.
Esoteric Yoga, the Yoga of Stillness, is now offered to humanity and when we understand the energy of everything then those who choose to stay with the misinterpreted versions of true yoga will react by taking it further away from its origins.
How far have we come down or up the evolutionary scale to believe we could improve our natural divine connection to our self?
This is unbelievable – the complete antithesis of what true yoga is all about – the union of mind, body and soul. As you say “Those who have studied yoga in its true essence know that it is a way of living that is simply about union – union with our self and with God:” However not so surprising when you see the lengths the spirit goes to when you see the bastardisation of true religion and love etc – anything to nudge us off the true path to healing and returning to true love.
Drinking alcohol and doing yoga positions seems like a recipe for some injuries to occur. It makes no sense to me that something you would need your balance and steadiness for would surely be hindered while drinking beer which tends to do the opposite.
Thank you Anne for bringing us back to the truth of yoga and reveal the absurdity of many yoga practices of today, that exist but should not be called yoga.
We have to wonder why we need alcohol to feel relaxed and joyful in a current yoga session because if we need a substance to do this then there is something about our way of living (and maybe the yoga classes itself) that is contributing to feeling tensed and unable to surrender.
This doesn’t surprise me at all but I have to admit it made me laugh, we drink alcohol to disconnect, unwind let our hair down etc and these people who are doing this sort of yoga obviously are not trying to reconnect to themselves but to relieve the pressures of life. I’m not sure that people who do drink alcohol are that aware that it turns them into someone else, I was not aware of this for most of the time I abused alcohol. Alcohol with yoga is just not yoga, they are just using the name and that is where they are at and many of us have got things totally wrong before we started getting on the right track.
Tells a lot about the consciousness that runs such wayward yoga teachings and classes and those participating. There is nothing of the divine this consciousness cannot bastardize, belive in and justify with the most ridiculous arguments.
These are remarkable times where all that is sacred is taken and made ridiculous, as with the Moet meditation and the beer, chocolate yoga practices. Yes, there is a chocolate yoga practiced in our area!
The bastardisation you describe here Anne, is just a reflection of where we are together as a society. People do not want the truth, but instead a quick fix, the relaxation but not the responsibility that living to the truth is asking of us. Actually what we see in this bastardisation is that it make us think we are working on ourselves because it is yoga, a word we all know the true meaning of in essence but in our ignorance are able to dilute the true meaning of the word and use it to quieting the constant turmoil we feel of not living to the truth of our essence we all equally hold within.
Yes, we are working on the surface level because it ticks a box of ‘we are doing something for ourselves to change the discomfort we feel’. Yet, there is no true willingness to look at why we are where we are or we would never include alcohol with yoga, it would be completely illogical.
It’s interesting to consider that we need a stimulant like alcohol to relax ourselves and yet at the crux of this scenario we are completely dismissing the body and the simplicity of our connection to it by mixing yoga and alcohol. Feeling the body and the truth of what it shares will offer us far greater wisdom if we are willing to listen to what it shares. It is from here we not only find true connection to who we are but a way of living, that brings less stress and tension and more love and understanding to all facets of our lives. No moet or champagne needed.
Thank you Anne for everything you have shared here, and for the integrity you have that has allowed you to continue on with living a true form of yoga, not a bastardised version. You may not have seen but there is also something called Stoned Yoga where people practise yoga poses whilst all smoking marijuana joints. Yoga is fast becoming an ‘anything goes’ modality without any true connection to the meaning of the word yoga as union.
Thank you Melinda for your sharing – I was not aware of this other practice of yoga.
Anne great blog at exposing the consciousness behind the way many yoga modalities are taught today. It makes no sense how someone could take a stimulant such as alcohol and say it is beneficial for yoga if the goal with yoga is to reconnect to yourself. But it shows how far gone we are to think it helps. It also shows how strong and manipulative energies can be at getting us to believe pretty much anything when logic would show us the falsity of it.