I find this very interesting. This guy is convinced yoga caused his wife to divorce him.
I am a yoga widower, and this is my story. Go ahead—laugh if it makes you feel better. Tell yourself that it could never happen to you. But I am here to share what I have learned from bitter experience: Yoga is not a beneficent practice that borrows women for a few hours each day and returns them stronger in the arms and shoulders, more “centered” in their bodies, and smoldering with newfound sensuality and self-esteem. Yoga is a cult that wants to take them to a faraway reeducation studio where there are no husbands, no families, no professional careers—only a yoga mat, a throat-singing CD, and the requisite cardamom-scented candles to mask the smell of old sneakers, all watched over by Ganesha, an elephant-headed deity with four manicured hands, pictured variously with a noose, an axe, a lotus flower, and a tray of sweets. This is their idea of a divine entity. Do you see now what I mean?
Certainly not your usual take on yoga.
22 responses so far ↓
1 jonathan liljeblad // May 13, 2008 at 9:01 pm
hilarious.
can pretty much work the other way too…i see no end of guys having to get permission from their wives to spend 3-4 hrs. on a saturday to study kung fu in a park (when that saturday could as well be spent at home…). one person was even forced to quit kung fu by his fundamentalist evangelical Christian wife, who told him the dragon and trigrams were all satanic symbols and indicators that TCMA was a satanic cult. i thought he was joking, and then i met the wife.
2 M. Reynolds // May 13, 2008 at 11:13 pm
heheh yah. Notice what possibilities weren’t covered here:
1) He was a bad husband
2) His wife was a whore.
Sounds like someone is still adjusting to his new life, one way and another.
3 elf_man // May 14, 2008 at 12:39 am
Sounds like he thought of her as a possession. Sounds like the problems in any relationship where someone finds a career that requires more time.
Look at him make fun of Ganesh: Oh, it’s different and strange looking, what kind of god is that?
4 Scott // May 14, 2008 at 12:53 am
Ganesh has a lot of attributes but he is mainly the god of wealth accumulation.
If my wife was a stay at home mom going to yoga to worship Ganesh, I would worry that I was being used.
If my wife was a career woman worshiping Ganesh I would worry that she was secretly putting away money for a divorce.
But resisting the cult will only make it stronger, the way to weaken its power is to join in. Get a Ganesh t-shirt, or a tie clip, buy a Ganesh statue for the hallway, start using gee instead of butter. Make offerings to Ganesh, get Ganesh printed on your checks! That’ll bring her back!
5 Chris | Martial Development // May 14, 2008 at 3:24 am
Ganesh is my co-pilot! Don’t hate him because he is beautiful.
The moral of this story is “don’t hook up with crazies”; if not Yoga, it would have been something else.
6 Tim // May 14, 2008 at 9:09 am
Spiritual bypass:
http://www.ez2find.info/spiritual/Addiction_to_Spirituality.html
7 Peter // May 14, 2008 at 11:35 am
It sounds like in his case that yoga simply shined a light on his bad marriage. In that first five years, there had been infidelity and a separation. She was probably just trying to get away from him.
Funny thing is I have some friends that recently separated and she is heavy into yoga, to the point of being obsessive IMO. And one of her issues with him was that he was not enough into his body and lacked spirituality. He complained about her not being around because of yoga retreats several times a year.
8 YMAA.com // May 14, 2008 at 9:04 pm
One small detail not yet mentioned:
Yoga is not “for girls.”
The guy mentions that he occasionally sees “the odd male practitioner in tights and ponytail”.
That is an intensely retarded statement - quite telling of his prehistoric mentality and complete lack of understanding of the the incredibly challenging and difficult discipline of yoga.
I recommend http://www.amazon.com/Light-Yoga-Bible-Modern-Yoga/dp/0805210318/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210769975&sr=8-1 for anyone who doesn’t already know what Im talking about.
PS - why do guys love to say that girls are “crazy”? As in, “she went crazy” as the excuse for their break up? It usually seems to stem from their inability to stop being self-obsessed and really connect with a woman.
Wearing Ganesh underoos,
DS
9 Eric C // May 14, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Uhm, he glosses over infidelity with aplomb. He is delusional if he truly believes yoga or ganesha have much to do with their breakup.
10 Chris | Martial Development // May 15, 2008 at 3:54 am
Ahem–I didn’t say she was the crazy one, or the only one!
Anyway, “spiritual bypass” is self-destructive, and self-destructive acts are crazy. QED.
11 Jay Gischer // May 15, 2008 at 6:21 am
In every failed relationship, and I do mean every one, are the four horsemen: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
You don’t have to take my word for it, take the word of someone
who’s been studying marriages for 30 years.
In this case, yoga is just window-dressing. I don’t think I could begin to say whose “fault” it was from that article.
12 Joseph T. Oliva Arriola // May 15, 2008 at 7:31 am
the Tango
Many years ago in my youth, I used to do divorce law. It was quite ugly. I’m glad though that of the lessons I learned.
Interestingly, I think a marriage is like the Tango. You know who “the man” is and you know with definiteness who “the woman” is. You can sense the pronounced energies of the yang and the yin. She makes him feel like a man and he allows her to be a woman.
There is tension, there is a bristling of energy. Yet, the energies intertwine to make something “special”.
Though, it is not in the big movements that their passion is best expressed. It is in the subtlties of the dance. He makes the “slightest” of movements and she responds “imperceptible”. She responds and he counters. They are alive!
As they dance over the years, the movements become more than practiced. They have tested the form of their dance. They have caressed and teased. They have pulled away…in fiery emotion only to come back into each others arms. They have found rhythm in their “dance of life”.
Through they started separately…over the years they have become one. It is a practice of decades not years.
(Ah…men…learn to dance…give up your martial arts)
13 Busta // May 16, 2008 at 9:57 pm
The term ‘yoga’ is used far too loosely and is widely misunderstood.
Yoga actually means ‘Union with the Divine’ and is not achieved by concentration, visualisation, physical activity or thought.
Yoga is a ’state of total awareness’ devoid of thought or effort.
Unfortunately there are not many ‘yoga’ teachers who teach the spontaneous natural method.
Qigong for example develops a higher awareness of oneself and of nature , improves health, and can give a feeling of calm and peace. ( and many other good things)
True ‘yoga’ , ‘thoughtless awareness’ , ‘reality’ or ‘oneness with god’ can not be achieved through these kind of practices , and i feel sad when i hear or read people saying that you can.
If you think you have found the truth you will stop searching for the real truth.
Hope this helps.
P.S Ganesha is a ‘deity’. The elephant is a symbol of certain aspects of gods power. It represents Innocence and Wisdom. Two very important aspects of a happy life.
14 Joseph T. Oliva Arriola // May 17, 2008 at 12:18 am
From the Darkness
And God said “let there be light”. If true, God must have “lived” in darkness.
You cannot have “enlightenment” without the blanket of darkness.
The elephant is greater than the “parts” we try to define with our limited understanding. Nonetheless, we are experiencing more than others who “fear” the touch. In the beginning, we are in the present which is but a representation of all things to come.
15 wayne hansen // May 17, 2008 at 4:57 am
busta
if you have not achieved enlightenment through these methods and reached the yoke.
how do you know it can not be achieved through these methods and that others havent.
this appears to be the speach of a dulistic being
16 Busta // May 26, 2008 at 6:42 am
Wayne
Unfortunately not all things are as they ‘appear’ .
‘how do you know it can not be achieved through these methods and that others havent.’
Simply put , The methods i mentioned do not lead one to ‘enlightenment’ because they stimulate the sympathetic nervous system , not the parasympathetic.
If by dualistic you mean i have yin and yang , then i agree.
‘Enlightenment’ is not dualistic.
17 meow // May 26, 2008 at 7:46 am
god. not you again, go talk on a hippie forum, we talk combat here
18 Busta // May 26, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Meow
This forum was about Yoga , not combat. And btw I have been studying martial arts for 30 years and i am not a hippy.
So why dont you try stabbing in the dark again.
Your ego doesnt impress at all. Maybe you
should try saying something useful?
P.S your probably far more of a hippy than i
Ironic
19 Busta // May 26, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Meow just a tip : read the title at the top before you make yourself look foolish
20 meow // May 27, 2008 at 9:16 am
.. sigh
21 Edith // May 27, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I believe that we choose our partners from a certain level of personal growth and anything that we do that lead to a change can be considered by the “non growing” partner a bad thing and lead to divorce. People change, become more self confident, become more self-aware come out of complexes and then sometimes people that we thought once we need are left behind as we really don’t depend on them anymore or maybe we never did.
Same claims are made against all sort of self empowerment processes
22 Busta // May 28, 2008 at 2:26 am
sorry Meow , only joking. we all make trivial errors.
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