Don’t worship the temple of the body.
Recently I read in the advertising material of a local Byron Bay the sentence “Worship the temple of the body”. I feel that this sentence very much epitomizes the way in which much of the modern yoga culture is barking up the wrong tree. One does not worship a temple but a temple is a place in which the sacred is worshipped. For example says Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita “I am the indweller in the body”. This led to the body being looked at as a temple as it is the residence of God. However, it is not the temple itself, not the body itself that is to be worshipped but the true self, the consciousness that resides within the body. Much of modern yoga with the attached spa, beauty and body sculpting culture mistakes the body for the Divine. Contrast that with Ramana Maharishi’s exclamation, “To seek for happiness and yet believe that you are the body is like trying to cross a river on the back of an alligator.”
Yoga is a process that aims at taking you beyond the body, a process that reduces identification with the body. Modern yoga, however, often reduces itself to the body and as such cannot succeed and does not live up to the standards of the ancient teachers.