YOGA AND THE 21st CENTURY

3. Yoga and Psychology

Question:
Do you think that a Yoga teacher in the West should go through some therapy or analysis in order to be aware of the developments in this field and to meet the growing demand for psychological help?

Desikachar:
The term “Yoga teacher in the West” seems to suggest that everyone has the same way of teaching. This is not so.

There are those who only give instructions about techniques, like explaining how to use a computer to someone. There is not a lot happening in this teaching situation and the awareness of psychological questions would seem relatively unimportant.

But there is another situation where techniques are not the only element involved. These Yoga teachers are personally concerned by the evolution of their students. They cannot be ignorant, otherwise it would be like the blind leading the blind.

In this second case, and I know many teachers in the West who do this, they look to have as comprehensive a knowledge as possible in many fields, including psychology.

The way they go about it is up to them.

– TKV Desikachar – Yoga and the 21st Century 1999

TKV Desikachar was in France in 1999, for a symposium on “Yoga and the XXIst Century”. The purpose of the symposium was to consider the role of Yoga for the coming century in the three fields of Health, Psychology and Spirituality. These Posts are from an introductory interview around the Relevance of Traditional Teaching, Yoga and Health, Yoga and Psychology and Yoga and Spirituality.

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