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freerangetacos t1_j179nx5 wrote

Reply to comment by MasterWee in [IMAGE] sometimes you just need to not care by Th3MysticArcher

No, op didn't say yoga teacher said fuck everybody. You said that off on your tangent and it's an extreme take. The yoga teacher was saying to be more concerned about your own perceptions than being fixated on guessing the perceptions of others. Sage advice. But I do agree that we are bound by moral decency to care about others. Truly self centered people are the bane of existence. On that, we agree.

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MasterWee t1_j1fye97 wrote

So this is where we have to use the contextual meaning, and peel away from what is textual here.

  1. The advice was at the “end” of the class. So maybe it could have been about yoga poses, but as a send away it seems very much like “go off and use my wisdom in the real world!” We all interpret things differently. But GOOD advice is very specific. If someone can misinterpret something so easily, it is inherently a bad attempt at communication, and thus, bad advice.

  2. The tone of the advice was very harsh and aggressive. This is suggested by the use of the world “fucking” at the end of it. Now, I don’t claim to be a yogi, but from my limited knowledge, shanti, or inner peace, is kind of one of the goals of practicing yoga. I find a heavy conflict between achieving shanti and having an inner dialogue telling me “fucking” do things. Maybe I don’t fully understand the art so I, once again, can be wrong here.

  3. If the advice was limited to just the first sentence then this would actually be a very positive and insightful message. It retains the advice to just dealing with failure. The addition of the second sentence derails the advice into a call for narcissism and individual selfishness, a very not Yoga principle. Yoga isn’t “think of yourself first/only”, Yoga teaches respect and consideration for others through namaste.

  4. Words have meaning. Deliberate meaning. The length of our speech does not correlate with the heaviness of emotion it evokes. There is a call on your phone. You pick it up… “Mom died”… two words, three lines, an entire manuscript. Words, and the meanings those words convey can be very powerful. Never doubt that being of their length.

  5. Lastly, Yoga is an art form, and art always contains a deeper meaning. I don’t know how many yogis you know, but many of them explore the teachings of it to find extrapolations of Yogas meaning into their life (and more than just posing). This phrase said by a yogi at the end of creating/performing their art. Look at the subreddit this was posted in; this is very intentionally meant to be about more than just Yoga.

So not only is this bad advice generally, but even in the context of Yoga it is bad advice. Namaste!

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freerangetacos t1_j1g30f0 wrote

Interesting delayed rebuttal. All I will say is: good for you for thinking it through and achieving a solid position. One person's bad advice might be another's good advice. Peace, yo! And I do mean that.

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MasterWee t1_j17up58 wrote

I apologize for coming off as having a hostile take. Maybe you (and me) interpret this as sage advice, but neither you nor I can speak on behalf of every interpretation this quote has for people. I am merely trying to safeguard the absolutist pull from this quote.

As per my third paragraph in my original comment, I do concede that there is value to be had in this line of thinking.

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