YOGA for the WEST of US

The DSL Method Yoga & Bodywork is a very Western, scientifically-based approach to living, personal growth, and healing. While DSL acknowledges and incorporates certain Essential Insights from The East, they are not held in any higher esteem than the psycho-philosophical & spiritual insights and traditions of The West.

DSL acknowledges that for whatever its failings, The West has provided a FAR higher standard of living, with a much healthier and safer existence, for the great majority of its people. Yet the next Great Challenge of The West is to move toward a less materialistic orientation (excessive external focus while ignoring the inner self), shifting its priorities to a more spiritually humane way of living (seeing the inner and outer realities as of equal importance, and finding better balance).

One Big Question is how to do this without losing the many benefits of science, technology and production?

While The East tends to retain the more authoritarian, Old Paradigm of Learning and Being (replicating the thoughts and actions of the past and obeying the power elite), The West (with many unfortunate exceptions such as many entrenched members of academia) tends toward the New Paradigm of Learning and Being. The general tendency in The West is to go beyond the old teachings (using the past as a springboard for innovation), being less tied to the dictates of authority figures and "the way it's always been done."

Yet The West has in recent times been equally guilty of abandoning too much of the wisdom of the past. This is the constant tension between Conservatism and Liberalism.

In the pages of the DSL Yoga website, any Spiritual or Religious undertones are based primarily on modern interpretations of the Old & New Testaments (with some Buddhist & Taoist influences). This approach puts primary responsibility on the Individual to take care of him or her Self AND fellow Human Beings WITHOUT authoritarian control, and without violence. . . . And the New Testament concept of Naphsha introduces the West's missing link to meditation. . . .

One contribution and evolutionary step culminating in the American Revolution was a system that encouraged change without prematurely destroying its own foundations. Although significantly abandoned in recent decades, one primary key was keeping power as decentralized as possible, requiring individuals to rely on reason and persuasion rather than political power (which inherently — and By Definition — includes psychological and physical violence) to achieve their potentially Good Ideas. Reducing the power of certain individuals to mislead or corrupt society was considered critical to a less dangerous path toward human evolution.

As well, the development of more rational thought processes and the Scientific Method has, in certain domains of life and being, prevented many persistent myths and misconceptions from leading people and society down incorrect, even dangerous, paths. Many of these old beliefs were of a mystical or magical nature (and quite difficult to prove or disprove through ordinary awareness and knowledge), keeping people within self-imposed boundaries purely by power figures or texts perpetuating the belief system. Again, de-centralization of power and belief systems away from authority figures (who tend toward gaining too much power over The People) had substantially furthered the advancements of people and civilization. (The decades long and unfortunate breakdown of this beneficial trend is a topic well-discussed at www.americanyogi.us .)

The Yoga World is no different. With a significant tradition of reliance or even dependence on authoritarian social and religious systems, some so-called yoga masters have indeed perpetuated certain attitudes and practices that have been detrimental and even physically harmful to their followers. Just one example is some of these renowned gurus verbally (through intimidation or humiliation) or physically forcing their students deeper into yoga asana, and on occasion, physically damaging, with varying degrees of severity, these students.

Yet, acknowledging that it usually takes Two to Tango, both the so-called guru AND the student are equally responsible for perpetuating the Authoritarian Paradigm. In modern times in the West, the student can usually walk away; yet they often choose not to.

The age-old question is, which is easier: restraining those with tendencies toward taking and abusing excessive power, or having The People on the other side of the equation refrain from allowing their teachers and other authority figures too much power and control? . . .

The answer to THAT question is not easy, and was even one of THE central topics of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible of the West. It was one of, if not THE, prime concerns at the writing of the Constitution of the United States. Yet it might be a problem that will continually contribute to human beings repeatedly destroying their own civilizations, as well as their own selves.

Therefore, in its own small way, DSL embraces a non-authoritarian, non-guru, non-mystical approach to yoga, meditation, thinking, and the healing arts. Teachers are of no higher status than Students.

And compared to Eastern traditions or super-natural Christianity, rather than focusing on mystical or super-natural experience, DSL is a here-and-now approach, holding the present material reality at least as valid and worthwhile as any other possible dimension. Even so, this approach is no less Conscious than Eastern or Western Mystic methods, and as potentially heart-centered, although not to the exclusion of the thinking mind. Heart and Mind are held as equally important and valuable, and in fact, an integrated, whole system that is fragmented at great risk to its owner. The main difference is that rather than consciousness being focused on Other-Worldliness, it's focus is on what is right in front of us in the material — the physical, mental, emotional and relational — world.

Finally, The DSL Method has attempted to validate most, if not all, of it's principles with modern, orthodox medical, osteopathic, chiropractic and naturopathic research, experience, science and insight. Within its proper domain, the Scientific Method is held with as high esteem as more subjective, experiential ways of gaining knowledge and experience. While the IR-rational is discouraged, the Rational and the Non-Rational are viewed as equally valid in their own domains of Human Being and Experience.

On the Pages in this Section of the DSL Website,
You'll find an approach to Yoga designed for US in the WEST. …
Or US in the U.S. of America.

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