took a hit in the past few weeks as a rising star of the discipline
came tumbling back to earth. After accusations of sexual impropriety
with female students,
,
the founder of Anusara, one of the world’s fastest-growing styles, told
followers that he was stepping down for an indefinite period of
“self-reflection, therapy and personal retreat.”
Mr. Friend preached a gospel of gentle poses mixed with openness aimed
at fostering love and happiness. But Elena Brower, a former confidante,
has said that insiders knew of his “penchant for women” and his love of
“partying and fun.”Few had any idea about his sexual indiscretions, she added. The apparent hypocrisy has upset many followers.
“Those folks are devastated,” Ms. Brower
wrote
in The Huffington Post. “They’re understandably disappointed to hear
that he cheated on his girlfriends repeatedly” and “lied to so many.”
But this is hardly the first time that yoga’s enlightened facade has
been cracked by sexual scandal.
Why does yoga produce so many
philanderers? And why do the resulting uproars leave so many people
shocked and distraught?
One factor is ignorance. Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention
that the discipline began as a sex cult — an omission that leaves many
practitioners open to libidinal surprise.
Hatha yoga — the parent of the styles now practiced around the globe —
began as a branch of Tantra. In medieval India, Tantra devotees sought
to fuse the male and female aspects of the cosmos into a blissful state
of consciousness.
The rites of Tantric cults, while often steeped in symbolism, could also
include group and individual sex. One text advised devotees to revere
the female sex organ and enjoy vigorous intercourse.
Candidates for
worship included actresses and prostitutes, as well as the sisters of
practitioners.
Hatha originated as a way to speed the Tantric agenda. It used poses,
deep breathing
and stimulating acts — including intercourse — to hasten rapturous
bliss. In time, Tantra and Hatha developed bad reputations. The main
charge was that practitioners indulged in sexual debauchery under the
pretext of spirituality.
Early in the 20th century, the founders of modern yoga worked hard to
remove the Tantric stain. They devised a sanitized discipline that
played down the old eroticism for a new emphasis on health and fitness.
B. K. S. Iyengar, the author of “Light on Yoga,” published in 1965,
exemplified the change. His book made no mention of Hatha’s Tantric
roots and praised the discipline as a panacea that could cure nearly 100
ailments and diseases. And so modern practitioners have embraced a
whitewashed simulacrum of Hatha.
But over the decades, many have discovered from personal experience that
the practice can fan the sexual flames. Pelvic regions can feel more
sensitive and orgasms more intense.
At Rutgers University, scientists are investigating how yoga and related
practices can foster autoerotic bliss. It turns out that some
individuals can think themselves into states of sexual ecstasy — a
phenomenon known clinically as spontaneous orgasm and popularly as
“thinking off.”
The Rutgers scientists use brain scanners to measure the levels of
excitement in women and compare their responses with readings from
manual stimulation of the genitals. The results demonstrate that both
practices light up the brain in characteristic ways and produce
significant rises in
blood pressure,
heart rate and tolerance for pain — what turns out to be a signature of orgasm.
Since the baby boomers discovered yoga, the arousal,
sweating,
heavy breathing and states of undress that characterize yoga classes
have led to predictable results. In 1995, sex between students and
teachers became so prevalent that the California Yoga Teachers
Association deplored it as immoral and called for high standards.
“We wrote the code,” Judith Lasater, the group’s president, told a
reporter, “because there were so many violations going on.”
If yoga can arouse everyday practitioners, it apparently has similar, if
not greater, effects on gurus — often charming extroverts in excellent
physical condition, some enthusiastic for veneration.
The misanthropes among them offer a bittersweet tribute to yoga’s
revitalizing powers. A surprising number, it turns out, were in their
60s and 70s.
Swami Muktananda (1908-82) was an Indian man of great charisma who favored dark glasses and gaudy robes.
At the height of his fame, around 1980, he attracted many thousands of
devotees — including movie stars and political celebrities — and
succeeded in setting up a network of hundreds of ashrams and meditation
centers around the globe. He kept his main shrines in California and New
York.
In late 1981, when a senior aide charged that the venerated yogi was in
fact a serial philanderer and sexual hypocrite who used threats of
violence to hide his duplicity, Mr. Muktananda defended himself as a
persecuted saint, and soon died of
heart failure.
Joan Bridges was one of his lovers. At the time, she was 26 and he was
73. Like many other devotees, Ms. Bridges had a difficult time finding
fault with a man she regarded as a virtual god beyond law and morality.
“I was both thrilled and confused,” she said of their first intimacy in
a Web posting. “He told us to be celibate, so how could this be sexual? I had no answers.”
To denounce the philanderers would be to admit years of empty study and
devotion. So many women ended up blaming themselves. Sorting out the
realities took years and sometimes decades of pain and reflection,
counseling and psychotherapy. In time, the victims began to fight back.
Swami Satchidananda
(1914-2002) was a superstar of yoga who gave the invocation at
Woodstock. In 1991, protesters waving placards (“Stop the Abuse,” “End
the Cover Up”) marched outside a Virginia hotel where he was addressing a
symposium.
“How can you call yourself a spiritual instructor,” a former devotee
shouted from the audience, “when you have molested me and other women?”
Another case involved Swami Rama (1925-96), a tall man with a strikingly
handsome face. In 1994, one of his victims filed a lawsuit charging
that he had initiated abuse at his Pennsylvania ashram when she was 19.
In 1997, shortly after his death, a jury awarded the woman nearly $2
million in compensatory and punitive damages.
So, too, former devotees at Kripalu, a Berkshires ashram, won more than
$2.5 million after its longtime guru — a man who gave impassioned talks
on the spiritual value of chastity — confessed to multiple affairs.
The drama with Mr. Friend is still unfolding. So far, at least 50
Anusara teachers have resigned, and the fate of his enterprise remains
unclear. In his letter to followers, he promised to make “a full public
statement that will transparently address the entirety of this
situation.”
The angst of former Anusara teachers is palpable. “I can no longer
support a teacher whose actions have caused irreparable damage to our
beloved community,” Sarah Faircloth, a North Carolina instructor, wrote
on her Web site.
But perhaps — if students and teachers knew more about what Hatha can
do, and what it was designed to do — they would find themselves less
prone to surprise and unyogalike distress.
William J. Broad is the author of “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and
the Rewards,” published this month by Simon & Schuster.