The corruptions in the world of yoga

"What kind of corruptions that could be existing in the world of yoga that is about peace, wisdom and compassion?"

Corruptions exist in everywhere, including in the world of yoga and/or buddhism, because most minds are still functioning under the influence of ignorance, egoism and impurities.

Under the influence of ignorance and egoism, it's normal that the mind is being ignorant toward certain corruptions in itself, not to say, towards the existence of certain corruptions in the world, or not knowing towards what kind of corruptions are there, because under the influence of worldly passionate egoistic thinking, belief, values and practice, all those ignorant egoistic corruptions appear to be normal and nothing corrupted, in accordance to the worldly passionate egoistic thinking, belief, values and practice. Some minds are even unaware of themselves are being abused or exploited, and are following the corrupted instructions coming from the corrupted minds to be practicing yoga or living life in certain way.

In no particular order, and not limited to, these are some of the common corruptions in the world of yoga,

Lust 

Desire

Sexual misconduct

Sexual abuse

Exploitation and abuse under the name of 'serving' the teacher, the guru or the community, performing selfless service, sharing and caring, the practice of unconditional love, acceptance, gratitude, generosity and forgiveness, 'burning off' bad karma, or accumulating merits and virtues

Hugging and touching

Contamination of worldly passionate egoistic ideas, values and practice

Grouping, association, one big yoga family, brotherhood or sisterhood

Mental and emotional dependency

Attachment and identification

Professional personal or business branding and profile

Qualification and certification

Affiliation and accreditation

Authorization and recognition

Physical alignment

Physical body hands on adjustment

Non-scientific fictional fairy tales

Spiritual healing

Emotional healing

Healing of hurts

Proclamation of yoga can keep away or cure many diseases miraculously and can defy selfless impermanent changes under the nature's law of cause and effect

Special VIP treatment for the VIPs

Pleasurable indulgence of the senses

Luxurious physical and mental indulgence

Connection building

Live life passionately, do what makes you happy, follow your desire, fulfill all your desires, and make all your wishes come true

Middle path is being mistaken as the extremity, while extremity is being mistaken as the middle path

Empowerment towards the gratification of the desire of craving and aversion

Emphasis on knowing the different names in different languages, the different effects, and the attainment of the different physical and mental health and fitness benefits and enhancements

Emphasis on finding or creating the 'zen' or 'mystical' feel in the mind and in the atmosphere of the surrounding environment

Unnecessary commercial yoga related products, decorations, accessories, props, or health food products

Sharing and caring is being mistaken as passionate love and affection, mental and emotional dependency among one another

Listening is being mistaken as be listened by others towards one's problem and disturb, as well as listening to others' problem and disturb to make the mind feels better and less miserable through talking and expressing its problem and disturb to some others, instead of turning inward to be listening to all the dhamma that is already there, or observing within towards what is going on in one's modifications of the mind, that allows oneself to have the correct understanding towards all the perception or experience of problem and disturb, and be free from problem and disturb through self-inquiry, correct understanding and self-realization

Openness and fearlessness is being mistaken as trying all kinds of high risk activities and trying all types of substances or practices that are available in the world, even if it's harmful to oneself and others

Meditation is being mistaken for stimulating and expanding the power of creativity or attaining super extraordinary power to influence and control everything under one's desire

Unconditional love, non-attachment and non-possessiveness is being mistaken as engaging in random unlimited and uncommitted intimate love affairs or relationships with multiple lovers, or random sexual activities with multiple partners without commitment or responsibility

Compassion is being mistaken as passionate love and affection, sympathy and empathy, giving happiness to others and removing unhappiness from others, and pleasing others by gratifying their desires of craving and aversion to make them happy or less unhappy or suffering

Selflessness is being mistaken as unselfishness or self-sacrifice

Non-duality, particularly neither good nor bad, is being misused as justification for engaging in ignorant irresponsible hurtful damaging behaviors, actions and reactions

All these are unreal is being mistaken as "I can do whatever I want, and there's no consequences, just like in dreams."

All are imperfect is being misused as the justification to be making mistakes repeatedly and generating ignorant hurtful behavior, action and reaction, either intentionally or unintentionally

Freedom or liberation is being mistaken as void of self control, non-limitation or non-restriction of thoughts, actions, speech, expression and the indulgence in pleasurable enjoyment regardless of whether they are causing harmful consequences or not, as well as the gratification of all desires being unconditioned and unlimited by time, space, causation, condition and situation

The realization of selflessness and that everything is impermanently changing selflessly governed by the nature's law of cause and effect, and none can remove the ignorance and suffering from another, but oneself, as well as the increasing of ignorance and madness deriving from ignorance in the world, is being mistaken as all these doesn't matter, the world won't become better but worst, and all are meaningless and depressing, and hence, it's better to just commit suicide. This understanding is still within the influence of ignorance. The minds that truly realized selflessness, they don't perceive matter or doesn't matter, meaningfulness or meaninglessness, uplifting or depressing. Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, Ajahn Chah and Swami Sivananda continuing to be performing selfless service diligently to be disseminating dhamma into the world without egoism of attachment, identification or expectation after they had attained the direct realization towards selflessness until the moment the physical body ceased functioning or the life existence comes to an end under its respective cause

Selflessness and non-attachment is being mistaken as "Since there's no 'I' existing, then all these doesn't matter, there's no need to practice non-attachment, self-control, self-inquiry, or anything, and if the practice is about non-attachment, not attaching towards good or bad, right or wrong, then it doesn't matter good or bad, right or wrong, there's no need to do good and not doing bad, there's no need to be right and not being wrong, there's no need to practice anything at all." Such is the deep ignorance that gives rise to such ignorant understanding. The truth of selflessness in all and everything, as well as the teaching about 'all these are unreal, it's like a dream,' doesn't mean that all these don't exist, or there's no consequences of actions. The realization of selflessness, or the truth of selflessness in all and everything doesn't change the truth of all and everything is constantly changing impermanently and selflessly under the nature's law of cause and effect, where all actions will bring along the consequences of actions, either pleasant or unpleasant, desirable or undesirable, agreeable or disagreeable, pleasurable enjoyment or painful suffering, regardless of whether the mind realizes selflessness, or not, is being good and kind, or not. The selfless conditional and limited physical body will still have to go through all kinds of selfless impermanent changes of decay, weakness, illness, injury, discomfort, pain, aging, and eventually disintegrating and decompose, being limited by time, space and causation. If the thinking mind is functioning under the influence of ignorance and egoism, then it will be in painful suffering due to the presence of attachment, identification and the desire of craving and aversion towards all these selfless impermanent changes that it perceives through the senses and sense organs of the physical body. While the sincere practice of mind purification to be eliminating ignorance and egoism, and the persistent self-inquiry under a purified thinking faculty towards "all these within the selfless impermanent modifications of the mind" will free the mind from suffering while under going all the selfless impermanent changes that are not necessarily pleasant, desirable, agreeable and enjoyable under the absence of attachment or grasping, as well as upon attaining direct self-realization towards the truth of selflessness

Control of mind is being mistaken as developing the super mind power to be knowing and controlling other people's mind

Positive thinking is being mistaken as developing positive mind power to be interfering, influencing, controlling or changing the undesirable reality to be the way that the mind would like it to be, such as defying decay and aging, or making everything to become all good and nothing bad, or all positive and nothing negative, empowering the attachment and craving towards good health condition or goodness, and the attachment and aversion towards bad health condition or badness

Renunciation, seclusion and solitude is being mistaken as selfishness, anti-social, unhealthy, hating other human beings, a form of irresponsibility or running away from duties and responsibilities, and being blamed as the cause of the suffering of loneliness

Retreat is being mistaken as a time and space for enjoying self-pampering health and beauty treatments, indulging in luxurious pleasurable enjoyments of the senses, enjoyable group activities and yoga community or yoga family connectivity holiday getaway camp

The practice of silence (Mauna) and non-interference towards the nature's law of cause and effect is being mistaken as ignoring and non-taking action towards the ignorance and corruptions in the world, or silent acceptance towards and non-exposing any corrupted conducts and affairs within the community, or silently accepting and non-moving away from any ill-treatments and abusive behaviors inflicted unto oneself and/or others

Momentary pleasant and agreeable side-effects of the persevere yoga and meditation practice are being mistaken as 'spiritual achievement' or 'enlightenment'

Passionate aspiration and vision

Building castle in the air

Ambitious

Setting intention at the start and in the end of certain practice

Defying gravity, decay, and old age

Integrating superstitious worldly cultural, spiritual and religious belief and practice

Praise and compliment

Encouragement and acknowledgement

Motivational empowerment of the ego

Aspiring to be inspiring

Glorification

Pride

Yoga classes that are not about the annihilation of ignorance, egoism, impurities and restless modifications of the mind

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of theory or preaching” and "Yoga is 99% practice and 1% theory" is being misinterpreted into emphasizing on teaching and performing the physical yoga asana and pranayama practice in silence, without the need of disseminating the teachings and performing inquiry towards the teachings, and implementing the teachings practically into the physical yoga asana and pranayama practice, and in everyday life. Many yoga practitioners are still in doubts under the influence of ignorance and egoism after many years of performing rigorous physical yoga asana and pranayama practice passionately and regularly gaining lots of momentary physical and mental benefits and enhancements having a conditional strong and flexible and healthy physical body until the end of life, under such misunderstanding

Yoga convention

Yoga festival

Yoga competition

Yoga demonstration show

Yoga International Day

Yoga idol

Yoga with animals

Yoga with drugs

Yoga with sexual activities

Nakedness, tattoo, dreadlocks, orange ropes, yoga symbols, yoga accessories, yoga attire, yoga props, yoga mat, or intoxication under the usage of certain substances as the representative of yoga

Yogi is being determined by specific yogi appearance and condition, representing perfect good health condition and superhuman physical and mental ability void of limitation, disability, weakness, illness or injury, as well as the ability and achievement in the yoga asana practice

Yoga teacher is being determined by the recognition, qualification, certification, affiliation, authorization, physical appearance, fitness and health condition, strength and flexibility, asana practice performance, ability and achievement

Proclamation of yoga belongs to a particular religion, race, nationality, place or country

Admiration towards the charisma or the achievement of certain yogi, guru, teacher or entity

Competition among yoga practitioners, yoga teachers, yoga schools, yoga studio, yoga business

and so on

In one,

Empowerment of ignorance and egoism.

There's neither right nor wrong. It's everyone's freedom and responsibility towards their own desire and don't desire, their actions and consequences of actions.

Inquire towards the truth of everything.