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As an integrated way of life, Yoga includes moral standards (traditionally called "virtues") that any reasonable human being would find in principle acceptable. Some of these standards, known in Sanskrit as yamas or "disciplines," are encoded in the first limb of Patanjali's eightfold path. According to Patanjali's Yoga-Sutra, this practice category is composed of the following five virtues: nonharming (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), nonstealing (asteya), chastity (brahmacarya), and greedlessness (aparigraha).

In other key scriptures of Yoga, further moral principals are mentioned, including kindness, compassion, generosity, patience, helpfulness, forgiveness, purity, and so on. All these are virtues that we connect with a "good" character and that are demonstrated to a superlative degree in the lives of the great masters of Yoga.

Thus, it seems appropriate for contemporary Yoga teachers to endeavor to conduct their lives in consonance with Yoga's moral principles, particularly because teachers have a great responsibility toward their students and should be expected to reflect the high moral standards espoused in Yoga. At the same time, we must acknowledge the complexities of our contemporary society, which makes it necessary to appropriately adapt the moral standards originally designed for the conditions of pre-modern India. Also, we need to take into proper account the looming environmental crisis by adapting a sustainable lifestyle.

The following guidelines are put forward as a reasonable adaptation for our modern situation, which also takes proper cognizance of the wisdom contained in the heritage of Yoga.

1. Yoga teachers understand and appreciate that teaching Yoga is a noble and ennobling endeavor that aligns them with a long line of honorable teachers.

2. Yoga teachers are committed to practicing Yoga as a way of life, which includes adopting the fundamental moral principles of Yoga and making their lifestyle environmentally sustainable.

3. Yoga teachers are committed to maintaining impeccable standards of professional competence and integrity.

4. Yoga teachers dedicate themselves to a thorough and continuing study and practice of Yoga, in particular the theoretical and practical aspects of the branch of Yoga that they teach.

5. Yoga teachers are committed to avoiding substance abuse, and if for some reason they succumb to chemical dependency agree to stop teaching until they are free again from drug and/or alcohol abuse. They will then do everything in their power to remain free, including being accountable to a support group.

6. Yoga teachers especially embrace the ideal of truthfulness in dealing with students and others, including accurately representing their training and experience relevant to their teaching of Yoga.

7. Yoga teachers are committed to promoting the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being of their students.

8. Yoga teachers, especially those teaching Hatha Yoga, will abstain from giving medical advice or advice that could be construed as such, unless they have the necessary medical qualifications.

9. Yoga teachers are open to instructing all students regardless of race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and social or financial status.

10. Yoga teachers are willing to accept students with physical disabilities, providing they have the skill to teach those students properly.

11. Yoga teachers agree to treat their students with respect.

12. Yoga teachers will never force their own opinions on students but rather will appreciate the fact that every individual is entitled to his or her worldview, ideas, and beliefs. At the same time, Yoga teachers must communicate to their students that Yoga seeks to achieve a deep-level transformation of the human personality, including attitudes and ideas. If a student is not open to change, or if a student's opinions seriously impede the process of communicating yogic teachings to him or her, then Yoga teachers are free to decline to work with that individual and, if possible, find an amicable way of dissolving the teaching relationship.

13. Yoga teachers agree to avoid any form of sexual harassment of students.

14. Yoga teachers wishing to enter a consensual sexual relationship with a present or former student should seek immediate counsel of their peers before taking any action. This is to ensure that the teacher in question is sufficiently clear about his or her motives.

15. Yoga teachers will make every effort to avoid exploiting the trust of students and their potential dependency, and instead encourage students to find greater inner freedom.

16. Yoga teachers acknowledge the importance of the proper context for teaching and agree to avoid teaching in a casual manner, which includes observing proper decorum inside and outside of the classroom.

17. Yoga teachers strive to practice tolerance toward other Yoga teachers, schools, and traditions. When criticism has to be brought, this should be done with fairness and focus on facts.

The above ethical guidelines are not exhaustive, and the fact that a given conduct is not specifically covered does not imply anything about the ethical or unethical nature of that conduct. Yoga teachers always endeavor to respect and to the best of their abilities adhere to the traditional yogic code of conduct as well as to the laws current in their country or state.

For a more detailed account of Yoga's moral teachings, see Georg Feuerstein's book Yoga Morality (2007).
You may copy these guidelines on your website providing you use the copyright notice below. No prior permission is needed. Copyright 2002, 2006, 2011 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.



Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image / Vaclav Volrab


Living people
are soft and tender.
Corpses are hard and stiff.
The ten thousand things,
the living grass, the trees,
are soft, pliant.
Dead, they're dry and brittle.

So hardness and stiffness
go with death;
tenderness, softness,
go with life.

And the hard sword falls,
the stiff tree's felled.
The hard and great go under.
The soft and weak stay up.


- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: A Book About the Way and the Power of the Way,
Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin



Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image / Allan Warren


"Most people live in almost total darkness… people, millions of people whom you will never see, who don’t know you, never will know you, people who may try to kill you in the morning, live in a darkness which
— if you have that funny terrible thing which every artist can recognize and no artist can define --
you are responsible to those people to lighten, and it does not matter what happens to you.
You are being used in the way a crab is useful, the way sand certainly has some function.
It is impersonal.
This force which you didn’t ask for, and this destiny which you must accept, is also your responsibility.
And if you survive it, if you don’t cheat, if you don’t lie, it is not only, you know, your glory, your achievement, it is almost our only hope — because only an artist can tell, and only artists have told since we have heard of man, what it is like for anyone who gets to this planet to survive it. What it is like to die, or to have somebody die; what it is like to be glad.
Hymns don’t do this, churches really cannot do it.
The trouble is that although the artist can do it, the price that he has to pay himself and that you, the audience, must also pay, is a willingness to give up everything, to realize that although you spent twenty-seven years acquiring this house, this furniture, this position, although you spent forty years raising this child, these children, nothing, none of it belongs to you.
You can only have it by letting it go.
You can only take if you are prepared to give, and giving is not an investment.
It is not a day at the bargain counter.
It is a total risk of everything, of you and who you think you are, who you think you’d like to be, where you think you’d like to go — everything, and this forever, forever."

- James Baldwin, from The Artist's Struggle for Integrity


Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image / welcomia


Dreams
by Mark Strand

Trying to recall the plot
And characters we dreamed,
     What life was like
Before the morning came,
We are seldom satisfied,
     And even then
There is no way of knowing
If what we know is true.
     Something nameless
Hums us into sleep,
Withdraws, and leaves us in
     A place that seems
Always vaguely familiar.
Perhaps it is because
     We take the props
And fixtures of our days
With us into the dark,
     Assuring ourselves
We are still alive. And yet
Nothing here is certain;
     Landscapes merge
With one another, houses
Are never where they should be,
     Doors and windows
Sometimes open out
To other doors and windows,
     Even the person
Who seems most like ourselves
Cannot be counted on,
     For there have been
Too many times when he,
Like everything else, has done
     The unexpected.
And as the night wears on,
The dim allegory of ourselves
     Unfolds, and we
Feel dreamed by someone else,
A sleeping counterpart,
     Who gathers in
The darkness of his person
Shades of the real world.
     Nothing is clear;
We are not ever sure
If the life we live there
     Belongs to us.
Each night it is the same;
Just when we’re on the verge
     Of catching on,
A sense of our remoteness
Closes in, and the world
     So lately seen
Gradually fades from sight.
We wake to find the sleeper
     Is ourselves
And the dreamt-of is someone who did
Something we can’t quite put
     Our finger on,
But which involved a life
We are always, we feel,
     About to discover.


Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image / Teerapat Pattanasoponpong


Even this late it happens:
The coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.

- Mark Strand


Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/