Teaching or Transmission? It Makes All the Difference When You Want to Ignite the Fire of Transformation.
Every yoga teacher wants to powerfully impact her students and improve their quality of life – and she usually imagines that she will do so by being a good teacher. I want to propose that in the field of yoga, this is not correct. Those who strive to be “good teachers” usually do so by emulating their own teachers or otherwise attempting to fit a mental picture of what being a good teacher looks like. As my root-guru once said, if you think you know what being a good teacher looks like, you can only act from your own limited understanding. But if you admit that you don’t really know the most effective way to convey knowledge, you will instead have to open and let the power of grace flow through you.
Fire of Transformation
“Teaching” denotes the more-or-less creative regurgitation of information you have more-or-less successfully recorded in your brain, whether that be alignment instructions or spiritual ideas. The Tantrik tradition contrasts teaching with the concept of “transmission.” Transmission is what happens when a teacher (or anyone, for that matter) is centered in her heart-space and shares something that has been powerful, meaningful, and effective in her own life – and does so in language that is not clichéd but rather spontaneous, heart-felt, and sensitive to the audience in front of her. You don’t have to be a master or an expert to give transmission. Anyone with even a single scrap of wisdom can do it, so long as that wisdom is well-contemplated and well-practiced. It must be true for you, and expressed in your own language.
Giving transmission often happens spontaneously, when you don’t plan or expect it. The effect is unfailing and often incredible: if the listener is open, the wisdom you are transmitting goes straight into their heart and plants a seed that is sure to bear beautiful fruit, whether the next day or ten years later. Now, as a teacher, if you want to give transmission regularly as opposed to “accidentally,” it can be a tricky business – for it involves learning how to get out of the way of the power that wants to come through you, that will come through you again and again if you learn how to surrender to it. Such surrender entails an ability to give up the desire to be praised or successful or well-thought-of, and replace it with a deep longing to serve, to connect with the hearts of your students. It entails the realization that you are most effective as a teacher when you realize it is not about you at all – it’s about feeling what the students need and then inviting grace to come through you in whatever form will meet that need most effectively. Grace will then use the knowledge that is in your brain as its tool of expression – but the result is far more powerful than anything you could possibly come up with when you are trying to be smart or trying to be a “good teacher.”
Seeking to be a vehicle for transmission puts you outside your comfort zone, because it requires you to trust in the power of Grace. It requires you to trust that what can come through when you open and soften and let yourself be transparent is far more effective and meaningful than anything you can generate out of your brain-knowledge. It requires you to get in touch with your inner experience. It’s scary to not have your script, to go inside and share spontaneously from the deepest place you can: but the impact on students—and on you— is incomparable.
Real change, spiritual transformation, is always catalyzed by transmission, never by teaching. We have seen that transmission necessitates a) being centered in the heart, in your core (as much as you can be at that moment); b) having a longing to serve; c) being willing to surrender and open (especially surrendering your self-image of needing to be an authority). From the traditional perspective, one more ingredient is necessary for it to be called true transmission: the teaching or practice you are sharing is one that comes from lineage. That is, it’s not something made up last week, but has been tried and tested and proven effective over centuries, and is infused with the Grace and sankalpa (intention to benefit all beings) of the masters who have passed it on.
In November of 2010, I decided I was done with teaching. I was done with conveying “interesting information.” I wanted to offer transmission in a regular, sustained way — the kind of transmission that changes lives for the better. So upon my return from Asia, I started planning a new immersion program in classical Tantrik philosophy and practice, called The Fire of Transformation. The curriculum for this 100-hour immersive spiritual process came to me all at once, as an inspiration (though it was partially inspired by the month-long Mind of Shiva retreat I had just completed at the Adi-yoga ashram in Thailand). Amazingly, with only a month’s publicity, the immersion filled up and I had 25 wonderful students. I consciously applied the principles outlined above, giving my whole heart while simultaneously getting out of my own way and letting lineage transmission come through. Grace flowed abundantly, and I was, quite frankly, astonished by the results. They were well beyond my expectations—almost every single person in The Fire of Transformation immersion testified that it was a life-changing experience. Nothing could possibly exemplify the significance of transmission vs. teaching better than the 25 glowing faces I had the blessing to witness at our closing retreat. I felt almost no personal pride in the tremendous impact of the teachings and practices on this group; rather I felt awed, humbled, and grateful to be able to serve in this way. This is what happens when we are a vehicle for transmission.
I am grateful to be offering The Fire of Transformation again this year. Rather than try to describe this astonishing process, which is truly a gift of the Goddess, I will let one of last year’s students (and Managing Editor of this site, Fredo Guastella) testify to its power more effectively than I could:
“It is a curious thing to consider that one can change the trajectory of one’s life in six months. And yet, as I reflect upon my time in The Fire of Transformation, that would appear to be one very accurate way to describe my experience. As I look back to a year ago, when I was contemplating enrolling in the Immersion, I admit to being incredulous about one of its central tenets: that all worry is created by the mind, and can be stilled. And yet, even given my skepticism, I find myself on the other side of that fire a very different person than who I was when I began.
The Fire of Transformation is exactly as soul-wrackingly hard as confronting your most basic understandings about reality, about your mind, and about your identity. It is the challenge of walking into the all consuming fire, and takes the courage to cast off everything. And yet, at the same time, it is as easy as remembering who you really are, who you really always were. It is as easy as being breathed, or as sighing.”
And that testament to the power of transmission expresses why I believe that dedicating myself to the process of transmission was the most important decision I’ve ever made as a teacher. I invite you, the reader, to become aware of how you can be a vehicle for transmission in your own life: by sharing teachings and practices that have worked for you, in your own natural language, from a heart-felt desire to uplift others, and in so doing, uplift yourself. If you don’t have a rich treasure-chest of such teachings and practices, well, I’ve got an immersion for you. . . .
_________________
You can find out more about The Fire of Transformation Immersion program here.
(If you’re reading via email or rss, please visit the blog for the video.)
Related posts:
- Interview with John Friend: Igniting the Center, 2012 World Tour (video)
- A Path of Total Transformation: the Bay’s first Immersion into the teachings and practices of Classical Shiva-Shakti Tantra
- Imbolc: Tending the Fire of Intention
- John Friend: Finding Grace in times of Disaster (video)
- Teaching the Mahabarata: Part 2
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