I finally got around to digging into the now well known accusations (sexual / emotional / mental) against Mr. Kausthub Desikachar. I write this with great disappointment and with a very heavy heart. In this entire episode, I am more disappointed with KYM than with Mr. Kausthub.
If you are not well acquainted with this issue, here are some links. They will provide you most of the information that you need. Some of the links are also opinion pieces. Hence, take everything in the links with a pinch of salt. Some of the facts in these links are not very precise but they are mostly immaterial to the discussion at hand. Hence, kindly ignore these minor inaccuracies.
Despite all the obvious flaws that were evident in KYM's functioning from my day one there (like authoritative hierarchy, unwanted secrecy, fawning on guru etc...), KYM was always one institute that was close to my heart. Despite their weakness, they still had lot of good things about them (which are difficult to sustain in an Indian context). For example, it was a public trust but still had the efficiency of private firms. For more than 25 years, they functioned out of a hut, they have trained countless number of people in yoga thereby directly contributing heavily to the well being of countless families and individuals. This was quite impressive to me. But, all this has now changed. KYM, in an obvious attempt at mere damage control, are trying to sever all contact with Mr. Kausthub and by doing so, they have the gumption to claim that they are upholding the principles of Yoga.
In a recent announcement sent to many people on their listserve, they have claimed
"The Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram has never had and never will have any involvement with any activities of the KHYF."
They may choose to never have any relationship in the future but the part about not having any relationship in the past is a blatant lie. I have personally seen many teachers from KYM teaching at KHYF. Not just teaching at the KHYF office in chennai, but also travelling abroad on behalf of KHYF. In addition, all students who finished the teacher training course at KYM were asked to register as a yoga teacher with KHYF by paying $200 (was made $170 for us- which urs truly paid to KHYF). In fact, the studies department and vedic chanting classes at KYM were brought to an end (except for therapeutic purposes) and were all set to be moved to KHYF. I have witnessed these things personally and hence I am not sure what to make of such a blatant lie.
All the more worrying is the attempt by KYM to amputate Kausthub from itself and claim that the gangrene has disappeared. This is simply day dreaming. KYM is the process that has the produced Kausthub with all his problems in his present state. The attempt to separate the end result from the process is verily anti-yoga. Kausthub is indeed a product of the authoritatively hierarchical and guru-fawning culture at KYM! If a sincere attempt is to be made to cleanse the system, then KYM must be a part of the cleansing process.
To begin with, the senior teachers need to own up moral responsibility for their omissions and commissions. Starting from Mr. Desikachar, there is a need for all the senior teachers at KYM to give heart felt true and genuine answers. Unfortunately, Mr. Desikachar may not be in a mental state right now to be able to do this. But, other senior teachers can step in and will have to do some soul searching on the front. The biggest questions that cry for answers from my limited understanding of the situation are:
- What was the action taken upon the letter given by Ms. Saraswathi 5 years ago to Shri Desikachar?
- Despite Mr. Kausthub starting his own private for-profit yoga institute, why was he allowed to continue to be a director at KYM? Is this not serious conflict of interest?
- Why were many of Mr. Kausthubs misdemeanour's not caught at an early stage?
Only at KYM I got introduced to the yoga sutras. One of the sutras in the second chapter says,
te pratiprasava heyah sukshmah
This simply means, nip the problem in the bud. Why were all the senior teachers who are all extremely well versed in the yoga sutras unable to implement this when it came to the actions of Mr. Kausthub?
Will there every be any heart felt sincere response to this episode from KYM? I guess not. From my experience, whenever I have pointed out some issue with some traditional system (not just KYM or Yoga), I have met with response, "Its the systems bad time that even novices like you dare to question them". Obviously, such an attitude will not help. Questions should be dispensed with on the merit of the questions instead of the scholarly aptitude of the questioner.
It is possible that KYM wants to protect themselves in order to preserve the valuable tradition so painstakingly built by Shri Krishnamacarya and Shri Desikachar over many decades of tireless efforts. Hopefully, they are doing all the needed self analysis to figure out why this happened. If such is the case, hopefully they will share with us the details in due course of time. Only when the senior teachers demonstrate such high moral responsibility, will I personally call it upholding the high principles of Yoga!
Jiddu Krishnamurthi had adviced Mr. Desikachar as a young adult, "Sir, dont become a guru, dont exploit, dont become rich.". JK had said this to many countless people of course! I have never met Mr. Desikachar in a personal conversation. But the culture at KYM certainly is not free of the culture of the authoritatively hierarchical guru! Many times in the past, I had taken this culture lightly though there will be some internal resistance from me towards it. But, episodes like this push me towards taking a increasingly blatant anti-guru stand. The hierarchy of guru-shishya comes with a power disparity and that is a healthy breeding ground for such exploitation. This needs to cease if yoga is to be given a chance to guide us towards sanity. This is a very big lesson that I have learnt through observing all that is being played out.
