The Choice was between gross and grosser – SSYTTC

Sri Sri loves to say that “the true choice is not between good and bad”, rather “between bad and worse or between good and better”. Well, in AOL, quite often one had a choice between gross and grosser. One such choice was at the end of Sri Sri Yoga TTC.

By the end of the two weeks, we had built considerable respect for our teacher Krishan Verma, who portrayed himself as a YOGI (later on I found out that he is anything but a yogi, but that is a different story!). So it was quite a surprise, to see this esteemed Yogi, kneeling at Guru’s feet, at the end of the course, washing Guru’s feet!

I could not believe my eyes seeing this scene, obviously pre-planned and part of the course. Guru arriving and our esteemed teacher washing Guru’s feet in front of all the SSY TTC students.

Was this to teach us humility and submission to the “GURU”? Or to humiliate our yoga teacher in order to exalt the guru? I don’t know. What I do know is that it showed me how egotistic Sri Sri was, humiliating an old yoga teacher, letting him wash his feet in front of all of us (the yoga teacher’s students).

 I had not quite recovered from the shock of seeing the above scene nor did I have enough time to digest it before noticing another shocking scene unfolding in front of me! The dirty water from washing Guru’s feet was now brought to where we,TTC graduates, were sitting. Each individual was offered a spoonful in their hand, one by one! I quickly asked my Indian TTC friend what was going on. He joyfully explained that we were blessed to drink “water from Guruji’s feet”. Seeing the shock on my face, he then added, you can either drink it or splash it on your head. By now the water was in my row, I watched with disgust as people would put the water in their mouth. All I could think of was the germs they were ingesting. Now that dirty water was right in front of my face. I had to do some quick thinking, as I didn’t want to risk my yoga certificate, for which I had spent few thousand dollars on registration alone, not to mention the cost of the trip! The choice was between the gross and the grosser, so I accepted the spoonful of water in my hand, splashing it over my head, making sure I missed as much as I could. After getting our SSY teaching certificates, I rushed to my room and washed the dirty water from my head and felt clean again.

 After coming home and having time to digest it all, I decided I didn’t wish to teach SSY course and promote a very sick, egotistic guru. Let’s be realistic, most yoga teachers go through years of training in respectable yoga schools under supervision of experienced Yoga teachers. SSY TTC by comparison is a farce. Nearly everyone in my class became SSY teacher. Those who were already an AOL teacher became teachers after only one week of SSY training. The SSY certificate is not worth the paper it is written on. SSY TTC is just another source of revenue for Sri Sri (and Mr. Verma!), factory producing yoga teachers to promote AOL and its sick megalomaniac guru. Just attending couple of weeks of Yoga training doesn’t make one a proper yoga teacher. Furthermore, SSY graduates are told that the purpose for SSY courses/classes is to introduce people to Art of Living. And like AOL teachers, SSY teachers are entitled to keep 10- 20% of their course fees and need to pass the rest to Sri Sri’s coffers.

 In most countries, SSY courses have failed to take off because yoga students fairly quickly realize:

— SSY is just a front to capture innocent people to AOL cult.

–SSY teachers are extremely inexperienced yoga teachers. Just practicing couple of weeks of yoga doesn’t make one a yoga teacher!

–SSY courses are extremely overpriced and not a good value for the money.

 Those who attend SSY TTCs are wasting their money. If they genuinely want to become yoga teachers it is best if they pursue their yoga training through respectable yoga schools. It may take longer, but it is worth it.

Spending few thousand dollars to get a SSY certificate, is like buying a fake university degree certificate. A certificate which would then only entitles you to generate further revenue for SriSri and recruit more people to his AOL cult.