The NZ Bikram Yoga Community Responds to the Bikram Sex Scandal

In the last year five women have filed lawsuits against Choudhury, with charges ranging from rape to sexual harassment.

The allegations are serious, and according to an in-depth Vanity Fair article about Bikram and the charges, the plaintiffs all tell a similar story.

A young woman is singled out for attention, Bikram tells her how wonderful and special she is, using spirituality to imply there’s a unique connection – like shared past lives. The attention becomes progressively more sexual, and any rejection is met with anger and threats.

Bikram doesn’t operate in a vacuum though – he’s got people around him all the time. He’s famous for not liking to be alone. Similar to the Anusara Scandal involving John Friend, it’s alleged that Bikram’s inner circle knew of his behaviour and enabled it – or at least, turned a blind eye.

Bikram is a powerful yoga teacher who has trained and taught thousands and thousands of students, many of whom have gone on to open their own studios. There is no doubt at all that his sequence of postures are powerful and healing. Many people have had transformative experiences from regular practice of Bikram Yoga.

However, what happens when the head of the organisation abuses his trust and power? Then what?
How does that affect the wider Bikram community – the Bikram Yoga Studios and teachers whose very livelihoods depend upon Bikram Yoga? Because, lawsuits aside, Bikram does have a long history with yoga.

He began studying at age four with the renowned guru Bishnu Ghosh – the younger brother of Paramahansa Yogananda, who wrote The Autobiography of a Yogi.

In his teens, Bikram won asana competitions and then at age 17, blew out his knee weightlifting. The doctors apparently told him he wouldn’t walk again. Devastated, Bikram went back to his teacher, Gnosh, and asked for help. As Bikram tells it, with daily yoga, he was as good as new again in six months.

It’s worth noting that Gnosh’s teaching were focused primarily on health and fitness. He wasn’t teaching yoga in the real sense of the word – that is, as a state of being where the fluctuations of the mind cease and one simply is. No, his focus was on the body – building it up, controlling it, working with it.

It’s pure speculation on my part, but if this is how Bikram Choudhury learned his yoga – as a total focus on the body and asana with scant energy or awareness given to the other limbs of yoga (especially the yamas and niyamas), it’s no surprise his behaviour was abusive.
Yoga isn’t just about the body nor is it just about asana (postures). Yoga is a path to liberation or enlightenment.

That path involves first knowing oneself – shadow side and all, and then realising that there is no Self.

If asana is only practiced as a physical pursuit, and no effort is made to know oneself, instead of the bonds of the ego lessening over time, they can strengthen and entrap.

What was it like for those closest to Bikram? What did they see and why did no one else point out that the Emperor had no clothes? Or were they expressing concern over his behaviour and was Bikram discounting their feedback?

Benjamin Lorr details why this might have been in this article. He investigated the Bikram World for his book Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga.

Just to get to a place where you are face-to-face with a guru like Bikram Choudhury means you have devoted countless hours practicing his style of yoga, paid thousands of dollars to him personally, hope to make a living teaching his classes, and have embraced a larger community of studio owners and senior teachers who have made even greater investments of time, money, and passion in the same direction.

In Bikram’s case, he assisted this process by creating a sliding continuum around his behavior, from his ribald jokes and frequent hip-thrusts in Speedo, to his leveraging of cultural differences in requests for massages and brushing his hair, to his invitations to select students up to his private suite to watch Bollywood movies late into the night. Blurry lines and passionate devotion gives everyone involved—from targets to observers to guru himself—plenty of opportunities to substitute excuses for accountability.

In other words, like frogs placed in cold water a-top a hot element, the Bikram faithful were encultured to accept Bikram as he was – somewhat off colour and mad, but teaching a powerful sequence they believed in.

Speaking up would mean no longer being part of the Bikram World – and plenty of Bikram teacher have spoken up and left the fold over the years, like Mark Drost and Tony Sanchez.

One of the plantiffs from the recent civil cases, Larissa Anderson, tells her story in this article. It’s harrowing to read. She was a young woman who’d experienced sexual abuse as a teenager and credits Bikram Yoga with getting her life back on track. Eventually, she invested more than $200,000 in yoga teacher training and opening a Bikram Yoga Studio – despite being raped and later assaulted by Bikram. She managed by doing what everyone else advised:

Separating the man from the yoga practice.

According to this article;

Anderson’s allegations appear to be consistent with rumours that many community members had been hearing for years. People interviewed for this story allege that Choudhury has sexually assaulted them, harassed them, broken up relationships, and generally abused his power. “If there was a CEO in this country that acted like Bikram,” says Elizabeth Winfield, who went through teacher training in 2011, and is well connected in the community, “he’d be run out of the country.”

However, over here in New Zealand, we’re a long way from the epi-center of Bikram World. I wanted to know, how is the Bikram community coping here?

So I spoke to a few of the owners of Bikram Studios. All of the teachers I spoke to echoed a common theme – you have to separate out the man from the yoga.

As Anika Speedy, owner of Bikram Yoga Wellington says:

"I and my teachers believe in the integrity of the Bikram sequence.  It comes down to my belief that Bikram’s  90 minute Beginning Yoga series is incredibly powerful on so many levels. We have seen it change many people’s lives.  We are all certified to teach Bikram’s 90 Minute Beginning yoga series and that is what we teach. We teach it with integrity and passion and a belief in it’s therapeutic benefits.  Like we have seen with John Friend/Anusara Yoga and Kuasthub  you have to separate the ‘guru’ from the yoga.  One of the benefits of being in New Zealand is that we can focus on teaching Bikram the yoga and not get caught up in the media drama surrounding Bikram the man."

While none of the teachers said they knew anything about the charges that were being laid, several said they weren’t surprised, given the nature of the culture and organisation that surrounds Bikram, headquarters and teacher training.
Bikram has ruled for a long time using fear and control – however, it’s a culture that didn’t transplant to New Zealand studios.

Nikki Harris, who was the first person to open a Bikram Studio in New Zealand (in Mt. Maunganui) and now runs EastWest Studios in Auckland says:

"Our biggest responsibility in the studios right now is to keep the focus on each individual students personal yoga practice, which for most is really a relationship between themselves, their mat, and their direct community they practice in daily."

Keeping the yoga student-focussed can be difficult under Bikram. He makes very specific demands on Bikram Studios, such as no other styles of yoga, or modifications of Bikram Yoga including 60 minutes or 75 minutes classes, are allowed to be taught.

All good and well if Bikram Yoga is working for the student – but what about the student that needs to balance their practice with Yin Yoga or Restorative? There’s no room in a Bikram Studio for responding to the needs of the student, beyond offering them Bikram.
As Anika and some of the other teachers pointed out, the scandal is not just indicative of issues within the Bikram community, but the yoga community at large. Many teachers have fallen recently.

Despite the issues and uncertainty around Bikram, there’s still students who want to train as Bikram teachers. The sequence speaks for itself, and current teachers are making sure that future teachers know what’s going on and can make their own decisions about the wisdom in pursuing a Bikram Teacher Training at the present time.

As for the yoga students that continue to pour through the doors at Bikram Studios up and down the country, Kristina Anderson of Napier Bikram Studio makes the interesting point that 95% of students don’t even know that Bikram is a person.

"I am the representative of Bikram yoga – me, the studio owner, and my teachers. How we conduct ourselves, how we teach and what relationships we form with our students and the community we are continually building, are what matters to the students (and me)."

When they are in Camel and opening up their heart and throat chakra to the universe, believe me, they do not have Bikram Choudhury in the forefront of their mind. ever. Students come back into the hot room because of the myriad of physical, emotional and spiritual connections and benefits they experience as a result of the powerful process of connecting with breath, stillness and therefore themselves. This beautiful unfolding occurs, their life changes and that’s what brings them back into the room.

Like some of the other studios, Kristina says Bikram Napier will be exploring different options like the possibility of becoming an integrative hot yoga studio.
Despite his transgressions, many of the teachers expressed gratitude to Bikram and all he’s taught them over the years.

Donna Wikio, who owns Dunedin’s Bikram Yoga studio called him a damn good teacher, and she said that mostly she feels disappointed.

"I’m annoyed and upset. It’s another negative to put on top of the yoga when the yoga itself is so awesome. It’s painting a certain image of something that people already have certain images -it’s another little thing for people to clutch on to and denigrate the yoga. It’s a disappointing and it bums me out. We’re at ground level sweating our arses off getting this yoga out because it works, and we’ve taken another knock because of his behaviour."

Peggy Preston, who owns Queenstown Bikram concurs:

"The whole thing is a mess to be honest. It’s definitely sad but he chose his path and will pay the dues. I’ll always appreciate Bikram for what he taught me. I was disappointed, but we’re a long way away over here and we just don’t talk about it."

It was both illuminating and humbling to speak to so many of the Bikram Studio owners up and down New Zealand.

They’ve all invested serious money and time in teacher training in California, and in setting up studios here in New Zealand.

They do what they do because they believe in the yoga itself – the 26 posture sequence that Bikram created with help and support from his guru  Bishnu Ghosh. It’s transformed their lives, and they’ve seen it transform the lives of hundreds of other students.

Marc Gafni, Founder of iEvolve and Sexual Predator

Another controversial spiritual teacher who is part of the Integral inner circle, supported and defended by Wilber, Cohen, Patten and Craig Hamilton, Sally Kempton and Diane Musho Hamilton among many of the other figureheads of the movement. Gafni also works closely with Wilber at the Integral Institute. Gafni fled his position as head of the Bayit Chadash in Israel after several members of his community accused him of sexual misconduct. These were only the latest in a string of sexual accusations that has plagued Gafni. He was also stripped of his ordination as a Rabbi. While he apologized for his relationships with these women at Bayit Chadash he claims they were “loving and mutual,” (a claim which they strongly dispute). But if it gives any perspective he also says that his relationship with a 13 year old girl when he was 19 and 20 was “loving and mutual.” This is the testimony of the young girl who he claims he was in a mutual and loving relationship with.

The abuse went on through the year I was in 9th grade. The school year was almost over, I remember it was warm out. He called me on the phone one day to tell me that he would no longer be coming over. He realized that what he really needed was to get married soon, and he explained that this would give him a proper outlet for his sexuality. Its hard to describe how I felt at that moment, because it is complex. My molester finally decided to stop abusing me, to leave me alone, to move on. You would imagine I would feel great relief, but actually the full weight of the abuse I had endured in silence came crashing down on me. Here I was, left with this horrible experience, still with no one to talk to about it, and no language for it anyway. And he wasn't retreating because I had some how managed to make him stop, but because he decided it just wasn't worth the risk any more. He was terrified that he would do more and make me pregnant- then there would be no way to keep his secret. Until then, his abuse included exposing my body against my will, forcibly touching my breast, grabbing my hand and forcing me to touch his penis, and forced digital vaginal penetration. All were the most horrifying, degrading and painful experiences for me. All this only a year or so after my bat mitzvah...

Unfortunately, I knew Mordechai very well. He told me a lot about himself, and I knew him as a sexually compulsive, sexually violent man. After talking with counselors, lawyers, and professionals who advise and counsel sexual perpetrators, I learned that in 99% of cases, people who compulsively sexually abuse girls or women, especially those who were abused themselves as children, don't stop. These are dangerous people. The more we are silent about them, the more they have the freedom to act out their sexual compulsions. Further first hand accounts show that Mordechai continued to molest young women after he was married. Unfortunately, marriage did not solve his problems. There is no reason for me to assume he is not still victimizing girls and women. Back when I knew him, he was a refined manipulator, "groomer", "brain-washer", and he used those skills in order to victimize girls and young women. I have no doubt that, years later, he has honed his skills as a predator.

His defenders repeatedly claim that “he as done nothing illegal,” and ask us to believe that Ganfi is the victim of a widespread attack up on him. All of the women (over ten) exaggerated, distorted and lied about what really happened.

At least five female students and staff members have come forward to accuse Rabbi Mordechai Gafni of luring them into sexual relationships through intimidation, psychological manipulation and deception. Late last week, Gafni, an Orthodox-trained rabbi who has become a star of the New Age-style Jewish Renewal movement, was dismissed from his position as the head of Bayit Chadash, a center on the Sea of Galilee that he co-founded six years ago.

Gafni subsequently issued a public apology for having “hurt people I love,” and said that he would seek in-patient treatment for what he called “a sickness.”

…He was originally ordained as an Orthodox rabbi and moved to Israel more than a decade ago, after leaving posts in New York and in Boca Raton, Fla., amid rumors of sexual misconduct. He assumed an Israeli name and transitioned into the world of Jewish Renewal….

Rosenblatt said he had interviewed about 50 supporters and critics, including two prominent Orthodox leaders – Rabbi Yosef Blau, spiritual mentor at Yeshiva University, and Shlomo Riskin, chief rabbi of the West Bank settlement of Efrat – who had known Gafni since the 1980s. Blau and Riskin, who both criticized Gafni, told Rosenblatt that over the years they had spoken with a number of women who had complaints about the rabbi.

Rosenblatt interviewed several alleged victims. One was a woman named Judy, who first accused Gafni of molesting her in 1986, when she was a 16-year-old member of a youth group he directed. Shortly thereafter, Gafni left New York for a pulpit job in Florida. Another woman, Susan, who was an adviser for the group at the time, said that Gafni had threatened her when she tried to intervene on the girl’s behalf.

When asked about the allegations, Gafni told Rosenblatt that Judy was a troubled, unstable teenager who fabricated the story after he rebuffed her advances.

But he admitted to having had a sexual relationship with another girl, when she was 13 and 14 and he was 19 and 20, studying to become a rabbi.

“I was a stupid kid and we were in love,” Gafni was quoted as saying in The Jewish Week. “She was 14 going on 35, and I never forced her.”

The woman told Rosenblatt that Gafni had “repeatedly sexually assaulted her” when he stayed at her house for the Sabbath. The rabbi also told her that she would be “shamed in the community” if she told anyone.
   
As Frank Visser says, “Integral confirms integral confirms integral.” I have heard people defend Marc Gafni by stating that Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber support him. But it actually is a silly game they all play because they all defend and support each other. It goes something like this. Patten, Hamilton, Gafni and Wilber support Cohen. Cohen, Wilber, Hamilton and Patten support Gafni. Cohen, Gafni, Hamilton and Patten support Wilber. Wilber and Cohen support Patten and Hamilton. Wilber and Patten support Adi Da….etc. And they all appear on each others integral programs, websites, conferences, book chapters, magazines and platforms. Among the various offerings is Integral Life Practice, Integral Naked, Integral Institute, Integral Spiritual Center, Integral Enlightenment, EnlightenNext magazine…etc. And as Yenner notes above, they seem to employ the same tactic: surrounding themselves with other luminaries, celebrities, and public faces who agree with them and provide much needed support. If all of these amazing people support Cohen he must be ok, right? Nowadays it seems all you have to do is add the word integral in front of something to boost its credibility. Add the word integral and you have a sexy and attractive product ready to be sold to eager spiritual seekers who are hungry for idealism and more purpose in life. The whole thing equates to a very large money making machine.

I want to be clear that this article is not an attack on integral theory or the nature of the teachings that many of the people here offer. I am a fan of integral theory in general—not of the Wilber sort, but the principle behind it. One can recognize that many of these teachers have said wise things while simultaneously being aware of their shortcomings.

Is it wrong to call out Cohen’s enablers? Is it wrong to expect them to break the silence on Cohen’s legacy of abuse, manipulation and cultish behaviors? In the face of the sadistic acts of Cohen isn’t it problematic when Wilber says “Cohen is here to tear you into a thousand pieces?” What about accountability? Responsibility? Ethics?

I would never appear on a program with Cohen, Wilber or Gafni let alone work with them. And if I was in a position of power as Cohen’s friends and supporters Ken Wilber, Craig Hamilton, Terry Patten, Marc Gafni, Genpo Roshi, Diane Hamilton are I would speak out against him. Do they deny the multiple, disturbing claims made by former disciples of Cohen? Or do they merely brush it aside as “Crazy Wisdom?” How can someone like Craig Hamilton continue to praise Cohen given the overwhelming evidence against him? After spending fifteen years with Cohen I suspect that Hamilton is still in Cohen’s cult trance. Can Cohen’s supporters be deemed legitimate if they are unable to call out his abusive, manipulative and sadistic behavior? There is really no excuse for the silence because it only enables Cohen further. In a post-Jonestown and present day Catholic Church scandal era we simply cannot afford their silence. I doubt any accountability will be had because this particular integral community is a family of “evolutionary thinkers,” who has discovered a revolutionary truth and will defend it to the end. They simply employ a form of group think that rationalizes, justifies and spins the truth to meet their agreed upon conclusions about each other.

The ultimate irony is of course that these spiritual teachers are supposedly on the forefront of instructing us on how to confront the shadow. However, I won’t take their advice until they confront the very large shadow of Andrew Cohen.

Be Scofield   

John Friend and Anusara: Do yoga, gurus and scandals go hand in hand?

In this week's cover story, I profile John Friend, who built his Texas-based Anusara yoga school into a global empire before losing it all in a lurid 2012 scandal and moving to Denver to start anew.

While Friend's fall from grace captured major media attention, he was far from the first yoga guru to weather controversy. Is there something about yoga that leads to such problems? A look at some of the other yoga scandals might provide some answers.

Up until fairly recently, yoga itself was controversial in the United States, since it clashed with xenophobic and conservative undertones in American culture. In the 1910s, newspapers blared headlines such as "Police Break in on Weird Hindu Rites: Girls and Men Mystics Cease Strange Dance as 'Priest' Is Arrested" and "A Hindu Apple for Modern Eve: The Cult of the Yogis Lures Women to Destruction." Between the 1960s and 1980s, Western yoga practitioners worked hard to downplay the spiritual aspects of the ancient tradition that had led to this backlash, instead focusing on the largely physical branch of the practice called hatha yoga, which they positioned as a form of exercise.

The move paid off. Since then, Yoga's rise in popularity had been meteoric -- but it's also been marked by more than a few controversies. Among the scandals:

•     In the early 1980s, former devotees accused Swami Muktananda, founder of Siddha Yoga, of molesting and raping women.
• In 1991, multiple women accused Swami Satchidananda, who gave the invocation at Woodstock, of sexually exploiting them.
• In the early 1990s, Swami Rama, founder of the Pennsylvania-based Himalayan Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy and one of the first yogis to be studied by Western scientists, faced controversy after several women alleged he sexually abused them. Not long after his death, one of his accusers won nearly $2 million in a lawsuit filed against him.
• In 1994, Amrit Desai, founder of the Massachusetts-based Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, resigned from the organization after he admitted having sex with followers, since the retreat required vows of celibacy from its residents. The center later settled a lawsuit brought by former residents for $2.5 million.
• In 2009, former members and employees sued Dahn yoga, a Korean exercise system, for fraud, deceptive business practices, emotional distress and other offenses. The plaintiffs eventually withdrew their lawsuit, but in the wake of the ensuing media coverage, which emphasized Dahn's cult-like activities, the program's founder, Ilchi Lee, announced his resignation.

Bikram Choudhury, founder of the wildly popular Bikram school of "hot yoga," has long weathered controversy, including claims that he's denigrated women and homosexuals and allegations in a lawsuit filed in March 2013 that he sexually harassed a former prot?g?

To some, the pattern is hard to ignore. In the wake of Friend's scandal, William Broad, author of The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards, penned a New York Times essay noting,

...this is hardly the first time that yoga's enlightened facade has been cracked by sexual scandal. Why does yoga produce so many philanderers? And why do the resulting uproars leave so many people shocked and distraught?

One factor is ignorance. Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention that the discipline began as a sex cult -- an omission that leaves many practitioners open to libidinal surprise.
   
Not surprisingly, Broad's essay didn't go over well in the yoga community. Among those not impressed was Yoga Dork, a prominent blogger in the scene who had, incidentally, helped break the Friend scandal. As Yoga Dork noted in an online retort:

...For crying out loud, Broad, are you really saying John Friend behaved the way he did because he had a predetermined predisposition to do so due to the fact he was a leader of yoga? That is silly and just plain dumb.

We'll remember to tell that to the veterans who are able to sleep better at night, the kids who can focus better in school, those prone to heart disease who lost weight and lowered risk of heart attack and stroke and the cancer survivors who've found strength, calm and community all due to the help of a regular yoga and meditation practice.

Saying it's yoga's fault doesn't seem like the answer.

Plus, yoga is far from the only modern realm wracked by scandals. (Just take a look at Washington, D.C.) So maybe the problem isn't with yoga, maybe it's with yoga's financial and cultural ascendance.

Yoga's explosion in the United States has led to millions of happy practicioners, but it's also led to million-dollar profits, corporate power moves, powerful male gurus and lots and lots of endorphin-fueled, spandex-clad bodies.

In other words, maybe all these yoga scandals aren't due to the practice's ancient Tantric origins -- maybe they're due to yoga becoming Americanized.