Dear Yoga Friends,

These days we encounter deception around every corner. Timely observation, given that many of us recently celebrated Halloween :). Communication channels carry increasingly persuasive attempts to divert our attention, obtain our personal information, and access our wallets. Recently I received an email that was addressed to a dozen or so members of the local yoga teacher community. The email was overtly from a prominent teacher of yoga philosophy whom some of us had studied with. The sender of this email requested help in recovering a large sum of money that was erroneously paid to a local teacher who did not respond to requests to return the money. There was a subtle coercive tone to the email, asking us to assist in convincing this teacher to do the right thing and return the money.

The communication had the hallmarks of a scam: request for transferring money electronically, leveraging a group dynamic via email addresses that could have been gathered from publicly-available sources, and even a suggestion to move communication to WhatsApp. Almost all the teachers on the thread flagged it as a scam, and we closed the thread. Even so, there were a couple of teachers who, despite the scam-like aspects, believed it could be legitimate.

Can yoga practice guide us in this era of deep-fakes and the increasing challenges in determining what is real? We looked at this a year ago (see Yoga and Reality). It's worth another look at Sutra I.7 (translation from B.K.S. Iyengar's Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali), which defines correct knowledge:

Correct knowledge is direct, inferred, or proven as factual.

Our senses fail us more easily now than they did a year ago. The link between seeing and believing has become even more tenuous. Sutra I.7 implies that layer beyond direct sensation, where mind and intellect intervene. And we have always had the ability to pool input and evaluation with those we trust. Getting back to that suspicious email, the few who thought it might be legitimate shared 1:1 communications with the sender that appeared convincing. Increasingly curious, I reached out to the sender myself and validated the sender's identity and earnestness to my personal satisfaction. The needle on my truth-meter moved to "proven as factual".

What began as a lesson on the importance of keeping up one's guard turned into an unexpected exercise in seeking truth. Interesting that the fall/winter holidays in modern America move from themes of deception and scary fantasy to gratitude to finding light in the darkness. Your thoughts and observations welcome as always!

Namaste, Happy Holidays,

Chad

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