From February 15 to 17, the Institute of Yoga Studies and the magazine Tú Mismo organize the I MEDITERRANEAN YOGA CONGRESS with the aim of promoting the practice of yoga and delivering unforgettable days to the largest number of seekers in our country, among the most consecrated in the discipline and also among those who are just starting out, because as we know, in the spirit equality is absolute. The congress is organized by Victor M. Flores (Senge Dorje, his spiritual name in Tibetan Buddhism) who has been trained in different lines of hatha, kriya, Kalpa siddhi and tantra yoga. Senge Dorje likes yoga to open his eyes, and also to close them, like love. We have interviewed Senge Dorje and he explains how he got started with yoga and his thoughts on its evolution in our society.
1. How did you find your way into yoga?
Actually I wasn't looking for yoga. Rather yoga found me. You don't choose to fall in love or have a summer storm fall on you. They are things that happen to you and that soak you immediately. Yoga appeared by chance and it soaked me to the bone and to this day that sudden and unexpected chill lasts me. It was not a slow seduction, there was no flirtation or cautious approaches. It was a flash, a lightning bolt in the middle of very dark skies that made me doubt everything that until that day were immovable truths for me, the way I saw life and the role I played. Yoga became a very jealous lover from the first moment.
2. As a faithful practitioner and organizer of yoga meetings, could you say why yoga has spread considerably among society in recent years?
Basically out of necessity. We have lost our way more than ever. But we cannot forget that the budgets of yoga are ancient. that means that two or three thousand years ago the human being had the same needs as today, the same fears and the same concerns. That is why yoga saw the light. If the human being had lived in a nirvatic state, without frustration or fear, yoga would have had no reason to exist. Today the technique has been a severe setback against humanism. All moral values are in decline. And when I speak of morality, I speak of ethics, not morality. We are in the era of anything goes and that translates into vital anguish. Yoga is the antidote.
3. Does this ''massification'' put at risk moving away from the true vocation and spiritual and physical exploration of yoga? That is, do you think that quantity can affect quality?
Of course not. Quite the contrary. That it return to popular yoga and that it is now in the hands of housewives who go to the market or rockers is their goal. Dressing in white, striking a pose, and saying lofty words at the most inopportune moments is nothing but farce. The risk of overcrowding is the appearance of spiritual merchants seeking enrichment, which is not bad either, since it is implicit in our society. The problem is when this enrichment is fraudulent, that is, when the merchant is a smoke seller or uses his wisdom to enslave his students with absolute truths to get economic control, sexual favors or simply power. Fortunately, the internet, if you know how to handle it well, provides enough information for all of us to master a language that was hermetic until recently.
4. During the Congress in Valencia, you will be in charge of an exhibition called "contemporary lines". What does this technique consist of and what benefits does it bring to the practitioner?
Well, it's the break with Indian yoga. I consider yoga as universal and constantly evolving. In the West it has been enriched with choreographies, for example, dynamism, a reasonable doubt about its concept of diet... For my part, I have included in my style studies derived from other fields, such as biomechanics, with concepts such as gravitational fields or the works of Reich on the transverse rings of tension. Yoga has not changed in India simply because India continues to live mostly in the Neolithic, so it has not needed any modification... But in the West each generation is different from that of its parents. Assuming yoga and adapting it to the times or enriching it has only been a matter of time, as Shiva Rea or John Friend have done. Why do we question them and not BKS Iyengar or Pasttabi Jois? In their day they also modified yoga as they pleased, creating great schools that today we consider as valid as in later years we will consider many visions of Europeans and North Americans.
5. Do you think that yoga is constantly evolving? How do you see yoga in the future?
I join Malraux's thought: The XNUMXst century will be spiritual or it won't be. By then, many of us will already be united in the Being and we will not have been able to see it in this density that we call the physical plane.
2. As a faithful practitioner and organizer of yoga meetings, could you say why yoga has spread considerably among society in recent years?
Basically out of necessity. We have lost our way more than ever. But we cannot forget that the budgets of yoga are ancient. that means that two or three thousand years ago the human being had the same needs as today, the same fears and the same concerns. That is why yoga saw the light. If the human being had lived in a nirvatic state, without frustration or fear, yoga would have had no reason to exist. Today the technique has been a severe setback against humanism. All moral values are in decline. And when I speak of morality, I speak of ethics, not morality. We are in the era of anything goes and that translates into vital anguish. Yoga is the antidote.
3. Does this ''massification'' put at risk moving away from the true vocation and spiritual and physical exploration of yoga? That is, do you think that quantity can affect quality?
Of course not. Quite the contrary. That it return to popular yoga and that it is now in the hands of housewives who go to the market or rockers is their goal. Dressing in white, striking a pose, and saying lofty words at the most inopportune moments is nothing but farce. The risk of overcrowding is the appearance of spiritual merchants seeking enrichment, which is not bad either, since it is implicit in our society. The problem is when this enrichment is fraudulent, that is, when the merchant is a smoke seller or uses his wisdom to enslave his students with absolute truths to get economic control, sexual favors or simply power. Fortunately, the internet, if you know how to handle it well, provides enough information for all of us to master a language that was hermetic until recently.
4. During the Congress in Valencia, you will be in charge of an exhibition called "contemporary lines". What does this technique consist of and what benefits does it bring to the practitioner?
Well, it's the break with Indian yoga. I consider yoga as universal and constantly evolving. In the West it has been enriched with choreographies, for example, dynamism, a reasonable doubt about its concept of diet... For my part, I have included in my style studies derived from other fields, such as biomechanics, with concepts such as gravitational fields or the works of Reich on the transverse rings of tension. Yoga has not changed in India simply because India continues to live mostly in the Neolithic, so it has not needed any modification... But in the West each generation is different from that of its parents. Assuming yoga and adapting it to the times or enriching it has only been a matter of time, as Shiva Rea or John Friend have done. Why do we question them and not BKS Iyengar or Pasttabi Jois? In their day they also modified yoga as they pleased, creating great schools that today we consider as valid as in later years we will consider many visions of Europeans and North Americans.
5. Do you think that yoga is constantly evolving? How do you see yoga in the future?
I join Malraux's thought: The XNUMXst century will be spiritual or it won't be. By then, many of us will already be united in the Being and we will not have been able to see it in this density that we call the physical plane.
