AHIMSA In Licensing Issue for Yoga Teachers & Therapists

NOTE: The following is a letter to the Editor of Yoga Magazine in the United Kingdom, where they are making more "progress" on the licensing of yoga. I have not reviewed it, but thought I'd put it up here until I can write something more compreshensive on the issue. -- Dr. Malik is the Editor of the magazine. -- If you want to jump to the reference on Ahimsa, Click Here.

Dear Dr.Malik,

[Skipped a few sentences, here ...]

Anyway, I have been very interested in the articles and letters regarding the licensing issues in Britain. I was very active in similar issues in the United States massage industry back in the late '80's, and the whole thing is coming alive again for yoga here. So I am getting concerned.

I am definitely an anti-authoritarian, classical liberal, and see licensing as far worse than no licensing. Although I could argue that I had support from about 10% of the members of the American Massage Therapy Association, few were interested in doing more than go along to get along. Most felt it was inevitable that the the field would fully embrace licensing. They were also not interested in the fundamental economic, political, legal and social issues that arise from centralized government control over private activity.

I was friends with most of the massage leadership in those days, and I was developing enough influence to be labeled by these friends as the Isolated Pockets of Resistance.

Few today are interested in the spiritual/religious issues that underly the whole question. It is as if the Americans and the British have completely lost touch with the foundational Old Testament principles that speak to the issue. This is ironic in that the split between Britain and the states in 1776 had a common heritage with todays issues.

Would The State control the people, or would The People control the state? If The People cannot be responsible for, and need to be controlled, in their basic economic activity, and even their spiritual activity, then how could they be responsible enough to control the State? From 1600 to the early 1900's, Americans lived without any significant day-to-day interference by any state power. But since the early 1900's, Americans have gotten lazy and relinquished their responsibilities and powers to the State. Now, their Rights are disappearing too. They have traded their freedoms for security and safety.

Now we have the spectacle of The State being called upon to regulate the practice and teaching of yoga. To me, this is just a more subtle shading of saying that George Bush is going to give democracy to the Iraqis. Democracy can be given to no one. It must emerge from the minds, souls, and actions of The People.

Physical and mental yoga, as a unit, are a system by which human beings can explore, heal and develop their unique creativity and individuality. It is supposed to be a path to freedom. And many years ago, yogis from India claimed that America would be the new keeper of the flame of spirituality.

Well, forget that. ... We are trading in our spiritual tools for a little safety from excessively pulled muscles or compressed discs. Just like Americans bought the idea of licensing for medical doctors and lost the wholistic healing arts of bodywork, nutrition and exercise for nearly a century. In return, they got drugs and surgery.

Few remember, if they ever knew, that the Bible is big on the concept of freedom, and is why 1st Samuel admonishes The People to not take a king to rule over them. But they did and God has been punishing them ever since. This is what the preachers in the mid 1700s in America were teaching their church members that inspired them to revolt against a tyrannical government, ... that we could live under the Laws of God, or under the laws of man, but not both.

Anyway, I have written a lot on many aspects of this issue, and have been published in a book on economics on the licensing issue, and have taught seminars, etc. But right now, I will spare you most of the details. I will say, however, that I have relinquished my membership in the Yoga Alliance for various reasons, including my distrust of any entity that attempts to centralize just about anything.

I also am spiritually inclined toward the British/American Common Law as informed by Old/New Testament principles, and did not want to be obligated to the yamas and niyamas that Yoga Alliance pushed for. Even though I train yoga teachers, I am philosophically and spiritually partial to the Western Tradition, even though my work is significantly informed and influenced by certain of the Eastern insights and perspectives.

If you are interested in discussing these issues, I would be happy to engage in such conversation with you, especially their implications in social, political and economic activity.

So, I have two immediate reasons for writing you. One, is there a way to get back-issues of your magazine? Or, alternatively, is there a way to get the text for all of the pieces you have published on the licensing issue? I would like to overview it all and write something on it. I have reason to believe the yoga community might be more open to certain insights on licensing because of the following point:

The other reason for writing you is that there is one point that seems to be missing from all the rhetoric. A point that goes to the core of anyone who is attempting to embrace a moral and philosophically based approach to life, especially if they embrace traditional yoga. I assume this element is ignored because so many see State intervention as an inevitably insurmountable issue. But here is the point:

As you certainly know, the principle of Ahimsa is that of non-violence. We are admonished by yogic philosophy to be very careful and observant of any tendency, even slight ones, toward any kind of violence that might live within our minds or souls, or even in our body. Yet, it is well established by legal encyclopedias and many legal philosophers throughout history that the foundational premise of The State is the monopoly power to administer and wield violence in order to enforce its edicts and controls. No matter how we rationalize or sugar-coat the so-called "public good" that is done by The State, if indeed there is any, it is ALWAYS done under a cloud of the threat of power to do violence. Do as we say or you will go to jail, or worse if you resist arrest.

I had personal friends in Chicago who were arrested and jailed for alternative health practices. One was one of the most highly trained acupuncturists in the state of Illinois, the other was a tremendously experienced bodyworker. The U.S. has had treated dozens of licensed medical doctors in similar fashion, or worse. Some have literally been SWAT teamed -- multiple gun points to stop the evil administration of nutritional substances!

I also traveled to five different states in the mid 1980's to interview five attorneys who specialized in defending licensed medical doctors who were continually being harassed by the medical establishment. I saw many of the court records and it is an absolute travesty that these men were persecuted. It is clear that they were treated as such not to protect the Public, but to protect the power and profits of the medical establishment.

You are probably familiar with the CODEX Alimentarius, an international attempt to severely limit supplements, care of the United Nations and its subsidiary organizations. A macro example of what is happening at the micro level with massage and yoga.

The point here is that to be true to the principle of Ahimsa, I do not see how a yoga practitioner can participate in or advocate the use of violence. Participating in any licensing scheme, especially if a licensee, puts one in the situation of deriving a benefit by way of a violence based system. Though most people will just close their eyes and ignore this, or write people like me off as crack-pots, it does not change the reality of it all.

On top of it, huge amounts of research show that licensing does NOT protect the public, that it raises prices unnecessarily, that it decreases innovation, it institutes mediocrity, that it makes it MORE difficult to effectively discipline wayward practitioners, and so on.

Yes, licensing might clean things up in the early years of its institution, but the power structure always entrenches. As my friend, who was president of the American Massage Therapy Association during the years a I was attempting to discourage the push for licensing, told me, I was right. A few years after he left the position, and as things unfolded, he began to publicly state that the profession should not have gone in that direction, and that they should have listened to me. But of course, it was too late.

Now, rather than become massage therapist because of a love for the profession, many of the new people who become therapists do so because it is known that you can make a good living at it with only 6 months to a year of training and a relatively small investment. I could go on, but I hope I have made my point, whether or not you believe it.

My points here might sound off the wall. But I assure you that at the founding of America, and even in court case till the early to mid 1900's, these were well established and well known principles, in part because of the colonists experiences of King George. ...

(Nothing personal!) [Remember, I'm writing this to a British guy! -- DSL]

This history of this perspective is available for those willing to go back into the original source documents that few people over the last hundred years even know about, let alone read.

But, just as few yoga practitioners in America are truly familiar with the foundational writings of the yoga philosophy, even fewer are familiar with what I consider to be a core part of the Western Philosophical and Spiritual Tradition, or the REAL principles of the American Revolution and American philosophy of society and government.

And as not one in one hundred Americans (I am being generous here) knows the original principles of American government, we will also go the way of violence based job protection for yoga. The principle that a human being could not be restrained unless he or she actually caused a harm to someone is long dead, even though that was the principle that created the greatest growth in human health, productivity, and prosperity in known history. We got that principle, by the way, from British and European philosophers of the 1700's plus OldTestament Law.

Just as there are those who are trying to restore yogic philosophy, there are those of us trying to restore the British/American philosophy, minus the rule of kings.