The Task of Yoga should be to accept Homosexuality - not to fight it!

I told you last week how a gay friend of mine was always in a struggle with himself in the year 2006 because his yoga guru, the man whose advice he followed in every other field, thought that his homosexuality was wrong. Obviously, hearing of these troubles made me wonder why someone accepted such a guru at all and why it was a popular thought that yoga believed homosexuality was a problem.

Obviously, the idea that being gay was something that one should and could fix, was based on religion and tradition, the belief that a couple should be one man and one woman. People earlier thought that everything that was not according to the norm was wrong and something that needed to be fixed. Unfortunately some yogis, those inflexible, old-fashioned people who don’t go with time, still today believe that the attraction to a person of your own gender is something unnatural. And as they wish to fix everything by yoga, they believe they can ‘fix’ homosexuality by removing imaginary blockages.

That’s where this crazy perception of homosexuality comes from. If you see the essence of yoga however, it is all about being yourself. It is about accepting your inside and your outside, about becoming one with your inner essence. I am sure that every gay man and every lesbian woman is convinced that his or her inner core is also lesbian or gay. One’s sexual orientation is a part of one’s inside and I thus believe the yogic task would be to accept your homosexuality – not to fight against it. Doing that openly and in public is in itself already a task that can be quite difficult.

As a gay or lesbian, you most probably have heard all the stupid arguments people try to tell you against your sexual orientation. You get into yoga not only as exercise but also for the meditation and as a spiritual way. So when you get yourself a guru, if you need one at all, how can you choose to follow one who does not accept your homosexuality?

Aren’t you making it difficult for yourself? You are creating an identity conflict and are unable to fulfill the concept of a guru. You have to follow this person completely and you are not supposed to question him in any point. That is the essence of having a guru. So you either give up yourself or you don’t follow the concept of having a guru.

So why do you have a guru at all?

I had seen a long time ago that guruism is something that will only fit with people who are ready not to be themselves.