Downward Facing Blog

Recently one of my students and I got in a conversation about marketing and business and the BBC documentary “Century of the Self” came up. I hadn’t yet seen it, and he was gracious enough to make me a copy, which I’ve been watching with great interest.

I tend to get kind of obsessed (hurrr as the Thais call it) when I’m turned on to something new and well, this has my attention.

 First of all it’s fantastic, what I’ve watched so far. It’s documenting the use of Freudian psychology in advertising and governmental propaganda in post world war I and world war II era.

Freud’s theories on the unconscious being a place of dark, unmanageable desires was confirmed when he witnessed the evils of human nature in the time of war. It was this perspective that lead to governents seeking ways to control and pacify the masses, by basically turning us into consumers. Through some clever sleight of media, the world moved from a needs based society to a wants based society, and damn, they did a great job didn’t they?

 I don’t remember precisely how so many of the concepts of Freudian psychology entered into the background of the way I saw things, but I distinctly recall that idea floating around before: the unconscious is the storehouse of negative trauma, shaping our behaviors and perceptions.

Back when I was being brainwashed as a Christian, I was told that any sort of altered state would open up the mind to potential possession and control by demons. Like Freud, and the governments of the time, we had to train the ego to be focused properly in order to resist the temptations, the devils, who could sneak in without our looking.

Yoga reverses this entirely. Yoga says that we’re sitting on top of perfection! That inside is GOD and it’s the ego that needs to loosen the hold in order to let us experience the love-bliss nature that we actually are.

I know I’m a yoga teacher and obviously pro-yoga, but which do YOU think is healthier:

1. view yourself as deep down being a mess of turmoil and evil, animal desires

2. view yourself (and all others) as being love-bliss-pure consciousness under the surface?