How Many Yogis Does It Take to Screw in a Light Bulb?

June 12, 5:04 AMPhiladelphia Yoga ExaminerJonathan Bartlett

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 Punch line #1: 108.

That’s a joke, son, that’s a joke!!

Why this is funny: In the yoga world, 108 is a magic number. It’s the number of Sun Salutations you might do if you are part of a yoga gathering around the change of the seasons. It’s the number of beads on a mala, a necklace used by yogis to facilitate meditation. In yoga astrology, Yjotish(also funny) there are nine planets and 12 houses and 9x12=108!  In fact, there a zillion answers to this question, but no yogi can point to one. Check it out, google ‘What is the significance of 108’? As a born and bred member of the Western culture, I think this is a panic! It’s typical yoga. It doesn’t matter what its significance is. Yoga is older than dirt, going back thousands of years and is represented in sacred Vedic texts that are also really really old. Yoga folks know that the number 108 is in there somewhere. Hilarious!!

Punch line #2: Om.

Get it??!! Om, one???!!

Why this is funny: Om is the written representation of the vibration--which comes across to our ears as sound--that the universe makes, it is said. It’s also said to be the sonic equivalent of white light in that it contains all sounds, just as white light contains all the colors our eyes see. Om is a sound that a yogi teacher and his or her students often makes to begin or end a yoga class. In my classes, I regularly use Om to toll the beginning of my classes. I sometimes ask my students to remain silent as I belt it out. I use this to bring students out of their minds, bring their attention into their bodies, as they move into and out of the poses. Om is also funny, I think. It’s a funny sound, at least to the Western mind. Outside of the West, Om is serious business, representing the all-encompassing, the ‘everything’, that which is. It’s also a sound that’s remarkably similar to the ‘Amen’ we all know in Western religious traditions. It’s still funny. I think.

Punch line #3: It doesn’t take any yogis to screw in a light bulb because it’s really already screwed in and lighted. It just isn’t aware of its true nature.

Now, THAT is funny!!! Come on!!

Why this is funny: Yoga folks believe that we are all enlightened. (Now what is that? See my last post, but you tell me if that’s any help.) In the yoga world, people are actually enlightened but during most of their lives they are asleep at the wheel. They wind their way through their journeys without an understanding of what’s really going on out here. Agreement comes only from a wish that we are having the same experience, when in fact we are not. We just agree that we are. Each of us responds to the world based on our limited senses and respond to sense data via our own individual egos when in fact there is a ‘reality’ beyond that. We see is what we expect to see, based on the data we’ve collected throughout our lives. So if I see what I define as a beautiful women, for instance, and my friend sees the same figure, we are each going to respond differently to that sense data. He might be frightened, and I might be enlivened, and that feeling will color the whole experience of perceiving a beautiful woman. Yeah, it’s kind of crazy, but it IS funny!!

Truth is, humor is sometimes hard to come by in among yoga folks, and I’m still trying to figure out why. The ‘religious’ aspect of it perhaps? One of my favorite yoga teachers remarked with a ‘tut tut’ tone in her voice that yoga is ‘so serious.’ Fortunately, as yoga winds its way into the West, more and more folks are offering yoga humor. Personally, I think it’s a good thing, and it means that yoga is maturing and becoming a player in our Western mindset. There’s even a stand-up comedian who offers herself as a yogi as part of her act. And of course there’s the Inappropriate Yoga Guy. This always makes me laugh.And there's more coming.