Question:

"Seek and ye shall find"..and generally just what you are looking for..If it’s dirt that turns you on..we all know it’s out there. But "Yoga," is a good thing….and dirty people won’t change that…

Response:

"Seek and ye shall find"..and generally just what you are looking for..If it’s dirt that turns you on..we all know it’s out there.

What if I seek for a flying elephant or a square circle?

Response:

Then I bet you’ll find it…hell, I saw an elephant fly one time! And if your head is round.. like a circle..I bet we could get it into a square shape…

Response:

No, I mean a real flying elephant not Dumbo that is just ink on paper, film or micro dots in your hard drive. I also said square circle, not a circle than you’ll eventually turn into a square. What I’m trying to say is that your usage of that particular Biblical quote is wrong, your understanding of its meaning is out of context. Also, yoga is not "good" it is beyond good since good (like its opposite) is relative, you should have said *constructive*. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Then I bet you’ll find it…hell, I saw an elephant fly one time! And if your head is round.. like a circle..I bet we could get it into a square shape…

Response:

This conversation reminds me of the Logical Law of Non-Contradiction – ‘In such stories as the Ramayana in which Rama is shown as experiencing emotions, God has had human traits and responses superimposed upon Him. He is not really subject to human emotions, however. Just as a spider must follow its own threads, Rama cannot interfere with the karmic laws of his own creation. The Game must be played out.’  Meditation and Mantras p122 Vishnudevananda 2 types of Power God has Ordained – that which he chooses to use which allows Him to play in this universe without undoing it and Absolute power of God. How he acts and how he could have acted. Vishnu’s spider and web. Logical Law of Non-Contradiction – God Can’t do what is self-contradictory. p13 Law of Non-Contradictions A and not A. The implication is that God could have chosen to order the world in quite a different way. How is it that Jesus suffered on the cross is a Christian analogy to Vishnu above. Moreover how can the Divine suffer and still be that which is deliver us from suffering? Why was Socrates (a pagan) cheerful facing death and we find Jesus saying "God why hast thou forsaken me?’ This is how the issue of the Law of Non Contradiction arose in Lecture 15 Late Medieval Nominalism and Christian Mysticism in course Philosophy and Religion in the West by Professor Cary and The Teaching Company. It also comes up a lot under the question ‘Is there anything God can not do?’ In quantum mechanics also there is a thing they call ‘quantum logic’ because it is not particularly logical to a human mind. 1 + 1 = 0 is an example of wave addition when 2 waves of equal and opposite magnitude come together the result is zero instead of 2. Mike Dubbeld

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – No, I mean a real flying elephant not Dumbo that is just ink on paper, film or micro dots in your hard drive. I also said square circle, not a circle than you’ll eventually turn into a square. What I’m trying to say is that your usage of that particular Biblical quote is wrong, your understanding of its meaning is out of context. Also, yoga is not "good" it is beyond good since good (like its opposite) is relative, you should have said *constructive*. Then I bet you’ll find it…hell, I saw an elephant fly one time! And if your head is round.. like a circle..I bet we could get it into a square shape…

Response:

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." –Albert Einstein I like this quote Michael Emptyshell, fits you very well.

Thanks again.   I’d much rather be a stupid emptyshell than a foul-minded, twisted, but brilliantly smart and even talented, Sat Guru.  You show us your limits and the quality of your mind. I can afford to be stupid. This isn’t about you, Michael Emptyshell.

That’s right, oh not-so-empty Sat Guru, it’s about you. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Bro.  You kidding me or what? I’m not kidding you, you have a SERIOUS comprehension problem. Or, *maybe* you do … giving you the benefit of the doubt. Fill me in on it now, tell me how honest all the rest of those gurus are. That’s good then, yah? Its neither good nor bad. It isn’t a question of good or bad, that was never the point.

The obviously not yours, continues to be mine. You’re the most stupid person on alt.yoga. Brahman-Atmananda Wow, #1!!  Theeeeee most stupid.  Hey, thanks!   Oh, so Michael Emptyshell is feigning indifference eh.

No, truly indifferent.  What you say means quite literally, nothing to me.  Only what I say, has any real effect on me.  Same way with all of us.  Ahhh, you too. That shit doesn’t work for us.

I can see that you haven’t quite got a grip on it yet, yes. I meant what I said, YOU ARE THE MOST STUPID PERSON in alt.yoga

Thanks again.  Read: You challenge my intelligence more than anyone else. BTW, this message is cross-posted to five newsgroups, all with "gurus" in residence, and I’ve never "been" to alt.yoga We don’t have any "gurus in residence" here, sorry asswipe.

Who’s this guy, then?   http://www.angelfire.com/yt/kr/brother.html Had a career change? Love ya, -mikey "By oneself the evil is done, and it is oneself who suffers: by oneself the evil is not done, and by one’s Self one becomes pure." –Buddha

Response:

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." –Albert Einstein I like this quote Michael Emptyshell, fits you very well. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Actually Bikram is the only "guru-type" guy in the article, Uh-huh, the article was about himself, the very one. No, you stupid shit, [...] …snip… …. all the rest don’t even have the least interest to even be thought of claiming to be such. All the rest of who?  Claim to be such what? All the rest of the yoga people mentioned in the article, bozo! As in Jonny Kest, Rodney Yee, John Abbott, Sharon Gannon, Mark Stephens, Dharma Mittra, etc. Thanks for clearing that up.  You made no reference to what "rest" mentioned, thus the question.  You apparently presumed readers would presume, as well.

LOL No you dimwit, you deleted the rest of the sentence in order to justify your profoundly mentally retarded grasp of words. This is what I said: "Actually Bikram is the only ‘guru-type’ guy IN THE ARTICLE, all the rest don’t even have the least interest to even be thought of claiming to be such." You mean all the rest of the guys claiming to be gurus aren’t interested in money? That’s good, eh?  I don’t either.

This isn’t about you, Michael Emptyshell. Why do you keep on jumping from one point to the other? Are you on drugs or just plain old idiot? Smart fella, that Buddha.  Not an moron like me.

You should have said "not a moron like me" and not "Not *an* moron like me". Your idol Buddha must be rolling on his dung pit by now because of the ever-increasing words and tales that modern-day "believers" ascribe to him. Poor guy, he was just an ordinary meditation teacher who got lucky, one who remained utterly clueless about the hype around him until the moment of his death [a result of his being poisoned by pork, his usual meal]. I’m ROTF Its ROTFL And, … ?

And that means you are an irresponsible poster, you tend to use words you don’t even understand. You are a troll. Bro.  You kidding me or what? I’m not kidding you, you have a SERIOUS comprehension problem. Or, *maybe* you do … giving you the benefit of the doubt. Fill me in on it now, tell me how honest all the rest of those gurus are. That’s good then, yah?

Its neither good nor bad. It isn’t a question of good or bad, that was never the point. You’re the most stupid person on alt.yoga. Brahman-Atmananda Wow, #1!!  Theeeeee most stupid.  Hey, thanks!  

Oh, so Michael Emptyshell is feigning indifference eh. That shit doesn’t work for us. I meant what I said, YOU ARE THE MOST STUPID PERSON in alt.yoga BTW, this message is cross-posted to five newsgroups, all with "gurus" in residence, and I’ve never "been" to alt.yoga

We don’t have any "gurus in residence" here, sorry asswipe. And alt.yoga isn’t a physical place, if your posts have "been" there then you’ve been there. You’re an idiot Michael Emptyshell, realize that. Free diagnosis. Don’t mention it, Dr. Brahman

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Nyy gur erfg bs jub? Url, znlor lbh qvq abg ernq gur negvpyr, ohg Ebqarl Lrr naq Lbtn Wbheany (gb anzr n srj) jrer anzrq nf phycevgf va gur fvpx tnzr gung vf orvat cynlrq evtug abj va gur lbtn pbzzhavgl.  Qb abg or na vqvbg, bxnl?  Whfg tb ba lbhe jnl naq uhzc lbhe qbt’f yrt.  V org ur’yy yvxr vg. Fjnzv

Response:

The Yoga center hustlers can start attending business tactic seminars like the Martial Arts hustlers do: "Pay up for 5 years and save 50%!….You WANT cosmic consciousness, DON’T YOU?" But hey, I’ve been fully disillusioned since ‘98: when they found Amish kids dealing Crack and Harrison Ford got an earring!

Response:

Do not be an idiot, okay?  

Do I have a choice? Just go on your way and hump your dog’s leg.   I bet he’ll like it.

Swamiji speaks his mind. Love ya, -mikey "We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are." –The Talmud

Response:

Do not be an idiot, okay?  Just go on your way and hump your dog’s leg.  I bet he’ll like it. Swami

How did you ever escape my killfile, ‘Swami’?  Never mind, you are there now. ~K

Response:

All the rest of who?

Hey, maybe you did not read the article, but Rodney Yee and Yoga Journal (to name a few) were named as culprits in the sick game that is being played right now in the yoga community.  Do not be an idiot, okay?  Just go on your way and hump your dog’s leg.  I bet he’ll like it. Swami

Response:

Actually Bikram is the only "guru-type" guy in the article, Uh-huh, the article was about himself, the very one. No, you stupid shit,

[...] …snip… …. all the rest don’t even have the least interest to even be thought of claiming to be such. All the rest of who?  Claim to be such what? All the rest of the yoga people mentioned in the article, bozo! As in Jonny Kest, Rodney Yee, John Abbott, Sharon Gannon, Mark Stephens, Dharma Mittra, etc.

Thanks for clearing that up.  You made no reference to what "rest" mentioned, thus the question.  You apparently presumed readers would presume, as well. You mean all the rest of the guys claiming to be gurus aren’t interested in money?

That’s good, eh?  I don’t either. This brings to mind a story about the Buddha.  You probably won’t like it, but here it is anyway:    Buddha was once threatened with death by a bandit called Angulimal.  "Then be good enough to fulfill my dying wish," said Buddha. "Cut off the branch of that tree."    One slash of the sword, and it was done! "What now?" asked the bandit.    "Put it back again," said Buddha.    The bandit laughed. "You must be crazy to think that anyone can do that."    "On the contrary, it is you who are crazy to think that you are mighty because you can wound and destroy. That is the task of children. The mighty know how to create and heal." Smart fella, that Buddha.  Not an moron like me. I’m ROTF Its ROTFL

And, … ? Bro.  You kidding me or what? I’m not kidding you, you have a SERIOUS comprehension problem.

Or, *maybe* you do … giving you the benefit of the doubt. Fill me in on it now, tell me how honest all the rest of those gurus are.

That’s good then, yah? You’re the most stupid person on alt.yoga. Brahman-Atmananda

Wow, #1!!  Theeeeee most stupid.  Hey, thanks!   BTW, this message is cross-posted to five newsgroups, all with "gurus" in residence, and I’ve never "been" to alt.yoga I’ll bet you’re wanting to be one of those little guru fellas, huh? No psychic siddhis tho, eh?  Oh, well … Love ya, -mikey "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." –Albert Einstein

Response:

Actually Bikram is the only "guru-type" guy in the article, Uh-huh, the article was about himself, the very one.

No, you stupid shit, the article isn’t just about Bikram Choudhury! And among all those who were mentioned in the article it is only him who agrees on being thought of as a "guru". You said: "Thanks for this post, Brother.  It clearly shows how deluded these *GURU-TYPES* guys can get." So I told you that aside from Bikram "all the rest don’t even have the least interest to even be thought of claiming to be such." …. all the rest don’t even have the least interest to even be thought of claiming to be such. All the rest of who?  Claim to be such what?

All the rest of the yoga people mentioned in the article, bozo! As in Jonny Kest, Rodney Yee, John Abbott, Sharon Gannon, Mark Stephens, Dharma Mittra, etc. You mean all the rest of the guys claiming to be gurus aren’t interested in money?

I’m ROTF

Its ROTFL Bro.  You kidding me or what?

I’m not kidding you, you have a SERIOUS comprehension problem. Fill me in on it now, tell me how honest all the rest of those gurus are.

Love ya, -mikey

Love ya my ass. You’re the most stupid person on alt.yoga. Brahman-Atmananda

Response:

Actually Bikram is the only "guru-type" guy in the article,

Uh-huh, the article was about himself, the very one. …. all the rest don’t even have the least interest to even be thought of claiming to be such.

All the rest of who?  Claim to be such what?  You mean all the rest of the guys claiming to be gurus aren’t interested in money?  I’m ROTF Bro.  You kidding me or what? Fill me in on it now, tell me how honest all the rest of those gurus are. Love ya, -mikey "The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing.  If you can fake that, you’ve got it made."  –Groucho Marx

Response:

Mikey, Reproduced below is the entire Business 2.0 article where Peter Carlson got it: YOGIS BEHAVING BADLY … a giant snip … Thanks for this post, Brother.  It clearly shows how deluded these *guru-type* guys can get.  Gotta watch out for that. Love ya, -mikey

I was actually pleased to see this whole article for once.  A fellow yogi sent an article that was about this article to me, which took bits and pieces of information from it, but there was a lot of meat in the original. I also liked how they used the yamas as a reference point and really took it these so-called *guru-type* guys with the greed! A well needed article for the community of yoga. Blessings, Premabrahmananda Swami

Response:

Thanks Brah – Man!

| Actually Bikram is the only "guru-type" guy in the article, all the | rest don’t even have the least interest to even be thought of claiming | to be such. | | | Reproduced below is the entire Business 2.0 article where Peter | Carlson got it: | | YOGIS BEHAVING BADLY | | … a giant snip … | | Thanks for this post, Brother.  It clearly shows how deluded these | *guru-type* guys can get.  Gotta watch out for that. | | Love ya, | | -mikey | | "Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized." | –Albert Einstein

Response:

Actually Bikram is the only "guru-type" guy in the article, all the rest don’t even have the least interest to even be thought of claiming to be such. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Reproduced below is the entire Business 2.0 article where Peter Carlson got it: YOGIS BEHAVING BADLY … a giant snip … Thanks for this post, Brother.  It clearly shows how deluded these *guru-type* guys can get.  Gotta watch out for that. Love ya, -mikey "Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized." –Albert Einstein

Response:

Reproduced below is the entire Business 2.0 article where Peter Carlson got it: YOGIS BEHAVING BADLY

… a giant snip … Thanks for this post, Brother.  It clearly shows how deluded these *guru-type* guys can get.  Gotta watch out for that. Love ya, -mikey "Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized." –Albert Einstein

Response:

Reproduced below is the entire Business 2.0 article where Peter Carlson got it: YOGIS BEHAVING BADLY For millennia, the intricate techniques of yoga were passed down from teacher to student in a sacred exchange. But today, in the booming yoga industry, it’s (downward-facing) dog-eat-dog. By Paul Keegan, September 2002 Issue You can’t take it anymore. The greed, corruption, and selfishness of the business world have broken your spirit. You need inner peace. Everyone’s walking around with a yoga mat these days, so you fly to Los Angeles, yoga capital of America, hoping for a little enlightenment: a quiet candlelit room, some gentle stretching, the chanting of mantras, a sage Indian guru dispensing ancient truths. But when you arrive at one of the most popular yoga centers in the country — the Bikram Yoga College of India in Beverly Hills — it’s a giant mirrored studio crammed with more than 100 buff and sweaty devotees of the resident guru, Bikram Choudhury, a short Indian fellow sitting on a raised-platform throne wearing nothing but a black Speedo swimsuit and a diamond-studded wristwatch. Power trips, cutthroat competition, and sex scandals? Tell us about your yoga controversy. "Inhale!" cries your new master. Soon you’re lying on your stomach, grasping your ankles behind you, and swaying like a rocking horse, trying to hold the Bow Pose. "Exhale!" The heat is cranked up to 105 degrees — designed to turn your muscles into Silly Putty — and the sweat’s flying. For the next 90 minutes, the closest you get to God is praying for this torture to stop. Then, lying in the Corpse Pose when it’s all over, you begin meditating: 100 people times $20 apiece = $2,000 for one class; 2,000 students a week = $2 million per year. Given that Bikram has franchised his "hot yoga" method in 600 studios nationwide, and that 600 Bikram teachers will pay $5,000 each for his 60-day crash course this year, that’s another $3 million annually. Throw in lecture fees, yoga seminars, books, videos, and a line of clothing and accessories, and Bikram’s empire adds up to at least $7 million, making him one of the biggest players in the burgeoning industry of Yoga Inc. After class you follow Bikram as he pads back to his office. A recognized yoga master at age 56 — he won the National India Yoga Competition at age 11, the youngest ever — he sits behind his big desk and begins lecturing about the sacred eight-limbed path to enlightenment outlined in the ancient Yoga Sutra. The first limb is called "yama" and consists of five Sanskrit words that mean don’t harm others, lie, steal, lust, or be greedy. You nod enthusiastically. This is exactly what America needs: a thriving new industry built not on unethical behavior and ruthless opportunism but rather on timeless humanitarian ideals. Nobody knows how big the yoga market is, but with an estimated 18 million practitioners in the United States today — mostly affluent baby boomers who drive the wider $230 billion market in healthy, environmentally friendly products — it surely ranks in the hundreds of millions. But the business model that supports it must, by definition, defy the rapacious ethos of our era, based as it is on a 5,000-year-old philosophy of selfless devotion to helping others achieve inner peace. Excited by this prospect, you ask Bikram about some other forms of hatha yoga you might want to try — ashtanga, iyengar, jivamukti — but he scowls at your temerity. "Nobody does hatha yoga in America except me!" he bellows, offering as proof his celebrity students, ranging from George Harrison in 1969 to Madonna and Michael Jackson. "All of them are my students! All of them! ALL OF THEM! My name is Guru of the Stars." Later on, Bikram brags about his mansion with servants in Beverly Hills and his 30 classic cars, from Rolls-Royces to Bentleys. He also claims to have cured every disease known to humankind and compares himself to Jesus Christ and Buddha. Requiring neither food nor sleep, he says, "I’m beyond Superman." When you ask how he can make such wild statements, he answers, "Because I have balls like atom bombs, two of them, 100 megatons each. Nobody fucks with me." Perhaps. But it sounds more like Bikram has let this guru stuff go to his head. Still, one megalomaniacal yogi, you solemnly vow, will not derail your search for the pious new business model of Yoga Inc., surely in abundant evidence everywhere else. Yoga literally means "union with God" and encourages a divine harmony with all things. Which raises an intriguing question: How do the biggest players in the yoga business reconcile ahimsa — that one’s actions should never harm others — with the capitalist principle that one should always try to squash the competition like a bug? In short, not very well. Resentment has been brewing in recent years over what some yogis consider thuggish behavior by Yoga Journal magazine, the powerful nexus for the industry. Much of the bad karma flows toward Yoga Journal’s conference business. The Berkeley-based magazine pioneered the concept of a yoga conference back in 1995, ostensibly to bring thousands together to teach, practice, and meditate. Today, these one- to seven-day conferences draw more than 1,000 neophytes and longtime practitioners alike, who cough up as much as $850 apiece to bask in the saintly glow of star yogis like Rodney Yee. At five conferences a year, this adds up to some serious money, fully 30 percent of Yoga Journal’s estimated $11 million in annual revenue. Growth like that is what has inspired the magazine to launch bold new marketing gambits like the "Yoga Cruise." In February, for the first time, a luxury liner full of people doing the sun salutation will sail to the Caribbean — for as much as $2,600 per head. As the conference business has grown, so has the number of yoga entrepreneurs seeking opportunity in various regions of our stiff-necked nation. Three years ago yoga teacher Jonny Kest started the Midwest Yoga and Wellness Conference in Ann Arbor, Mich. — only to discover how little ahimsa was being practiced back at Yoga Journal. First, Kest says, the magazine refused to run his ads. (It took an outcry from the yoga community, he says, to make it reverse its policy a few months later.) Now, he claims, Yoga Journal is trying to run him out of business entirely by holding a conference next spring within weeks of his annual event and within 50 miles of his planned venue near Chicago. "Yoga’s not so big that you can have two major conferences in one area," Kest says glumly, noting that the magazine’s marketing power and ability to attract celebrity yoga teachers could wipe him out. Why doesn’t the magazine go into the vast areas that still don’t have big conferences, he wonders, like the Northwest, the Northeast, or Toronto? "Yoga Journal is a monopoly," he sighs. "It’s trying to do the Microsoft thing." Yoga Yama 2: Satya Don’t Lie Yoga Journal behaving like Microsoft? The same magazine that publishes earnest articles like "Love Thine Enemy"? Impossible. But then again, Yoga Journal is no longer the sleepy little nonprofit it was in back in 1975 when it was launched by the California Yoga Teachers Association. In 1998 a former Citicorp investment banker named John Abbott bought the magazine and began transforming it into a slick glossy. In place of New Agey pieces about crystals and how to conquer fear with trapeze flying, Abbott began publishing articles about exotic yoga travel destinations and celebrity yogis like Madonna and Sting. He even signed up supermodel Christy Turlington as the magazine’s editor at large. Purists grumbled, but many in the yoga community give Yoga Journal credit — not only for raising yoga’s overall profile but for raising serious issues, like coping with injuries and the health benefits of yoga. The results have been impressive. Since Abbott took over, paid circulation has tripled from 90,000 to 275,000, ad revenue has skyrocketed while the rest of the magazine industry slumps, and Abbott says his publication will turn a profit this year for the first time in 27 years. Abbott, who has the bespectacled, balding look of a yoga-fit middle-age businessman, rebuts charges that his publication refused to run ads for competing conferences as "absolutely false." But Anne O’Brien, the director of the magazine’s conference business before leaving a year ago, says Kest is right: Yoga Journal did, in fact, have a clear policy of not accepting ads from competing conferences, until complaints came pouring in. (She applauds the magazine, however, for reversing the policy, calling it "the right decision in the best interests of yoga.") As for why Yoga Journal decided to hold its conference so close to Kest’s event, Abbott chalks it up to pure coincidence. Plans for a Chicago-area conference began two years ago, he says — though O’Brien says Yoga Journal had never discussed it as of last August, when she left — so he didn’t know about the Midwest Yoga and Wellness Conference, which drew 850 attendees last spring. Abbott denies he’s trying to wipe out his competitors, but sources say that two years ago the magazine hired a consultant who advised him to do exactly that by targeting markets all over North America that already host yoga conferences. "I don’t believe so," Abbott says when asked if that’s true. "Maybe things are said over a beer …" There’s another reason, actually, for Abbott’s reticence. While most executives love to jaw about going mano a mano with their competitors, such talk is verboten within the yoga industry because it violates ahimsa — even for Abbott, who confesses that he got into yoga not for its spiritual dimensions but to rehab a pulled hamstring. "It would bode poorly for any person trying to grind others under to adopt business practices that are harming," he says. "In this space, if you’re viewed as doing that, a lot of adherents will run away. If you practice in a crass way, a … read more »

Response:

Gee, I guess America would have an even more bruised heart after you get done looking for scandals in the boy scouts. Don’t forget to pull the scandal sheets on just what those Scout Mothers are doing too. Don’t want to miss anyone. Do you mind if I ask you if you are religious? What religion is it? Should I start with ’sex’ and ‘your religion’ as a search first or how about ‘child abuse’ and ‘your religion’. Do you really know what your family is into. I would check if I were you. And watchout what you say too. These things can be misconstrued verrrrryy easily. Maybe you should get a job at one of the sleazy newspapers or be a groupie or both. Or is this what this is all about – samples of dirt digging to show the newspapers how well you can find dirt. Have a nice day dirtbag, Mike Dubbeld – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Chakra Full of Scandal: Baring the Yogis By Peter Carlson Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 27, 2002; Page C01 How much scandal can America take before its poor battered heart just breaks in two? There are the money scandals in Big Business. And the sex scandals in Big Religion. And now we learn about money and sex scandals in, of all places . . . oh, say it ain’t so, Joe . . . Big Yoga! Shocking but true: The folks at Business 2.0 magazine have discovered greed, lust and egomania among the swamis and gurus of the stretching and breathing set. And the magazine has revealed all the sordid details — well, some of them, anyway — in an article aptly titled "Yogis Behaving Badly." Yoga, the ancient Hindu practice of exercise and meditation, is now a multi-hundred-million-dollar business in America, and the yoga tycoons currently battling over market share are exhibiting the same sort of spiritual enlightenment and inner peace previously demonstrated by the likes of, say, John D. Rockefeller or Bill Gates. "Yoga has become cutthroat, Mafia-like," says Thom Birch, who is identified in the article as a disillusioned former yoga teacher. "Many of these people are the biggest thieves, bullies and sex addicts — all of if under this veil of spirituality." Birch is exaggerating a tad — nobody is accusing any swamis of having their rivals bumped off by hit men hiding machine guns in violin cases — but the battles are getting ugly. In Beverly Hills, Calif., Bikram Choudhury, who calls himself the "Guru of the Stars," has trademarked his favorite yoga poses so nobody can teach them unless Choudry gets cut in on the take. In New York, the owners of the Jivamukti Yoga Center — which teaches 2,000 students a week and boasts of such celebrity clients as Steve Martin and Monica Lewinsky — are threatening trademark action against former employees who’ve left to start their own schools. In fact, folks trying to teach yoga anywhere in America are finding that nearly all the formerly holy words of yoga have been trademarked. If you want to use them, you’ve got to shell out the dough. Meanwhile, reports writer Paul Keegan, yogis are accusing Yoga Journal, America’s foremost yoga magazine, of "thuggist behavior" in its hardball pursuit of a monopoly in the lucrative yoga conference business. And then there are the sex scandals. In 1994, Amrit Desai, a Massachusetts yogi who touted celibacy as one of his precepts, was forced to resign after admitting he’d had affairs with three female disciples. In 1997, a woman won a $1.9 million lawsuit against a Pennsylvania yoga center after claiming that she’d been sexually assaulted by her swami. And now Rodney Yee, once described by Time magazine as the "stud muffin" of yoga, is being sued by a former teacher at his Oakland yoga school, who charges that he fired her when she complained about his alleged sexual affairs with students. "Clearly, the world of big time yoga in America is undergoing a profound crisis but won’t admit it," writes Keegan. "The most influential players, like Yoga Journal — well positioned to monitor ethical lapses — are also the worst offenders." Maybe that’s true, but I wish Keegan had spent more time on Choudhury, the aforementioned "Guru of the Stars." I’m a sucker for a colorful rogue and this guy clearly belongs in the pantheon of America’s great huckster holy men, right up there with Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Aimee Semple McPherson, Father Devine and Reverend Ike. An Indian immigrant, Choudhury has franchised his "hot yoga" method to 600 studios nationwide. He taught yoga to Madonna and Michael Jackson. He compares himself to Jesus and Buddha. He claims he can cure any disease. He lives in a Beverly Hills mansion with his collection of classic Bentleys and Rolls-Royces. "Everybody knows I’m superhuman," he says. "My spirit is in cosmic consciousness." Choudhury’s response to the yoga sex scandals is brilliant: He claims that his students blackmail him into having sex with them. "What happens when they say they will commit suicide unless you sleep with them?" he asks. "What am I supposed to do? Sometimes having an affair is the only way to save someone’s life." Boy, that’s good! Even Bill Clinton didn’t think of that one. Hoaxes on Parade Speaking of hucksters, holy and otherwise, U.S. News & World Report has published a special double issue on "The Art of the Hoax." In it, the editors have chosen what they deem the 20 greatest "schemes, scams and shams" of all time. It’s an entertaining compendium that includes Clifford Irving’s bogus autobiography of Howard Hughes, Konrad Kujau’s faked Hitler diaries, and the New York Sun’s 1835 story reporting beavers, buffaloes and bat men living on the moon. But for sheer weirdness, my favorite scam is the one masterminded by a quack doctor named John Brinkley in the 1920s. Brinkley, who obtained his medical degree from a diploma mill, worked as the house doctor in a meatpacking plant in Kansas City. When he noticed that goats were randy, lusty critters even in the slaughterhouse, he got the bizarre idea that made him him famous: He touted goat testicles as a way to boost male sexual prowess. Soon, men were traveling to tiny Milford, Kan., to have Doc Brinkley transplant goat testicles into their bodies to make them more studly. "Come to Milford for the Fountain of Youth!" Brinkley urged. Hundreds took him up on the offer, including Harry Chandler, owner of the Los Angeles Times. Later, Brinkley branched out with a special his-and-hers offer: For $750, he’d simultaneously put goat testicles in the husband and goat ovaries in the wife. A couple named Stittsworth had this "compound operation" and they promptly produced a baby boy. And proudly named him "Billy." What did medical experts think of goat testicle transplants? They thought it was a baaaaaaaaaaad idea. Sorry about that. I couldn’t help myself. Cover Line of the Month From Jane magazine: "We make Jennifer Love Hewitt lie, buy sex toys and pig out on junk food"

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