When Heroes Crash

I don’t really have any heroes to come crashing down but have to admit I enjoyed watching Lance Armstrong come crashing down. I’ve never had any vested interest in him or sports but I have witnessed with discomfort the obsession around him. It’s good for a hero to come crashing down back to earth … it places pressure on followers to re-examine their values … the things thay believe make heroes. Heroes present something static and stagnating … falling heroes bring change.

My Yoga teachers were close to heroes in my life … but they are wise people so they never let me place them on any such pedestal. I feel they’ve gifted me with precious glimpses of their own personal lives … in which their own honest human nature is challenged just as mine is. Witnessing them cope with teachings in their own lives and then holding on to them as teachers within that context on in my own life is a unique and rewarding challenge. It is teachings and not teachers that need to be held up … and that is a task that falls on the shoulders of teachers and students together.