Whose mind is it, anyway?

So tomorrow I go to Yoga Retreat. At this retreat I expect to:

* Practice silence for extended periods each day

* For the first time ever, teach a Yoga class from beginning to end, straight through, without comment, suggestion, or discussion

* Be student in a class taught by one of my peers, ditto

* Practice Kirtan (sacred chanting) for the second time ever

* Join in Sangha for the first time in decades

There is nothing to fear here, but inside me there is resistance, defensiveness, and a surprising amount of panic.

I have no concern for the quality of my teaching. I know the material well enough. I teach well enough. I am certain to make mistakes and omissions, but none will be so drastic as to keep me from graduating. Probably I will teach well enough during this retreat to pass my "Qualifying" class, which actually doesn't occur for another couple of weeks (so is a higher standard than required just now). This is not what I am fearing.

I have no concern for keeping silence, in fact I'm inclined to welcome it; the alternative is so often 'idle chitchat when I'd rather be thinking my own thoughts'.

Similarly, though I have found meditation difficult to "sit down to" throughout the ten weeks of this course, I welcome the meditation that is in the schedule. Certainly I will uncover some of the painful selftalk and other-people's talk that I have been avoiding (I'm trying scrupulously to acknowledge my own responsibility for the differences between "what I have heard" and "what the other person might have actually meant to say."). Even so, this will occur in a time and place when everyone else on the grounds is also in meditation; it is likely to be freeing and gentle and very supportive for my personal practice after this class has ended.

What I am fearing seems to boil down to a couple of things:

I am fearing indoctrination. I am fearing that I will continue feeling snuck up on by someone else's religious intention to 'convert' me. I am fearing that some of what we will be chanting (at length, in declining volume, and then instructed to whisper it, and internalize it) will be statements that do not seem true, to me; I am fearing that some of it will be invoking deities with whom I do not seek relationship; I am fearing that some of it will include promises I don't intend to make nor keep.

I am fearing running up against feeling disrespected.

Weeks ago, when I attempted to ask our teacher to stop using the word "wicked" to mean "evil done by evil intention" because as a Wiccan I was feeling offended by it, he said, as accurately as I can recall, "and why is that?" When I explained that it sounded like an ethnic slur in the same way that "Jew him down" or "Welsh on a bet" are ethnic slurs, he said, as accurately as I can recall, "I don't know that. I have no knowledge that that's where the word came from." I remember thinking at the time that he meant "so I don't see any reason to stop using it", and in fact, just Saturday he used it, and defined it at length, in a way that made clear that he has disregarded our conversation.

The conclusion I draw is that he uses the word that way because either he doesn't recall that I am offended, or he doesn't care that I am offended, or he somehow believes that as my Yogic practice has matured my tendency to take offense at behaviors of religious bigotry will somehow have abated. Is another conclusion available? How can I make my wounded inner youngers believe that they are not being actively disrespected when this is happening?

Yesterday he handed out a paper with a dozen religious symbols on it, calling it a picture of the 'all religions' temple built by Swami Satchidananda in Virginia. I looked at the paper and sighed, and said aloud that "my religious symbol isn't on here." His reply was "Yes, it IS; you are mistaken." He then pointed out the symbol for "all other known religions." Great. Shinto, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Native American, African, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Taoism each get a symbol. I recognize at once that this looks to me like each Eastern religion gets its own recognition, the American and African continents each get one 'all-inclusive' symbol for the religions originating there, and everyone else gets to be 'Other.' Hmm. (Looking again I see that no religion originating in Europe or Australia gets a symbol, either.)

I'm sick and tired of being "other". I might feel better (or maybe I wouldn't) if he acknowledged my discomfort. I hate that he pretends that what I see is somehow not true. I hate that he feels qualified to tell me that I am "mistaken" about whether or not my religious symbol appears on a single uncrowded sheet of paper.

I hate that I could find no way to confront this statement at the time without feeling a fool in at least one of six or seven ways.

Perhaps I would still feel offended if "Paganism" were given a single symbol not the Pentacle. Perhaps I am just a bit hypersensitive because of how long it took, and how much effort it took, to get the US Veterans Administration to decide that the Wiccan Pentacle was an acceptable symbol to be put on the grave of a Wiccan soldier.

Perhaps the take-home lesson of this exchange is that I need to reduce my sensitivity. Certainly only my own reactivity is actually within my own control; his behavior certainly is not.

But I am thoroughly sick and tired of white males telling non-whites and non-males to stop being so sensitive when they make racist or sexist comments; I am thoroughly sick and tired of Christians telling the rest of us that their religion is the best or their God is the best (or only) or that this is a Christian country. (If you want to look at our forefathers, this is probably a Unitarian or Transcendentalist country). I am thoroughly sick and tired of feeling like an outsider in this place where I live; in work I have chosen that I do well.

I am thoroughly disgusted with spiritual teachers who seem to believe that because they intend to be calm and peaceful when they teach, then somehow they don't have to worry about other people's feelings.

I see, through all of this, how much it is a projection. How intolerant I have been of difference at various points in my life. How certain I have been that other people should be doing it my way, or at least try it my way, or at least that they should recognize that my way is better. How frustrated I have been with people who dare to object to some infelicity of speech or accidental offense I have given. How much I want it to always be the other guy's fault when hurt feelings occur, whether theirs or mine.

But ... but ... inside me is a little child, crying. What if they make me say I'm sorry when I'm not sorry; doesn't that break something in the place where I know and say what's true? What if they make me say over and over again that I am "unworthy" to know God; will I stop knowing that this is a lie if they make me repeat it? What if they make me say over and over again that I honor Shiva as my "Lord" when I do not... How can I feel honest while singing a lie?