What’s the most useful yoga instruction? That's a lot like asking what was
the greatest catch in baseball history, or the best rock n' roll song of all
time. Tough conversation. Lots of arguments.

This one though is much easier to answer.

Neem Karoli Baba once instructed Ram Das to,

“Love everyone and tell the truth.”

Now that’s a helluva instruction.It’s not to say engaging muscle energy in
the legs isn’t important in parvritta trikonasana, or pushing down on your
bent knee in trianga mukhaikapada paschimottanana won’t help but let’s face
it, if we forget Baba's instruction than everything else we do in this
mixed-bag world of yoga is a bunch of hooey.

Love everyone and tell the truth. Ram Das said he couldn’t do it. Baba said, “
from where you’re sitting you can’t. Come sit with me.”  Baba’s considered
by his devotees to be a human incarnation of Supreme Consciousness, which
meant from where he was sitting, there were no differences between people. He
saw only beneath the masks and fears and acting out where lived a bunch of
beautiful souls, easy to love.

As we watch yoga turn more and more into New Age body sculpting, “love
everyone and tell the truth,” as hard as it is most of the time, is a very
attractive seat.

Welcome to Yoga Soup.