Toward a Secret Sky

May 20, 2019
This muddled memoir from yoga instructor Roberts (Ashtanga Yoga for Beginner’s Mind) reconceptualizes the idea of pilgrimage as not primarily a trek to a far-flung “power place,” but as a “self-secret affair.” She recommends that readers set off on a spiritual journey of “retreating from busyness” in order to more deeply wrestle with one’s inner thoughts. Roberts grounds her practice in ashtanga vinyasa yoga and Buddhist mindfulness meditation, and preaches committing to yoga and meditation as a way of discovering spiritual transcendence, while warning against practicing as goal-oriented, consumerist life improvement. She shares stories of her travels in India, Thailand, and Bhutan, and spends large parts of the book railing against the rules put in place by yoga teaching organizations and the ongoing sexual misconduct and gender bias in traditional teaching contexts, divulging, in a section titled “Groping Gurus, her own experience of sexual harassment. Those feeling the call to take a break from the workaday world will find Roberts’s words more encouraging than guiding, as the book is structured haphazardly and often hard to follow, with sections detailing her travels placed awkwardly between other ruminations. Add in frustratingly freewheeling but often fiery prose, and it’s hard to imagine this appealing to a wide base of yoga practitioners.