Western Yoga: Recovering this-Worldly Yogic Ethics
The Yogic Conquest of the West
What image does the world yoga
bring to mind?
For approximately 83% of humanity
that lives outside the geographic boundaries of the Republic of India, the
image most commonly associated with yoga is no longer that of a dark-skinned, bearded,
philosophically-oriented, ascetic old man, a likeness of maharishi Patanjali, the yogic maestro of yore. Today, yoga usually
conjures the image of a white American college girl. Attired in her figure-hugging
yoga-pants and little besides, dividing her busy day between the sorority the
library and the yoga-studio and sub-bathing in the college quad, the modern
Western yogini is an exemplar of
this-worldly human flourishing, a far cry from the ascetic world-transcendence
once associated with yoga. Like it or not, the yoga of today is this yoga of
the West. Western yoga is conquering the world, and reconquering India as well.
Western yoga’s exploits beg
recognition. In communities inhabited by the world’s most materially-blessed
citizens, where one hardly ever hears the tolling of the church bell or
bellowing from the minaret, one still hears of yoga. Here, one does not see commuters
in buses and trains fingering their rosaries or chanting holy verses; nor does
one see worshipers, attired in their garb, visibly thronging to shrines. The
one religious spectacle you regularly encounter here is the rolled-up yoga mat
flung casually behind a yogini’s slender,
picture-perfect back, as she devoutly rushes to join her yogic congregation. Hers
is a silent but eloquent proselytizing message for all onlookers: Come ye pagans,
join the path of salvation. Yoga-pants, yoga-mats and yoga-studios - if we are
to look for symbols to represent daily life in the present stage of modern
Western culture, we would be hard pressed to find anything better.
The Irony of a Western Yoga and a Yogic West
Scholars who study the pre-modern
tradition of Yoga, as contained in ancient Sanskrit texts and as embodied by
traditional scholar-practitioners of Yoga in the Indian sub-continent, are
extremely surprised by this amalgamation. They find it surprising because, in
their soteriological orientations, modern Western culture and classical Yoga
are polar opposites. Classical scholars view the two as though they were
different species; and different species cannot, should not, inter-breed.
Modern Western culture is generally viewed as recognizing no form of liberation
except this-worldly liberation, being (at least in public discourse) skeptical
about the very possibility of an other-worldly existence, leave alone the
prospects of liberation therein.[1]
Classical Yogic philosophical discourse (the Samkhya-Yoga Darshana), on the
other hand, is generally viewed as recognizing no possibility of liberation except
other-worldly liberation. As Patanjali proclaims, the goal of yoga is citta vrtti nirodha, the cessation of
the fluctuations of consciousness.[2]
The path of yoga proceeds through samadhi
(enstasy) leading to what is perhaps the ultimate goal, kaivalya (absolute aloneness). The earliest
and most authoritative text dealing with yoga, Patanjali’s treatise Yoga-Sutra,
describes the ultimate destination of the Yogi in the following words:
Thence [comes
about] the termination of the
sequences in the transformation of the primary-constituent [whose] purpose is
fulfilled. [3]
Explaining these cryptic words, Feuerstein
explains:
At the peak of
the ultra-cognitive enstasy, the yogin’s
individual cosmos comes to a standstill. As the Self awakens to its perpetual
autonomy… consciousness collapses,
and the physical body soon meets the
same fate.[4]
That a path of salvation which
lauds the “termination” of consciousness and the “collapse” of the body,
possibly the most world-renouncing spiritual path ever, has emerged as a
dominant, if not the dominant, spiritual
path in the modern West, possibly the most materialist civilization known to
history, is an irony of the highest order. It is an irony that scarcely eludes
serious student of either. Yoga scholars Pfleuger and Whicher deal with this
irony in great detail. Fleuger points out that the Yoga most people in the West
practices is a very peculiar kind of yoga which has little to do with Patanjali’s yoga. Western Yoga is a variant of
HathaYoga, which in turn was a
variant amongst many variants that were only remotely connected with Patanjali’s
yoga. Ultimately, even Patanajali’s “classical” yoga was no more than a
successful amalgam, a variant amongst many variants which emerged triumphant in
the course of history:
From the earliest
time forward, we have a constant revisioning of Yoga. Patanjali himself seems,
in his day, to have led the revisioning process…”[5]
Yet, Pflueger deeply resents the
modern mass revisioning of Yoga which, in his view, has neutralised the “sublime” vision of
Patanjali’. For him, the gulf between the Patanjali’s vision of other-worldly
liberation and the modern materialist lifestyles is unbridgeable. For him, if
Yoga remained true to its root, it could never have attained mass appeal of
Yoga, in the West or elsewhere. The very visible fact of its triumph can only
be interpreted as the loss of Yoga’s essence:
Seen in its own
context the Yoga Sutra, though its practice may be incompatible with most
popular lifestyles, whether ancient or modern, preserves a sublime spiritual
vision… When an interpretation compromises Patanjali’s own definition of Yoga
as “the extinction of the activities of the mind” or the ascetic rigour of the
path, it trades the unique vision of classical Samkhya-Yoga for a mass appeal
which was likely never part of its conception. [6]
In this short essay, I argue that
the gulf between Western this-worldly Yoga and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, vast
though it may seem, is not totally unbridgeable. On very significant issues,
bridges can be built. This is because Patanjali’s Yoga is not all about
soteriology, where there gulf is the greatest. It also contains traces of insights
about physical postures and movements – clues to hathayoga – which Modern Western yogis (and yoginis) have already
appropriated with some success.[7]
Furthermore, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra also contains an ethical system which, with
a little bit of creative re-interpretation, turns out to have a highly
this-worldly orientation. Once reinterpreted, yogic ethics can be successfully
appropriated into the modern Western yogi’s practice. It is true that in
Patanjali’s ethical system, the ethical life is not meant to be an end in
itself and the very purpose of practicing ethics is to be able to transcend it
ultimately.[8]
That is, ultimately, for Patanjali, ethics must yield to soteriology. But that
is the last stage. Short of that last step, the yogic ethics offered by Patanjali
do lend themselves to incorporation into Western Yoga, thus reducing the gulf
between the two.
Yogic Ethics: The Dos of Yoga
So what are Patanjali’s ethical
injunction?
The core of yogic ethics finds
expression in Chapter II, to which we shall turn our attention shortly. Before we
do so let us, for the sake of completeness, quickly run over some of the
injunctions that Chapter I prescribes: restricting the fluctuations of
consciousness[9];
practice and dispassion[10];
non-thirsting for the primary-constituents [of Nature][11];
Devotion to the Lord[12];
Recitation of Om[13]
and the projection of friendliness,
compassion, gladness and equanimity towards objects.[14]
These concepts, which are already there in Chapter II, find a more systematic
expression in Chapter II, in the famous 8-fold division of astanga yoga: restraint, observance, posture, breath-control,
sense-withdrawal, concentration, meditative-absorption and enstasy.[15]
The rest of Chapter II explains the components of the first five of these injunctions;
the discussion of the last three spills into Chapter III.
Social Virtues
Most of the injunctions pertain to
how a person is supposed to act or not act, in relation to his own self, and
not in relation to other people. The first injunction, “restraint”, however, is
social in nature. We are told:
Non-harming,
truthfulness, non-stealing, chastity and greedlessness are the restraints.
[These are valid] in all spheres, irrespective of birth, place, time and
circumstance [and constitute] the great vow.[16]
The first injunction - “restraint”
- has usually been understood in relation to the second – “observance”. It
says:
Purity,
contentment, austerity, self-study and devotion to the Lord are the
observances.[17]
It is possible to
read the “restraints” as the Don’ts of Yogic Ethics, and the “observances” are
the Dos. Put this way, in the Yogic ethical vision, the Dos again: purity,
contentment, austerity, self-study and devotion to the Lord. These are all
injunctions pertaining to the self and not really to the world. It is true that
the practice of keeping ritually pure and living with austerity has some impact
on the “world” around the Yogi; yet, by and large, this list do not seem like a
sufficient foundation of a this-worldly ethical system. This interpretation,
which reads II:30 in the light of II:32, therefore, strengthens the impression
the Yoga does not lay the foundation of a this-worldly ethic. It seems that
this reading has so far prevailed amongst scholars.
But, in my humble
view, another reading is possible. If we read II:30 together with II:33, a
whole world of ethical possibilities opens up. II:33 says:
For
the repelling of unwholesome-deliberation [the yogin should pursue] the cultivation
of the opposite.
We are told that
the yogic initiate who is trying to abstain from, for instance, causing harm to
others is likely to experience “unwholesome deliberation”. He may, for
instance, feel tempted to harm others. The prescribed mode for repelling such
unwholesome deliberation is no mere “thought”, it is “cultivations”. The yogic
initiate is urged to “cultivate” the opposite which, in the case of “harming
others” would probably be “helping others”.
Put simply, yogic ethics counsels the initiate to actively busy himself
with helping others, because otherwise he is likely fall prey to the temptation
to harm them. There is no neutral ground, no passive state. The only way to
ward off “evil” is to actively engaged in what is “good”, the opposite of evil.
Here then, lies the roots of a social ethic, the philosophical root from which
an entire code of welfarism can be
built up.
When we explore the
implications of this mode of reading III:30 for the other four restraints, we
are led to some rather surprising conclusions.
The
one who seeks to be truthful is likely to feel tempted to lose the truth and
fall into falsehood. He must therefore, actively engage in the pursuit of truth
because, if he ceases this constructive active, he will feel tempted towards
falsehood. This obligation to actively engage in the pursuit of truth might
just as well take the form of a social enterprise – like science today is.
The one who seeks to
practice non-stealing is likely to feel tempted to steal, i.e. acquire wealth
through illegitimate means. The only way he can resist this temptation is be
actively engaging in the pursuit of wealth through legitimate means - industry,
trade and, depending upon historical and social context, war. Here then, lies
the seed of an economic ethic which comes remarkably close to the Protestant
economic ethic that initially animated modern capitalism.
The one who seeks to achieve
chastity, i.e. the psychological state where one becomes the master of his
sexual appetite is likely, perhaps even more than the ordinary people, to feel
tempted towards the very opposite, i.e. becoming a total slave to his sexual
appetite and seeking gratification through any means imaginable. He cannot
resist the temptation to sexual slavery by mere passivity. The only way he can
resist this temptation is by actively affirming
the sexual nature of man by a practicing a self-controlled, healthy, active
sexual life.
Finally, the one who
seeks to achieve greedlessness, the psychological state where one no longer
feels a thirst for those worldly possessions which he presently does not
possess, is likely to be tempted by greed, i.e. finding no delight in what one
possesses and living only in the hope of what one does not have. This can be
countered by slowing life down and taking pleasure in the material goods one
already possesses. In other words, the mantra for warding off the curse of
greed for more is a certain measure of indulgence with what one already had, i.e.
a certain deal of Epicureanism.
The point I am trying
to make is that it by reading II:30 and II:33 together, in the manner proposed
here, it is very much possible to see Patanjali’s yoga as laying down the
foundations of a this-worldly ethic. By viewing Yogic ethics as “active” dos
rather than “passive” don’ts, we are able to cut through the layers of ascetic,
life-denying interpretations which have so far covered this scriptural text.
Instead, we find hidden in Patanjali itself an affirmation of the basic
principles underlying the modern world with its call to welfarism, science,
capitalism, sexuality and Epicureanism. These can never be the ultimate destination
sought by a yogi; but these are certainly roads the yogi must live through, if
he is to proceed towards the desired end. As will any path, most seekers will
always be on the path; the promise of a destination is ultimately good
primarily as a promise that keeps us going.
Armed with this
approach that retrieves the this-worldiness and active-ness of yogic ethics, we
may find yet other passages in Yoga Sutra which lend it some support. I:33
might, for instance, be helpful. It prescribes the “projection (bhavanatas)
of friendliness, compassion, gladness and equanimity towards objects.”
Interpreters have generally viewed this “projection” as an exercise of the mind
alone: a kind of meditation. The text, they say, is asking to “imagine” that we
have become different ethically advanced individuals who now project friendliness,
compassion, gladness and equanimity towards others. Feuerstein, for instance, reads
this injunction in the light of the Buddhist text Majjhim-Nikaya and the practice of Buddhist monks and comes to the
conclusion:
Patanjali
introduces here a method of tranquilising the mind which is a favourite amongst Buddhist monks and laymen… In a
special meditational exercise these
four virtues are radiated into all corners of the universe for the benefit of
all living creatures.
Now let’s take a
pause here. Does Patanjali say he is talking about a mere “meditational exercise”?
Does he reduce the ambit of his ethical injunction to the “mind” only?
Ultimately, it comes to down to the context of one’s interpretation. Now that the
context of yoga is no longer the cell of a Buddhist monk in a remote monastery
but rather the world’s most powerful and materially blessed community, the
modern West, can we not see this as a call for actually being friendly and compassionate, establishing a global
environment of gladness and equanimity. If
the mind of the modern Western yogi is ever to achieve tranquility, he must get
busy for ‘the benefit of all living creatures’ not just with his mind, but his whole
political, economic, spiritual, sexual, human self. Released from the
straitjacket of an interpretive framework which came from the monk’s context,
and inspired by an interpretive framework more suited to its modern Western
context, Yoga may well be made to yield a powerful this-worldly ethic.
This brings us back to
the image with which this essay began, that one poetic glimpse of beauty to
which this whole essay is dedicated, for whatever little it is worth:
The modern Western yogini,
Clad in her figure hugging yoga pants,
and little besides,
With a rolled-up yoga-mat,
flung
casually behind her slender, picture-perfect back.
In her god-gifted
good-naturedness and the unassuming intellectual humility that comes with
self-conscious beauty, she seems to have quietly intuited the insight which I
have been at such pains to expound here. The calorie-counting, calorie-burning
babes, the silent but eloquent missionaries of Western Yoga, whose ranks are
every day swelling, have found their own interpretation of what Patanjali meant
when he said that “[t]hrough austerity… perfection of the body and the
sense-organs [is gained].”[18]
In Yoga’s radically transformed context, today these questions arise afresh: What
are yogic ethics? Is perfection of the body a this-worldly ethical ideal or an
other-worldly one? Is it desirable in itself or only as a means? Why is the
body deemed necessary for liberation? And by the way, what exactly is bodily
perfection? These are tough questions. They are for the yogini to answer.
But the yogini does not answer. She has no answer. Because she is the answer.
[1]
This characterization of “Western” culture as agnostic about the possibility of
other-worldly existence is obviously a great simplification; there are many
strains within Western culture which do not share this orientation. Yet, I
continue to use this characterization, essentially as a heuristic device, which
allows me to talk about what even critics of my choice of terms are likely to
accept an important aspect of the culture.
[2]
Patanjali, Yoga Sutra, tr. Feuerstein, Chapter 1, Aphorism II, hereinafter cited
subsequenty as Feuerstein
[3]
Patanjali, IV:32
[4]
Feuerstein, p. 144
[5]
Pflueger, Lloyd. W. Dueling with Dualism: Revisioning the Paradox of purusa and prakriti, p. 70
[6]
Ibid, p. 79
[7]
II: 46: The posture should be steady and comfortable.
[8]
IV:7: The karman of the yogin is neither black nor white.
[9]
I:1
[10]
I:12
[11]
I: 16
[12]
I: 23
[13]
I: 28
[14]
I:33
[15]
II:29
[16]
II:30-31
[17]
II:32
[18]
II:43
