Yoga has been the thing that has enriched my life the most. Since I began practicing Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga at the age of 14 I can say that yoga has dramatically changed the course of my life. I began practicing with my father in the early days when an old friend came to visit and began to teach us yoga. Yoga soon became a part of my identity and self image. It opened up a whole world to me. Without the influence of yoga I believe that, like most people in the world, I would have stayed in the place where I was born and done something similar to what my father did for a living. Instead I found myself in Mysore India at the age of 18. Travel changed my world view and also what I wanted to do with my life. All of this came through yoga and the community of people around the world who practice yoga. Naturally I feel a great sense of gratitude towards my teachers and friends as I look back.
I want to share some thoughts about how yoga is perceived in different cultural settings. This writing is nothing more than a snapshot of my thinking about yoga at this particular time. I share it humbly because I was asked to write an article. I feel that the whole world is getting to know itself better through the practice of yoga and that our similarities as well as our differences come to light as this happens. The fundamental topic of discussion is- Just how does cultural identity change the way people relate to yoga and yoga philosophy? All cultures have exercise. No need to look very deeply into cultural identity if we just want to discuss exercise systems. Yoga holds its own among any other systems of physical exercise. If I want to practice yoga postures to stay fit as opposed to jogging or Pilates or any number of other options, then that is all well and good. I need not concern myself about cultural identity. I am just a person from America who likes to stay fit, like millions of others.
But yoga touches deeper than that. It promises more. By definition it has more to it that physical exercise and my teachers have always been very clear about this with me. Most other yoga practitioners around the world experience something similar if they practice yoga for some years or even decades. It means more to us than exercise. So we tell ourselves a different thing - I am not only trying to take care of my body, I want to also take care of my mind and cultivate my ability to concentrate. I want to free myself from emotional suffering. I would like to experience this Samadhi or enlightenment that is mentioned again and again in all the books about yoga.
Now this is where it gets interesting. I believe we all see life to a certain extent through a particular cultural lens. We may renounce our own culture and choose to live in another part of the world, but there are deep patterns in our thinking that take years and years to change and some of these patterns will perhaps never go away. This is my opinion and I will attempt to build on this idea.
I come from a Christian culture. In fact I come from a family full of Nazarene ministers and I grew up in the bible belt in the USA in a particular kind of culture. There are plenty of things I object to in my own culture! I can see the rampant dogma and hypocrisy very clearly. But I have traveled in the world enough to realize these things exist in every culture. They are just harder to see in other cultures whereas they tend to be sharply in focus in one's own culture. No one has a monopoly on dogma and hypocrisy! There is plenty to go around. There are good and bad things in every country, community, culture, family etc. What I have been contemplating in my own thoughts is the way in which people from a Christian culture relate to yoga philosophy.
One may say "l hate all organized religions. I have nothing to do with these things." But the religious ideas that a culture is formed around run deep. There are ideas we absorb as children that go on to form building blocks for our world views and shape the way we see the world. Forgiveness of sin is a good example. Christian faith does a good job with this in my opinion. A person is allowed to make a new start. He or she can confess the things they have done wrong, apologize, make restitution, change their behavior, and it is considered to be ok. All is forgiven in the family, community and more importantly in the mind of the person who has decided to ask for forgiveness. All cultures have some version of this, but it is a central part of Christian thinking. In my opinion, there are certain deep fundamental ideas inherent in our culture that are part and parcel of our worldview whether we like it or not.
Yoga has penetrated world culture. In the words of my respected teacher and friend Dr. TRS Sharma " Britain colonized India for 200 years, but India colonized the whole world through the practice of yoga." Yoga postures are a gateway into spiritual practice. They alter one's brain chemistry and perception of the world around us to such an extent that most people become curious about other aspects of yoga. And so it begins.
In the early days my generation and peers began to learn Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in Mysore India and there was a great importance placed on traditional practice. We learned the word Parampara and decided we were part of a yoga tradition by virtue of practicing yoga postures with dedication in a particular order. Our fundamentalist Christian programming emerged and much alienation and debate ensued.
Soon there was an attitude among some yoga practitioners, particularly Americans, that they had the original "real" yoga and that everyone else was practicing something that was watered down or somehow impure. Students were essentially told that they were flawed in any other yoga practices they may have known previously and that in order to be authentic they had to do exactly as their teacher said. That authenticity could be revoked at any time if they fail to conform to the method and that they were essentially not authentic practitioners unless they were authorized by someone who was. They would be removed from a list of certified , authorized, credible practitioners and that this list meant that these practitioners were part of a Parapmara. A Parampara that looked very much like a pyramid scheme for making money teaching yoga postures in a particular way.
Because of my Christian upbringing in the bible belt of the United States, I couldn't help but notice a strong parallel with this attitude and that of Christian fundamentalists.. "We have the real god. You are inherently flawed and you need for us to approve your relationship to god. You are not ok until we say you are ok and we may change our mind and reject you at any time unless you do exactly as we say. You get a lot of benefits as a member of our group, but we will revoke them immediately if you fail to comply with our rules and regulations. The alternative to obeying us is great suffering i.e. eternal hell and damnation." Is it really such a big surprise that the strange way western people relate to yoga is a reflection of our cultural disposition towards spirituality? I think we have imposed our views on yoga without even realizing it.
I don't believe this kind of thinking is Indian in its origin. It is a superimposition of a very western world view. One of the most poisonous and destructive ones in my opinion. This is the thinking that caused the younger generations to rebel completely against religion in the 1960s and 70s and which caused people in our culture to be disgusted with all organized religions. My parents were among those who rebelled. This kind of rigidity actually fractures society and causes rebellions and upheaval of all kinds.
As I have gotten to know the Sanskrit community in Mysore India I realized at some point that yoga philosophy and religion are two different things to them. I find that very interesting and refreshing. I believe that Indian culture has a tolerance for other religious ideas because there are different gods and different sects such as Vaishnavas and Shivites etc. So respect for others who have differing beliefs is more common. People who are convinced that their way is the one and only right path cannot do this. If we take philosophy to be that which is based upon experience and logic and religion to be that which is based on faith and belief in a particular deity, then we can accept others and share with people of differing opinions much more easily. I have come to realize that all the great mysteries of life have been debated for centuries if not millennia among Indian sages and philosophers. Is there a god or not? And if so what is it and what are its attributes? Is it one, or two or three?
The concept of Ishvara is a fascinating point to me. Whenever anyone says "God" in America or most other western countries the most common reaction is- oh no here we go! It is assumed there will be a particular god that this person believes in and that they will attack others who do not share this faith. The idea of a sort of universal god principle which doesn't have any defined attributes is not very common in western thought.
I feel that my study of Indian philosophy has helped me to appreciate my own culture more. I have always been wondering about the big mysteries of god and life and death. For whatever reason those things have always been on my mind. My teacher Dr. MA Lakshmithathachar gave me a different view of life. He said that the whole world is the body of God. That God has two parts, prakriti and purusha or matter and consciousness. Study of Sankhya philosophy has been very influential for me. Therein lies a parallel to the thinking I grew up with. We always talk about the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. The struggle of good against evil, sin against virtue etc. If we take Prakriti to be the material principle which draws each of us into action and karma, and purusha the be the conscious principle which draws us towards exploration of consciousness, a parallel can be found in the fundamental thinking.
Each person is enjoying certain things and suffering from certain things according to their behavior and circumstances. We are all searching for ways to be happy and to enjoy life, no matter what choices we make. When prakriti is firmly in the driver's seat and enjoyment of the physical senses, acquisition of material assets, external things etc is our primary goal, we see the rottenest most selfish behavior in human beings. When consciousness or pususha becomes more interesting and behavior in the physical world is governed by internal principles, spiritual practices etc, we see morality, evolution of thought, and a sense of the interconnectedness of all things. We all have two different sets of impulses and we try to find the balance. We are all wonderful people and at the same time we are all selfish monsters bent on personal gain and advantage. It is our choice which direction we will move.
As long as we want to stay in our bodies, and most of us very much do want to stay in these bodies of ours, we must eat and care for our basic necessities. This means we must negotiate with the world around us and arrange some exchange to get the things we need, care for those who it is our duty to care for etc. No one can escape this basic reality. So materialism reigns supreme most of the time. The Bhagavad Gita deals with this dilemma in a way that I find absolutely brilliant, and eternally relevant to our day to day existence.
When a human being begins to search within and contemplate the big questions in life, such as the meaning of existence, nature of the self, existence of god, what happens at the time of death etc, they access something which is indescribably beautiful and begin to see life differently. We each experience that mystery through the lens of our own culture, mind, experiences, beliefs etc. Some will say there is a god, others will insist there is not. Some will call God by one name and some by another. I believe we are all experiencing the same thing, just through different lenses. We may compare and concern ourselves with differences, but I think it is more interesting to look for the commonalities.
If spirituality and religious practice are associated with purusha, science is surely associated with prakriti. A great man once said "Mathematics is the language of God." There is some truth to that in my opinion. Nature is created by divine principles and it has inherent patterns within it which give rise to the great sciences and technologies we have today. I am typing now on my computer. How can I discredit the great accomplishments of the human race and say they are inferior or somehow flawed? But science has far surpassed any religion in gaining the confidence of the world. Because of the oppression of organized religion we gladly grabbed onto a science based view of life and the world. India and the rest of Asia does not have the same cultural history as the west. Our oppression was great and our suffering acute. It is no surprise everyone jumped out of the church and ran towards science. But Asia is not far behind the west in adopting a science based view and abandoning religious ideas that are now seen as old fashioned and out of date.
But then we find yoga. It reminds us of something we long for so deeply. It stirs that deep primal need to connect with our spirituality. When we move that direction we see the cultural baggage we carry and just what awkward creatures we have become in our loneliness and deprivation from spirituality in the modern world. So we go right ahead and impose all our same rubbish ideas on yoga. But yoga can't be hurt by rubbish ideas. It has survived for a very long time and I think it is invincible. Childish behavior always gets seen for what it is as time passes. Yoga is India's great gift to the world. We tried our best to sexualise it, capitalise on it, package it and take it to the bank, but somehow it eludes us. It touches deeper than we realize. Our emptiness is not satisfied and we still look further.
The suffering of the modern time is great. The loneliness of the digital age gnaws slowly at us and we are forced to reevaluate. The Covid era has ushered in new challenges and new thinking. Yoga has always been evolving and changing with the time. It underwent a huge transformation to enter into world culture the way that it has done in the last decades. But I say it is invincible and cannot be harmed by anyone's behavior. It is a path which leads inward and toward the things that are most precious in life. Self esteem, courage, discipline, emotional maturity, love for the people around us - these things never go out of style.
As the world gets to know itself better and the barriers between cultures become smaller many beautiful things can happen. We are all children on this playground. It is better if we hold one another's hands and help each other along as we play. We need the help of our elders in society to guide us. We need the help of our youth in society to inspire us and carry us forward. Above all we need patience with ourselves and those around us. I believe that yoga plays a universal role in human development and that it has done a great service in the world that has touched nearly a hundreds of millions of people. Despite all cultural misgivings, religious suspicions and disputes, and yoga will continue to evolve both as a physical practice and a spiritual discipline just as it has done since time immemorial.