I have always been puzzled about exactly what yoga is. A few things puzzle me, like how most people identify yoga with asana and maybe pranayama but then everyone talks about Raja yoga and higher yogas, but what are they and who is practicing them?
And what is the link between the physical and the mental? How much of what we experience is conditioned by our culture and the religion we are brought up in-even if we never actively participated? I started tracing the roots of yoga and quickly realized this was a metaphysical jungle of widely varying approaches and beliefs. The concept that there was something coherent called yoga soon evaporated. So what was I, and millions of others like me, actually doing? When I started researching I realized that this was a complex subject and it has created more questions than answers. I would like to give an outline of the topic and then open it up to discussion from you, the teachers and practitioners of yoga. In my training courses, one of the tutorial questions is: Is Yoga Religious? There are widely varying answers to this question, but the overall consensus is that it is not. It is a set of tools and techniques to attain Samadhi or moksha or enlightenment or nirvana. Or is it?
Religion- from the root ligare, meaning to bind, tie, bring together. So the basis of religion is to unify or make whole or re-connect to something. What that something is depends on the particular religion. Using this definition of religion strongly suggests that Yoga-meaning to bind, to yoke, to unify, is also a religion. Like all religion it has a spiritual longing for wholeness and for understanding the role of the human in the cosmos.
Yoga does not have sin but ignorance, which can be removed when the self is re-united with the higher Self. Generally it sees god in all things and all things in god. This is known as pantheism. Yoga describes spiritual or divine attainment in evolutionary terms and as something arising out of human effort and will. Or does it?
To him who sees me in everything and everything in me, I am never lost, and he is not lost in me. The devotee who worships me abiding in all beings, holding that all is one, lives in me, however he may be living. (VI, 30-31 BG)
This verse from the Bhagavad Gita is highly theistic, and one could almost substitute Christ for Krishna, as of course the yogis have done in denoting Christ as an avatar.
Christianity believes in sin and in a single separate god-and is therefore theistic. Failure to conform to the standards of a morally perfect god is sin. Salvation from sin can only be received, never earned. Christianity was influenced heavily by the writings of Paul (who never actually met Jesus). Its central tenet is of personal redemption or salvation through Christ. Its emphasis is on Faith, or belief, rather than on any activity such as yoga. Salvation is seen as a gift from God through his Grace.
Here is a description of a meditation technique:
Then seat yourself in a quiet cell, apart in a corner, close the door, raise your mind above any vain or transitory object. Then, pressing your beard against your chest, direct the eye of the body and with it all your mind upon the centre of your belly-that is, upon your navel-compress the inspiration of air passing through the nose so that you do not breathe easily, and mentally examine the interior of your entrails in search of the place of the heart, where all the powers of the soul delight to linger.
This is not a yoga text but taken from Nicephorus the Solitary, 13th century Christian mystic and shows prayer combined with breathing techniques. It is highly likely that the techniques of yoga had spread from India through Persia and to Greece and beyond and had been adopted by religious orders which saw these methods as a valid means to achieving communion with god.
Let’s fast forward to the 21st century.
Rev Tim Jones, the vicar of St. James’s Church told The Telegraph: “Any alternative philosophies or beliefs are offering a sham- and at St James’s Church we want people to have the real thing.
“The Philosophy of yoga cannot be separated from the practice of it, and any teacher of yoga (even for toddlers) must subscribe to the philosophy. As Christians we believe that this philosophy is false and not something we wish to encourage,” he said.
He added “Yoga is encouraging people to think there is a way to wholeness of body and mind through human techniques – whereas the only true way to wholeness is by faith in God through Jesus Christ.”
Yoga is dangerous. Yoga is deceitful. The “correct” pursuit of yoga is designed to call upon demonic power and influence; it invites inside us the very separation from God and ultimate destruction it claims to forestall. Yoga is not good for anyone; clearly it is not acceptable for Christians (The Berean Call Pub., 2006, p. 159)
In 1989, Pope Benedict, then Cardinal Ratzinger, issued a scathing report against yoga and warned Catholics of “dangers and errors ” from “non-Christian forms of meditation.” He stated, “The Hindu concept of absorbing of the human self into the divine self is never possible, not even in the highest states of grace’
The above debate was sparked off by the appearance of Christian Yoga, which uses the techniques of yoga, especially asana and pranayama, but avoids the philosophy or theistic elements. Christian yoga has a huge and growing following in the States, and alarm bells are ringing in many conservative and orthodox circles as they fear that yoga –and Hinduism in particular-is infiltrating and debasing their religion.
The other side of the debate for Christians sounds like this: (from a Christian practicing yoga)
But all of this is only a preparation for a “spiritual” aim, which begins to make itself felt in a very short time: “By becoming contemplative in a matter of weeks, my prayer had been given a particular and novel cast.” Becoming extraordinarily calm, the author notices “the ease I felt in entering into prayer, in concentrating on a subject.” One becomes “more receptive to impulses and promptings from heaven.” “The practice of Yoga makes for increased suppleness and receptivity, and thus for openness to those personal exchanges between God and the soul that mark the way of the mystical life.” Even for the “apprentice yogi” prayer becomes “sweet” and “embraces the whole of man.” One is relaxed and “ready to tremble at the touch of the Holy Ghost, to receive and welcome what God in his Goodness thinks fit to let us experience.” “We shall be making our being ready to be taken, to be seized — and this is surely one of the forms, in fact the highest of Christian contemplation.” “Every day the exercises, and indeed the whole ascetic discipline of my Yoga, make it easier for the grace of Christ to flow in me. I feel my hunger for God growing, and my thirst for righteousness, and my desire to be a Christian in the full strength of the word.”
But what about the opinions on the Hindu side? What do practicing Hindus say about Christians practicing yoga?
Professor Tiwari writing in ‘Hinduism Today, ’states, ‘In the past few months I have received several calls from journalists around the country seeking my views on the question of whether the newly minted “Christian Yoga “is really yoga.
‘My response is, “The simple, immutable fact is that yoga originated from the Vedic or Hindu culture. Its techniques were not adopted by Hinduism, but originated from it.” These facts need to be unequivocally stated in light of some of the things being written to the contrary by yoga teachers. The effort to separate yoga from Hinduism must be challenged because it runs counter to the fundamental principles upon which yoga itself is premised. Efforts to separate yoga from its spiritual center reveal ignorance of the goal of yoga.
I believe such efforts point to a concerted, long-term plan to deny yoga its origin. This effort to extricate yoga from its Hindu mold and cast it under another name is far from innocent. It is reminiscent of the pattern evident throughout the long history and dynamics of colonizing powers. Firstly, the physical geography of a people was colonized, then their mental arena. Now we are witnessing the next phase, the encroachment on the spiritual territory of Hinduism which began in the last few decades.’
These quotes highlight the current controversy around Christian yoga: Some traditional Hindus would say that this was the infiltration of Christianity into yoga. To do this, the roots of yoga have been denied, its spiritual foundation destroyed, and its cultural fabric not acknowledged. I would like to discuss some of the ways in which western religion influenced yoga, firstly in India, and later in the USA and Europe.
Reformation, spiritualist and enlightenment thought were all exported more or less wholesale from the west into Bengal around the mid 19th century (based on hermetic traditions). The more classical elements of Hinduism were revised, and eventually appeared in Vivekananda’s form of Neo-Vedanta. Classical Hinduism is considered as pre 18th century. India at this time had been colonized by the British, who wielded economic and political power. An important part of the colonization process was bringing Christianity to India. Christian missionaries were abundant and well supported. Bengal was an important centre for political movement. An elite of traditional Bengali literati was gradually transformed into a modernized Hindu intelligentsia by interaction and cooperation with Europeans. Many intellectuals were critical of Hindu orthodoxy and of the Brahman priesthood and also sympathetic towards important aspects of the Christian message. This was further shaped by their interest in spiritualist and Unitarian Christian religion which was popular in Europe and the States. The Unitarian Christian religion wanted to substitute rational faith for the prevailing world religions with their rituals and irrational myths. They also wanted social reform and the extension of civil rights. Equally important they viewed their religion as one of theistic progress in which mankind could take an active part by joining social reform and rational religion.
It is useful to look briefly at some of the key players in yoga’s transformation because they created bridges between east and west and were responsible for the first highly influential yogis who came to the west to teach.
Rammohan Roy created a streamlined, rationalized, monotheistic theology inspired by Unitarian Christianity. This neo-vedanta was humanistic in its concern to improve the lot of the Indian population, and also power the way for progressive secularization of society. Roy distanced himself from central Hindu beliefs such as reincarnation and karma, and also questioned the authority of the Vedas. This was much more in line with western esoteric religiosity. The theosophical society was particularly influential among Bengalis. Roy also created the first neo-hindu ashram based on neo-vedantic adaptions of the puritan ethic. This ashram has set the example for almost all present day ashrams in India. Roy also wrote ‘Precepts of Jesus’ and stressed Christ’s ethical teachings which he absorbed into his version of Vedanta. He was also influenced by Emerson’s philosophy in the States. Emerson declared that the restoration of the world meant its subjection to an enhanced ego-self, an ego-self that used the power of higher spiritual energies to advance worldly projects and delights. These ideas are strongly connected to the Hermetic Tradition of medieval Europe.
Debendranath Tagore also rejected the authority of the Vedas, reincarnation and karma. He was strongly influenced by the concept of heaven and earth and talked of the Grace of God. He believed in the cultivation of puritan virtues and self-improvement through puritan practices. The science of religion he created opened itself up to a process of secularization, later completed by Vivekandanda.
It should be emphasized that the above two men did not outrightly embrace Christianity but attempted to absorb it into their existing Hindu system by moving away from the superstitions and idolatory of Classical Hinduism towards a more rational and scientific theism.
The esoteric side to western thought was strongly influenced by Harmonial religion. This believed that divinity flowed through all things. The various religious sects found ways for this to happen, and one was Transcendentalism-the idea that each individual possesses a faculty to become receptive to a higher power. This in turn led to New Thought –for example-positive thinking, so that individuals could take responsibility for their situation. Modern yoga fits into this schema very easily.
Keshubchandra Sen promoted what is arguably the most important single concept to shape modern yoga. Inspired by the Transcendentalists, he taught experiential revelation. This meant that the transfer of religious authority moved from outer sources –metaphysical, socially accepted and institutionalized – to inner sources, individually induced and validated. It is on the strength of this shift that modern yoga will be conceptualized as the experiential core of a universalistic scientific religion.
Finally we come to the most influential individual to emerge from this important group: Swami Vivekananda. He essentially adopted the Indian holy man Ramakrishna as his guru, which lent authority to his message. His talk at the world parliament of religions in Chicago in 1893 made him an overnight celebrity and brought his brand of yoga into the mainstream of American society. As he wrote ‘as our country is poor in social virtues, so this country (USA) is lacking in spirituality. I give them spirituality and they give me money.’ This was further aided by an emerging myth that India was spiritual while the west was material.
Vivekananda was astute and quickly saw how he could present his ideas in ways which appealed to the west by integrating current thinking and trends. To see how this happened, we need to look more closely at what Vivekananda was teaching.
Vivekananda naturalizes and secularizes – so that yoga becomes a science based on natural laws and on a spiritual technology for attaining Samadhi. Under these circumstances the Yoga Sutras on which he based much of his talk, become a DIY manual of practice. Vivekananda used the model of prana to perform the same function as animal magnetism popular at the time. He follows Samkhya in adopting purusha and prakriti, but instead of discussing the Gunas, he emphasizes prana and akasha, which then allows him to exploit prana conveniently and interchangeably with magnetism, thus appealing to western occult and metaphysical interests. Blockages in prana link yoga to physical practices and to health. Prana has become materialized-a material physical substance, responding to physical laws (ie pranayama, mind control). Prana can now be linked to asana. He has transformed a yogic body, which has no objective existence, into a physical body, but the yogic body and physical body belong to different levels. He backs this up by appealing to modern science, although, like the followers of the then New Thought –later to become New Age-he has no scientific understanding or knowledge. However, it was good enough for the general public, who readily accepted his ideas, and have done so ever since. He expounds the advaita vedantic view of absolute non-dualism and also the concept of ‘I am Brahman’ He mixes and confuses Purusa of the Sutras with the wholeness of Advaita Vedanta, but uses the authority of both to validate his message. This contradicts starkly with what his Guru really said and to which his Guru never gave sanction. Ramakrishna only accepted non-dualism under very strict conditions. Firstly he considered that non-dualism only applied to the previous yuga, not the current Kali Yuga. Secondly, he stated that to say ‘I am Brahman’ is relevant only in and for the moment when one is merged in nirvikalpa Samadhi-only in this state is it valid to view the world as illusion and to feel he is Brahman. To say I am Brahman when one has normal body-consciousness is false and misleading. He goes on to say ‘for those who lead a householder’s life and who identify themselves with the body, this attitude of I am Brahman is not good. Householders should look to God as their master and on themselves as his servants.’ So we are back to a theistic and devotional approach to yoga as the only valid approach. Sankara agrees when he insists that without divine revelation –shruti-no amount of meditation will reveal the true non-dual nature of experience.
It is worth looking at the overall spiritual landscape at the time of Vivekananda’s teachings. The theosophical society, led by Blavatsky created an Asia which never actually existed but which gained a tremendous following among Americans and Anglophiles, who bent it into a new version distinctly Victorian and moralistic. The yoga which was accepted was a meditative yoga and rejected any form of Hatha yoga which was considered as pagan and obscene. Blavatsky described it as a lower yoga, injurious to health. The mythical Asia was further reinforced by Arnold’s poem on the Buddha who is described as a paragon of protestant ethics, successfully applying the Victorian self-help approach to the spiritual realm. This domesticated Buddha came to represent the archetypal yogi of modern Yoga.
The term Raja yoga had been popularized by Blavatsky and become mainstream after Vivekananda’s publication of the book by the same name. What Vivekananda did was to present the dualistic Patanjali in ways which were monistic. In other words, the soul was not isolated from matter, but was the divine source of bliss within an individual consciousness. He also included references to Kundalini, setting the scene for the acceptance of more physical practices and ultimately hatha yoga. There was an increasing demand for practices –people wanted techniques and goals and methods to achieve more or less immediate results. This practical thirst was addressed by accounts of yogic masters setting an example that could be open to anyone. This was Vivekananda’s triumph, for he saw this need and produced a more or less practical, scientific program, free from any trappings of traditional religiosity, and appealing to the current materialistic and ego-centred ideology of the times.
Is Raja yoga the same as the sutras accredited to Patanjali? The Raja yoga of Vivekananda is not that of Patanjali’s Sutras. In other words Classical yoga is not Raja yoga. Strictly speaking, Raja means Samadhi; it is the goal of yoga, not it's practice, and therefore does not belong to any specific philosophical system.
The above leaves us with two specific aspects of modern yoga theory:
Practice of yoga should go hand in hand with voluntary good works
Self-improvement is the heart of yoga practice
These have no counterparts in classical yoga.
The role of tantra in modern yoga
Tantrism and its offshoot, Hatha Yoga had both been overshadowed by the previously described movements. Both Blavatsky and Vivekandanda dismissed the practices as lowly and unnecessary. However, the practices offered the public exactly what they had been looking for: a practical means to enlightenment, a touch of the secret and exotic, and the promise of becoming as a god, which tantric texts promised. The methods used were, on first appearances, scientific and rational. However, Tantra and Hatha never emerged as valid ways to enlightenment, but instead as mere preparation for the higher yoga of Raja yoga. And as we have seen this Raja yoga was a confused mixture of different philosophical schools.
The Hatha yoga now taught is a sanitized version of the original. It is safe, non-religious and supported by the philosophy of self-improvement and will power. It offers a means to evolution and personal growth without rituals and complicated gods. And it offers a highly materialistic view of the body-mind connection as validated by present day science. In other words, its business as usual, and the practice of yoga can continue without disruption to one’s daily life. But is this the whole story? Here is what an Indian Yogi has to say:
While the roots of yoga are most certainly linked with Hinduism, and its most important teachings known as the Vedas, or books of knowledge; the average yoga student has little exposure or awareness of the ancient roots to yoga. While many students are looking to escape religion, or certainly not looking for a new religion; for many, at best, they are open to new age spirituality. While this new type of spirituality borrows heavily from many of the great eastern traditions such as Hinduism, it is rare that they offer a comprehensive system of study. Often deities are relegated to a backseat within the new age philosophical model. The result has been a lessening of the understanding of deities and the important role they play within spiritual growth. The ultimate result being that this is becoming a world devoid of conscious understanding regarding deities. What are the place, role and relevance for these Vedic deities? Their timeless wisdom, spanning eternity, as recorded in the Vedas. Or are they to become forgotten myths from some distant ancient people. Will their relevance with yoga become an abandoned teaching, or are they waiting for each student to discover their secret meanings? Often the western student wishes to merely confine deities to the realm of religion, whereas the eastern student and mystic realizes that the deities “blur” the lines to reality, and manifest in a variety of forms and applications
In Tantrism, asanas and mudras evoke certain states of consciousness by re-discovering the message hidden within them. These experiences are trans-physiological and represent yogic states which are not accessible without preliminary spiritual initiation. What is happening in modern yoga is the continuing physicalization of what were previously subjective trans-personal states. Examples of this are nadis, chakras and kundalini. These have now become materialized and are claimed to be accessible to anyone by correct practice. The entire tantric sadhana with its rich symbolism, imagery, visualization, iconography, and mysticism has been reduced to a near mechanical practice mixed with a smattering of New Age philosophy.
This has opened the doors for a rampant consumerism where chakras are fine-tuned, nadis opened, and auras cleansed with readily purchasable self help guides or equipment. The result has been the opposite of what was intended –it has made people more attached to the physical instead of taking them beyond the physical.
And this brings us full circle back to Christian Yoga. This surely is the extreme end of the spectrum, a yoga offering only exercise, stripped of all religious overtones. And it resembles, disturbingly, the trend in Britain, where yoga is now considered a sport, and the sports sector has teamed up with the British Wheel of Yoga to regulate the teaching of yoga within the framework of the Fitness and Beauty industry. This is in stark contrast to world events, where yoga has been awarded the status of an 'Intangible Cultural Heritage' by UNESCO for its contribution to world peace and well being.