It occurred to me recently that the cycle of rebirth, samsara, is essential to yoga. In fact, if samsara was not real, there would be no point to yoga. Yoga's stated goal is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind, but really this is done in order to perceive one's purusa, or Isvara. And when one perceives one's purusa, or one's atman, or Isvara, one finally identifies with one's true self, and leaves the realm of prakrti and the cycle of samsara.
Tied up with the cycle of samsara is the law of karma. To simplify it slightly, it's essentially a law of cosmic justice. You sow seeds of karma, and you personally must reap the consequences of those seeds, be they good seeds or bad ones. You continue to do this over many lifetimes as long as you continue to sow seeds.
Both of these concepts, samsara and karma, are essential to the yoga practice, because without them yoga has no purpose, no need to exist. You don't need a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. This is why I think it is necessary to ask whether or not these two concepts are in fact true. Personally, I'm doubtful of both, but this may only be because of my modern way of thinking. I'm more inclined to favor a psychological explanation* of these two concepts than to actually believe them.
But at the same time, I'm drawn to the practice of yoga. I find many principles and practices that I not only agree with, but of which I have actually experienced the benefits. Perhaps as I proceed through yoga, an understanding of the more complex concepts will become clearer, but for now I remain a half-convinced, half-suspicious practitioner of yoga.
*Very loosely paraphrasing Nietzsche, concepts like Karma (or what I called cosmic justice) are merely inventions by people who are trampled upon by more powerful people. The trampled people shake their fists and say "You just wait! You'll get what's coming to ya!" while the powerful people conquer nations, take hundreds of wives, and shower in gold. Karma starts as an invention to help trampled people feel better, and ends up as a way of psychologically suppressing powerful people.
The ending of rebirth isn't the only problem, and the yoga sutras are only one expresiion of meditative practices that have around for 5,000 years+ in India. To say that Yoga is not solving a problem is to say that a Mystic who is searching for a way to be with God has no problem. It just isn't true. High level practitioners of Yoga, as a well as all of the authors of the Upanishads, are people who experienced the bliss of Brahman and atman first hand. If you are going to believe Nietzsche you can't just say that karma is made up by those with "slave morality." You have also say that every Yogi who has attained enlightenment was actaully physically decadent. "That wasn't actually Brahman you were experiencing it was an epileptic seizure, just like Paul on the road to Damascus." Saying that doesn't make you a half-convinced or half-suspicious, it makes you a radical skeptic who wants to exaplin any possible spiritual experience as a physiological weakness.
ReplyDeleteI find it completely compatible to not believe in reincarnation and still find value in Yoga. Yoga is hands-on-mysticism. Certain strains of Yoga and Vedanta are doing the same thing as certain strains of Platonism, Christinaity, Islam, Buddhism, and Daoism. It also has practical benefits in day to day life. Reincarnation seems like one of those things that a philosopher who wasn't enlightened or a high-level Yogi came up with. It's like an unnecessary theology which accompanies legitimate spiritual practice. We see that all the time in the history of Christianity. The mystics are never writing theology, the scholars are.
Correction of my views on Nietzsche is certainly warranted. If I do assume Nietzsche's explanation of "spirituality," then I can't be genuinely interested in spiritual exploration at all. So perhaps I don't actually agree with Nietzsche.
ReplyDeleteBut as far as my position about Yoga Sutras, I think it remains correct. Insofar as I am delimiting my statements to the Yoga Sutras and only the Yoga Sutras, I think a serious practitioner must accept karma and samsara as real problems that really exist. There may be other meditative traditions that don't require a belief in these concepts (and perhaps that's the way I'll end up going), but I don't think one can practice yoga as described in the Sutras without believing in those 2 concepts.
Perhaps one cannot be a "true yogi" if that means that we have to take the literal truth of the text, but would you apply this to every spiritual practice? Are true christians only those that believe that the bible is literally true? I am inclined to say no, and I am further inclined to admit only the half-truth of most things. The bible is valuable despite the world being older than 6,000 years of age or the fact that Psalms says the sun and stars revolve around te earth. So too are the Yoga Sutras.
ReplyDeleteI also think that this is the opinion of modern Indian spiritual practitioners:
"In the study of yoga, no faith or belief is necessary. Believe nothing until you find ot out for yourself." -Swami Vivekananda
Or, even better:
"The history of religion is the record of conflicts of contraditory systems, each of them claiming dogmatic finality and absolute truth...If comparative religion tells us anything it is that every reigion is moulded by fallible and imperfect human instruments, and so long as it is alive it will be changing...Every revealed scripture seems to contain in it a large mass of elements which scientific criticism and historical knowledge require us to discard and there is no reason why we should accept it all. Truth is greater than revelation." -Servapeli Radhakrishnan
The highest merit of the sutras, in my eyes, is this: If a christian pastor tells you his theology and you don't like it, there is litte more you can do than walk away. If a swami is reading you the Sutras and you don't like it, he will tell you to try it.