Yoga Philosophy

To help address the mental challenges so many people face today, I categorized the basic tenets of yoga psychology into five broad principles.

Individual human beings are at war with themselves for one simple reason: they are internally divided, and these divisions are not compatible. They do not cohere.

The feminine is revered not only in the embodied forms of Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati, but the qualities of Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati, also known as the gunas- tamas, rajas and sattwa. Her force is measurable in the inertia of our gross body: the dense, hungry, woundable layers of flesh and bone. She is also present in the agitation of prana: circulation, breath and thought waves. She is also sattwa or harmony, in the delicate balance of stability in the midst of change we call yoga.

The Shiva Sutra declares “Prayatnah sadhaka” (2:2) : A seeker is one who makes an effort. The effort is about extracting enlightenment from the heart of each circumstance. We learn a repertoire of physical and mental alignments with reality that tap an uplifting free flow of energy, and to release the maladjusted positions that block or inhibit it.

Language, by its very nature as crystallized concept, can only stab at slivers of experiential fullness. It isn’t fine enough a sieve to completely capture the multidimensionality of any experience, including experiences beyond the familiar. To put something into words is to limit its limitlessness, to pin it down behind glass. The onlooker creates what they see in the very act of observation. If we are limited in our discussion of any experience, how then do we digest and integrate awakening experiences that are beyond language and concept?

Students of 21st Century Transnational Postural Yoga typically begin our study with little or no theory; practice is all. As we deepen our practice, we are introduced to what we are told is “Yoga Philosophy.” Depending on the tradition we are studying, this is usually a pat genealogy; we are told that “Yoga Philosophy” is found in the Yoga Sūtras, and that the philosophy they contain is called स़ाम्ख्य, Sāmkhya, and that it is dualistic.

The most well-known definition of “metta” is “loving kindness.” Another meaning, as Bhikkhu Bodhi translated, is “kind friendliness,” as “metta” derives from the Pali word for “friend.” “Bhavana” is usually translated as “meditation,” but it more literally means “cultivation” or “development.” During this process, loving kindness is meant to remove anger, hatred and delusion, and transform things which would normally trigger these emotions into opportunity for creative problem solving.

It is no secret that, when we hear or read stories about people who’ve left the world (and the things which tied them to it) behind, we often recall familiar images. Some of these may be of mild-voiced gurus sitting in the lotus position under a yellow Indian sunset.