Yoga Philosophy

—Storying the Queer-Spiritual Sensibility For many queer people, an evolving relationship with their queerness and contemporary queer communities can have…

Scholars are practitioners of academia. Many people, initially in the West and eventually globally, have had a millennium to imagine the knowledge and research that are data for academia, which is solely the creation of scholars’ studies. It is created…

In many religious environments around the world, being gay, gender-bending, or otherwise queer is considered a surefire recipe for eternal damnation.

From my perspective a scholar-practitioner is someone who consciously integrates into his or her scholarship the insights culled from engaging in the practices prescribed by the tradition he or she researches, publishes about and teaches.

My practice deeply informs my scholarship because I’ve become aware of the contemplative hermeneutics underlying the visual material and textual cultures of the traditions that I teach.

My daily practice is an essential aspect of life, no less important than eating, exercising, and sleeping. What the latter three do for the body, contemplative and other related practices do for the mind. They nourish, strengthen, and also provide rest. They help to bring the mind to a place of both stillness and strength, through which awareness is heightened, and thinking can be done with focus and clarity.

To live a life according to the wisdom of ecology is the most urgent task for humanity today. What can the philosophy of yoga contribute to this critical challenge? How can we develop an environmental ethics according to yogic principles? What would a sustainable ethics based on yoga look like?

What is queer dharma? How does it serve the greater good? How can it provide a path toward healing during this year of global pandemic and social unrest?