Cultures

To be a true yoga master, you need to master the art of negation. That’s Patanjali’s idea, from the Yoga Sutras: 2.33 Vitarka badhane pratipaksha bhavanam. The practice of pratipaksha bhanavam prescribes that, when disturbed by negative thoughts, opposite thoughts should be brought into awareness.

The more we learn about other civilizations, the more anomalous the West seems. If we resist the presumption that Western culture is the growing tip of social evolution, to be contrasted with the stagnation of non-Western ones, what becomes highlighted is its dynamism, for better and worse. Rather than trying to account for the “undevelopment” of non-Western societies — why they did not evolve further along our path — it is the apparently self-generated and future-driven “progress” of the West that needs to be explained. What caused it?

In more than one contemplative tradition, the crossroads signal literal and metaphorical death. They symbolize a crisis or a point where a shift must be made to claim an alternate future.