Many Paths to One Goal: Swami Vivekananda’s Contributions to the Discourse of Yoga Jeffery D Long Indeed, precisely because his approach has been so influential, many of Swamiji’s ideas on yoga are now widely shared around the world. This Swamiji’s Distinctive Perspective on Yoga can lead to a situation, though, in which cer- mong Swamiji’s many contributions to tain ideas come to be taken for granted, as if that Aglobal spirituality, some of the most im- is simply the way everyone has always thought. portant, and also the least understood, Credit needs to be given to Swamiji both for are his contributions to the discourse of yoga: introducing yoga to the wider world beyond that is, to the understanding of what, precisely, India in the modern period and for presenting yoga is, its aim and purpose, and the methods the particular synthesis of practices now com- that it involves. monly known as ‘the four yogas’ in the particular There are, of course, many interpretations of way that he did. yoga, as well as many types of yoga. Indeed, the It is also, true, though, that certain important same thing can be said of yoga that Mohandas ideas introduced by Swamiji to the West have Karamchand Gandhi once said of religion: ‘In been largely forgotten. There is thus a need to reality, there are as many religions as there are remind people that yoga is not only what most individuals.’1 Similarly, there are as many yogas now see it to be. In the minds of most Western- as there are individuals. The intent of this essay ers, the word ‘yoga’ refers specifically, often ex- HYDERABAD RAMAKRISHNA MATH, SKETCH: is not to claim that Swamiji’s approach to the clusively, to what scholars have come to call ‘pos- nature of yoga is the only correct approach; nor, tural yoga’.2 In more traditional terms, postural in claiming that his approach is distinctive; the yoga refers to asanas, the postures one utilises intent is to state that this approach is entirely while practising meditation; although, in mod- unique, and that important aspects of it are not ern postural yoga, meditation may or may not also shared by other major thinkers on yoga. be involved at all, the postures themselves being utilised solely because of their benefits to phys- Jeffery D Long is a professor of Religion and Asian ical health and their contributions to an overall Studies at the Elizabethtown College, Pennsylva- sense of well-being for their practitioners. yoga nia, USA. has thus come to be seen and practised as part 214 PB January 2019 Many Paths to One Goal: Swami Vivekananda’s Contributions to the Discourse of Yoga 225 of a physical health and exercise regimen. Cer- in order to be free from the cycle of rebirth. In tainly, in this regard, it is a deeply beneficial prac- fact, rebirth itself can be seen as simply the re- tice for many, many people, and is one of India’s peated identification of the self with a physical numerous gifts to global civilisation. If one takes body: in this case, a series of physical bodies, the perspective on yoga, though, developed and given that such identification is no longer vi- promoted by Swamiji, this emphasis on physical able when a particular body ceases to function— postures comes to be seen as barely scratching when it experiences death. We will see that this, the surface of the depths of yoga as a practice too—the central importance of non-identifica- and as a way of life: and potentially, as a distrac- tion with the physical body—is a major theme tion from the experience of these depths, which of Swamiji’s teachings about yoga. Yoga is about are, according to Swamiji and the tradition he God-realisation. Physical health, although im- inherits and advances, the whole point of this portant, is secondary. practice. Indeed, while the care of the physical Another major feature of Swamiji’s ap- body is certainly important, an obsession with proach to yoga is his emphasis on the diver- it can carry many spiritual dangers. sity of the methods that yoga involves. While What are the features of Swamiji’s approach yoga, for Swamiji, is not only postural practice, to yoga? In terms of the modern conversation it is also not only the practice of meditation about the nature of yoga as being far more prescribed in the Yoga Sutra. While this prac- than postural practice, the first feature to men- tice does hold, as we shall see, a special place tion is one that Swamiji’s thought shares with in Swamiji’s understanding of yoga as a whole, yoga masters going back centuries: the aim of yoga also includes, for Swamiji, practices which yoga as, to cite Patanjali, the author of the Yoga the average Westerner would likely not think Sutra, ‘chitta-vritti-nirodhah’, or the calming of of at all in connection with yoga: namely, ser- the modifications of the mind—the thoughts, vice to alleviate the sufferings of living beings, which can be likened to waves on the surface the practice of studying and learning to discern of a body of water.3 Picking up on a theme pur- the difference between what is real and what is sued by earlier masters in the tradition of Ved- unreal in one’s life, and loving devotion towards anta, Swamiji identifies the aim of yoga with a personal form of divinity—the yoga practice the aim of Vedanta: namely, the attainment of which comes the closest to the idea of ‘religion’, God-realisation, the manifestation of the po- at least in the Western world. yoga, in short, is, tential divinity within us and within all beings, for Swamiji, a complete, comprehensive, and a realisation which leads to liberation—moksha holistic way of life, encompassing every aspect or mukti—from the cycle of rebirth, samsara, to of the human personality. which we have been subject for countless life- A common misunderstanding of Swamiji’s times. Physical health, from this perspective, is approach to yoga involves setting it against an important as a condition which makes it pos- interpretation of Vedanta—particularly Advaita sible for one to observe spiritual practice and at- Vedanta—as involving only one way to the ul- tain this ultimate realisation. It is certainly not, timate realisation: namely, jnana or Self-knowl- however, an end in itself; for indeed, an excessive edge. As we shall see, though, this is a misread- identification of self with the physical body is ing of Swamiji’s teachings. He does not teach precisely the delusion which one must overcome that there are many ways to realisation, and that PB January 2019 215 226 Prabuddha Bharata Self-knowledge is just one of these. He teaches, that jnana, Self-knowledge, is the essential pre- rather, that there are many ways to the Self- requisite for realisation, indeed, that Self-knowl- knowledge that is the one way to—or rather, edge is realisation, Swamiji is no different than that constitutes—the ultimate realisation. An- any other teacher of Advaita Vedanta. Acharya other way to say this is that the critics of Swamiji, Shankara and other teachers have also said that who say that he deviates from traditional many practices can purify the mind and prepare Advaita Vedanta in affirming many ways to re- it for realisation. alisation are confusing jnana or Self-knowledge, Other important features of Swamiji’s ap- with jnana yoga, as a practice aimed at cultivat- proach to yoga include an emphasis on renun- ing jnana through the purification of the mind. ciation as an essential condition for the prac- Swamiji’s contribution is to emphasise other tice of yoga. In keeping with the spirit of the yogas, other practices, as well. But in his view Bhagavadgita, though, he emphasises that by ‘re- nunciation’ he is referring not so much to for- mal sannyasa, in which one takes up the life of a monk or a nun, though this is of course recom- mended for those who are called to it. ‘Renun- ciation’, for Swamiji, means the inner attitude of detachment or vairagya, which can be either present or absent regardless of the outward ap- pearance of a person. A monk can be deeply at- tached to the world and a king detached from it. The detached king, like King Janaka in an- cient times, is closer to realisation than a monk, who is greedy for fame or recognition, or who is inwardly attached to the things he has out- wardly renounced. Such renunciation is rejected by Swamiji as hypocrisy. Swamiji also emphasises the importance of actually practising the yogas and not merely theorising about them. He insists that the yogas are not for the weak, but require firmness of mind and self-discipline in order to be effective in advancing us towards the goal that we seek. MAROTKAR SHANTANU PAINTING: In regard to our modern period in particular, two distinctive features of Swamiji’s approach to yoga include an emphasis on the rationality of yoga and on generosity as an essential vir- tue to cultivate in our current age. Yoga, and Vedanta more broadly, has been appealing espe- cially to Westerners, but also to people around the world who are educated in the scientific 216 PB January 2019 Many Paths to One Goal: Swami Vivekananda’s Contributions to the Discourse of Yoga 227 method and in scepticism towards unveri- Although yoga involves many different fied claims, for the fact that it does not ask its methods, many forms of practice, the goal of all practitioners to accept things on blind faith, of these is one and the same.