Chapter 6 Is Yogic Enlightenment Dependent Upon God?

Heather Salazar

From submission to God comes the perfection of samadhi. patañjali1

In yoga, many may take one path as a key in order to experience self- realization while others take another path, but I say that there is abso- lutely no difference between the various practices of yoga. iyengar2

Within contemporary Western culture, yogic philosophy is often touted as spir- itual but not religious, and some modern incarnations of it have excluded God completely from yoga’s metaphysics. In most discussions of yoga in the West today, for example, the liberation of the true Self (Purusa) from the mind (chit- tam) and the practice of non-attachment (vairagyam) have become secular. It is through focused contemplation (dharana) and meditation (dhyana) that samadhi, enlightenment and the liberation of the mind is attained. Though these seemingly secular methods of contemplation and meditation are strong- ly supported in Patañjali’s Yoga Sutras, the authoritative ancient text on yogic philosophy, modern discussions often ignore other sutras that clearly expound on the connection in yoga between the self and the Divine (Isvara). Westerners often mistake yoga’s non-religiosity to mean that it is non-theistic. However, this is a misnomer as Indian culture and yoga have been largely theistic. One need not read very far in the Yoga Sutras to find that Patañjali says: “[Samadhi is attainable] from devotion to the Lord. The Lord is a special soul. In Him, the seed of omniscience is unsurpassed.”3 And though “Oṁ” has become a com-

1 Patañjali, Sutras, II.45, translated by Edwin Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Trans- lation and Commentary (New York: North Point Press: 2009), 277. (Sutras are referred to in the standard way and refer to the Bryant translation unless otherwise indicated). Through- out this paper, I use two translations of the Yoga Sutras. Both texts include a commentary. Authorship of the sutras will be to Patañjali; authorship of the commentaries will be to the authors of the commentaries. 2 B.K.S. Iyengar, The Tree of Yoga (Boston, MA: Shambala), 15. 3 Patañjali, The Yoga Sutras, I.23 and I.25.

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98 Salazar monplace chant in Western yoga classes and has gained popularity as a symbol emblazoned on T-shirts and bumper stickers, it is arguable that most people do not know that Oṁ is a symbol synonymous with God. Patañjali states that “The name designating him [Lord] is the mystical syllable Oṁ.”4 This chapter explores whether and to what extent yogic philosophy de- pends upon a God or a higher power. I address the accusation that Western yoga is overly concerned with asana (postures), and examine what Patañjali, as well as contemporary yoga gurus such as Krishnamacharya, Iyengar, Jois and Desikachar say about yoga’s connection to Isvara. A proper understanding of ‘non-religious’ within the interpretation of traditional yoga is non-dogmatic (without particular conceptual commitments and presuppositions about the nature of God), rather than non-theistic. However, I show that the central phi- losophy and methods of yoga preclude it from excluding atheistic yogic en- lightenment. Finally, I explore concerns that more atheistic and less overtly spiritual forms of yoga are not genuine paths to samadhi (enlightenment). I argue that yoga can maintain (and even increase) its integrity in adaptations to a largely Christian and atheistic West. The paths are various and still in de- velopment, but there are reasons to be hopeful that true, non-dogmatic yoga and samadhi will be accessible for a growing number of people in the West, regardless of their religious beliefs.

1 Yoga in the Twentieth Century

Yoga is a set of practices that developed throughout ancient India to help ad- herents experience enlightenment (samadhi). The practices are referred to in the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad-Gita; therein yoga was inter- mingled with Hinduism but the practices themselves and the general goal of reaching samadhi does not rely on the more specific doctrines of Hinduism. Patañjali (300 C.E.) wrote the canonical text of yoga, The Yoga Sutras, captur- ing the philosophy and practices of yoga in writing as a discipline with its own identity and without any specific religious confines. In his second sutra, Pa- tañjali defines yoga: “Yoga is the stilling of the changing states of the mind.”5 The Yoga School of Indian thought, which Patañjali’s book explains, is one of the eight orthodox schools of Indian philosophy, and is closely connected to Sankha philosophy (another of the eight schools which emphasizes logic

4 Patañjali, The Yoga Sutras, Sutra I.27. 5 Patañjali, The Yoga Sutras, I.2.