The “kindly illusions” of Yoga and utopian thought and imagination

   

It seems that Īśvara (ईश्वर), the—comparatively speaking—peculiar deity in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, plays a role in individual moral psychological and spiritual development akin or at least analogous to the manner in which utopian thought and imagination functions on the collective level: the first is believed essential in liberating the individual’s mind so as to experience pristine awareness or consciousness, the “pure” self (technically, asamprajñāta-samādhi), while the latter, correctly understood, has been essential to general emancipation (for this locution’s meaning in history and political philosophy, I defer in particular to the late Rudolf Barho, as well as more generally to Marxist and anarchist theorists), as it is used to specify and justify the principles of an ideal (or comprehensively good) political order (or, the historical quest for the ideal society or polity committed to the equal liberties, welfare, and well-being of all persons in conjunction with human dignity), which includes the widespread flourishing and eudaimonia of the individuals that constitute that polity.

Utopia is to the outer world what meditation on Īśvara in Yoga is to the inner world of the yogī. Much like the nature or function of utopias has been rather contentious in history and political philosophy (e.g., utopias as ‘blueprints’ believed capable of concrete realization find us with ample reason to dismiss the relevance of utopian thought, while utopian constructions as images or ‘symbols’ of ideal communities wherein we make explicit the principles and values which render our conceptions of the polity or community normatively ‘ideal’ remain politically and morally relevant if not urgent), questions as to precisely “who” or “what” Īśvara is in the Yoga system remains a topic of vigorous debate. For example, it is clear that this deity is not like the creator God of theistic religions nor is it identical or similar to (nirguṇa) Brahman in Advaita Vedānta. Īśvara is, however, more or less equivalent to saguṇa Brahman in this school of philosophy, that facet of Brahman, if you will, accessible to those of us mired in māyā and avidyā and thus the proper object of our love and devotion or bhakti, while the mention of grace suggests the personal god of bhakti-yoga or –marga. Saguṇa Brahman is Brahman as understood, imagined or experienced by the yogī or devotee from her necessarily limited, partial, or relative perspectives, in which all perception or knowledge and understanding is qualified by ignorance. From this vantage point (saguṇa) Brahman in is Lord, Īśvara, the perfectly proper object of our devotion and spiritual orientation, accounting for our differing degrees and stages of spiritual experience and awareness. Until one has the intuitive spiritual experience of non-duality, that spiritual awareness in which all distinctions, plurality, and difference are transcended and obliterated, until, that is, nirvikalpa samādhi, one must acknowledge the conventional implications of and consequences that follow karmic entanglement in māyā (illusion) and avidyā (ignorance). The illusion, in other words, is for all practical purposes, real for us. It is said to be an illusion caused by the power (śakti) of Īśvara, the Great Magician who created the world (this ‘creative’ power of the deity is not found in Patañjali’s Yoga). Māyā, in turn, has its own power, for it both conceals reality (āvarana-śakti) and misrepresents or distorts reality (vikṣepa-śakti).

The ultimate aim of Yoga is the mind’s awareness of puruṣa, and thus in some sense Īśvara’s significance is due primarily to the instrumental part it can play, or plays, in such a realization; in which case consider again our analogy with utopias: their role in the progressive realization of societies with ever closer fidelity to our ideals and values, our hopes and dreams, all of which depend on the moral and spiritual lodestar of “the Good.” Consider too that in Yoga the role of Īśvara might be, strictly speaking, thought conditional or contingent, insofar as Patañjali “presents devotion to Īśvara, the Lord, as an optional rather than an obligatory means of attaining samādhi, full meditative absorption in the self or soul (puruṣa).” Devotional meditative reliance on Īśvara for some yoga practitioners is necessary for the “realization of inner consciousness and freedom from all obstacles,” that is, self-realization, thus devotion to Īśvara serves here as a necessary condition to the attainment of samādhi. T.K.V. Desikachar (1938– 2016), the yoga teacher and son of the Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888–1989) (‘often referred to as the father of modern yoga’ and ‘widely regarded as one of the most influential yoga teachers of the 20th century’), once stated that “in the Yoga Sūtra, when we meditate on God, we never meet God. We discover ourselves.” (I should note that the view I articulate here is far from consensual, indeed, it is idiosyncratic as scholars and devotees alike often unconditionally characterize Yoga as theistic, although the philosophical school paired with Yoga, namely Sāṃkhya, is best viewed, I believe, as non-theistic.) In any case, so too with our ideals, we never “meet” them insofar as they are never fully incarnate. And this is owing to the fact that perfectibility does not, as the anarchist philosopher William Godwin reminded us, imply that we will reach a state of perfection, only that we can always make more progress in relation to achieving the “good society,” a society, for instance, committed to the triune and complementary principles and virtues of liberté, égalité, and fraternité which have animated the best in anarchist and socialist thought and praxis. “Man is perfectible,” wrote Godwin, which is distinguishable from a perfectionism that entails “overcom[ing] every obstacle and limitation,” and thus an “end to our improvement.” The perfectibilist proposition, on the other hand, states merely that we are capable of “perpetual improvement.” Desikachar, forthrightly and no doubt arguably, also says that Īśvara “is,” and like our utopian models, “a projection of the mind.”

Once more the comparison with utopia is apropos for, in the words of Santayana, “Ideal society belongs entirely to this realm of kindly illusion, for it is the society of symbols. [….] Symbols are presences, and they are those particularly congenial presences which we have inwardly evoked and cast in a form intelligible and familiar to human thinking. [….] They are therefore precious, not only for their representative or practical value, implying useful adjustments to the environing world, but even more, sometimes, for their immediate or aesthetic power, for their kinship to the spirit they enlighten and exercise.”

At which point we can now conclude by suggesting that Īśvara too “belongs entirely to this realm of kindly illusion,” keeping in mind that a “kindly” illusion is helpful, beneficial, hence good, not the sort of illusion that negates our powers of reason or has lost its moral compass, that misleads or deceives us, thus the kindly illusions of Yoga and utopian thought are generally benign and not pernicious.

References and Further Reading

• Bahro, Rudolf (David Fernbach, trans.) The Alternative in Eastern Europe. London: NLB (New Left Books), 1978.
• Bryant, Edwin F., trans. The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali (with commentary and insights from the traditional commentators). New York: North Point Press, 2009.
• Chapple, Christopher and Yogi Anand Viraj, trans. The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali (with analysis of the Sanskrit) Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1990.
• Desikachar, T.K.V. and Hellfried Krusche (Ann-Marie Hodges, trans.) Freud and Yoga: Two Philosophies of Mind Compared. New York: North Point Press, 2014.
• Estlund, David. Utopophobia: On the Limits (if any) of Political Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020. (I happen to believe our notions of ‘utopia’ should encompass more than what is circumscribed by our ideal theories of justice, these theories being thus a necessary yet not sufficient condition for utopian thought and imagination.)
• Feuerstein, Georg. The Yoga-Sūtra of Patañjali: A New Translation and Commentary. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1989.
• Feuerstein, Georg. The Shambhala Encyclopedia of Yoga. Boston, MA: Shambhala, 1997.
• Galston, William A. Justice and the Human Good. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980. (For yours truly, this book’s importance is largely due to its concise appreciation and formulation of the nature of utopian thought and imagination, which I shared some years ago here.)
• Geoghegan, Vincent. Utopianism and Marxism. London: Methuen & Co., 1987.
• Godwin, William. Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. Middlesex, England: Penguin Classics, 1985 (1793).
• Jacobsen, Knut A. Prakriti in Sāmkhya-Yoga: Material Principle, Religious Experience, Ethical Implications. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2002.
• Jacobsen, Knut A., ed. Theory and Practice of Yoga: Essays in Honour of Gerald James Larson. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
• Jha, Ganganatha. The Yogadarśana (Comprising the Sūtras of Patañjali with the Mīmāmsā of Vyāsa). Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 2^nd ed., 1934.
• Kumar, Krishan. Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1987.
• Larson, Gerald James. Classical Sāmkhya: An Interpretation of Its History and Meaning. Santa Barbara, CA: Ross/Erikson, 1979 ed. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2^nd ed., 1979).
• Larson, Gerald James and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya, eds. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Vol. IV, Sāmkhya—A Dualist Tradition in Indian Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.
• Larson, Gerald James and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya, eds. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Vol. XII, Yoga: India’s Philosophy of Meditation. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2008.
• Larson, Gerald James. “Materialism, Dualism, and the Philosophy of Yoga,” International Journal of Hindu Studies (2013) 17, 2: 183-221.
• Mills, Jon. Inventing God: Psychology of Belief and the Rise of Secular Spirituality. London: Routledge, 2017.
• Phillips, Stephen H. Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
• Potter, Karl. “The Karma Theory and Its Interpretation in Some Indian Philosophical Systems,” Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, ed. Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980: 241-267.
• Potter, Karl H., ed. Presuppositions of India’s Philosophies. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991 (first published in 1963).
• Santayana, George. Reason in Society (Vol. 2 of The Life of Reason). New York: Collier Books, 1962.
• Soni, Jayandra. “Patañjali’s Yoga as Therapeia,” in Jonardon Ganeri and Clark Carlisle, eds. Philosophy as Therapeia (Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 66). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010: 219-232.