Yogic Autonomy

Not getting triggered by things as they are...

How do modern ideas about freedom relate to yoga philosophy? 🤯

It’s a difficult question to answer due to different priorities (as explored here). Many yogic traditions promote liberation from worldly activities, and even those that don’t impose other constraints – so it’s rare to find guidance on everyday life.

The focus is instead on the ultimate goal, which can sound otherworldly. That’s particularly striking in the Sāṃkhya philosophy informing Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra, whose aim is “isolation” (kaivalya) of spirit from matter. This is often reinterpreted to mean something else that sounds a bit more appealing. While that may make practical sense, it can also be misleading unless these innovations are clearly identified.

That said, could there be helpful ways to reframe separation between the internal and external realms? Might it involve making mental space to transcend conditioning? We discussed that recently on my year-long immersion, The Path of Knowledge, which is where this clip comes from. See below for a transcript and more details.

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TRANSCRIPT

From a discussion on yoga and Sāṃkhya:

“It’s also, yeah, to still keep doing. And so, it’s… there’s gotta be some, you know, mental engagement with the world, I suppose. But it’s to have less… What would be the right language for it? Less… dependence, perhaps. It’s about independence. That’s, I think, the language of Sāṃkhya. Kaivalya is ultimately independence…

“And at the same time, Suzanne says: ‘if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention’. I mean, there’s a lot to get outraged about. But, I wonder whether the yogic response isn’t perhaps, on some level, to develop the capacity to pay attention, to see things clearly, and to somehow be able to sidestep the outrage. And that’s the challenge.

“Obviously, that is… The struggle is very real there. But, yeah, to not turn away from it, to not turn it into something else, and to make it all rainbows and unicorns, but at the same time, not to be triggered. And so I think that’s in-dependence, again. One isn’t dependent on it in some way for the identity of, like, ‘I am the justly, righteously angry person who sees the injustice’, but instead, just standing slightly outside of it. ‘I am not it’. ‘It is not me’. These sort of separation mantras, again, seemingly helpful in the vague orientation, but the practicality is somehow to… Another word might be to be sovereign. To be autonomous in relation to all this other stuff.

“I think, ultimately, the state of kaivalya is more to what Floris was pointing in the first description. It is, you know, the final lights-out moment, perhaps, in the grand analysis of its ultimate end to the problem. But the temporary solution that is available in every moment is to somehow be able to stand outside of the process of conditioning. Of the world having an impact on us, triggering a chain reaction, expressing itself in a desire for it to be different, or for us to have more of whatever it is that’s feeling good, or to get something out of the next action, and to just somehow not have that machinery active while still being fully aware and fully engaged.

“So that’s, for me, 100% a work in progress. I would be slightly embarrassed to report this weekend’s performance, but I think paying attention to that intention is perhaps one way of thinking about bringing Sāṃkhya into daily life.”

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