Jnana Yoga and Politics
Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India, December 22nd, 2016.
Salaroche


Notions about Yoga may vary according to the level of factual knowledge people may have acquired about it. Contrary to a popular misunderstanding of it, Yoga is not a single discipline devoid of ramifications or nuanced variations. Not all the lives of Yogis have to be mere reflections of the others’ just as not all Yogis have to be bound by vows of humility and total selflessness. In fact, different levels of participation in world affairs are permitted and even expected of Yogis depending on the branch of Yoga their disciplines are part of.

There is also the question that each of the main four branches of Yoga may require constantly, or at least briefly, that the Yogis absorb into their own disciplines some aspects of the other three branches, so that even as the main tenets of one of the branches may constitute a Yogi’s core path to follow, some elements of the other three may be necessary to round up the chosen discipline. This is to say that, again contrary to a popular misunderstanding, not all Yogis are supposed to remain passive in the face of world events. Different Yogis may play different roles in the world theater depending on the strand of Yoga they’re engaged in.

Mahatma Gandhi was a salient exponent of the Karma branch of Yoga, therefore a Yogi in the true sense of the word. He was a selfless individual who worked tirelessly for a cause much greater than him: The overarching progress and wellbeing of India. Some people may say that such actions are really nothing extraordinaire, as other non-Yogi politicians and popular leaders around the world sometimes do similar things for their own countries, but the singularity in Karma Yoga resides in not expecting or accepting anything in return, which is what made Gandhi an exemplar of this kind of endeavor.

Karma Yoga is one of the four distinct branches of Yoga, the other three being Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga, and Jnana Yoga. Gandhi embodied the practice of Karma Yoga, as he selflessly dedicated his life to the betterment of all the people of India while shunning personal glory and riches.

Sri Ramakrishna was also a true yogi, but of a different strand. Bhakti Yoga is the Yoga of devotion and Ramakrishna is the most salient exponent of that discipline. He was constantly engaged in worshipping different kinds of deities and beings including his wife Sarada Devi, whom he used to call “Divine Mother”. Bhakti Yoga prescribes the complete surrender of the devotee’s body and mind to a Guru, Prophet, Deity or philosophical principles.

Raja Yoga does not seem to have clear main exponents, although some writings appear to ascribe that role to Patanjali Maharshi, namely Swami Vivekananda’s interpretation of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Raja Yoga proposes the path of concentration with the purpose of attaining higher mental and emotional serenity. This branch of Yoga is perhaps the best known in the Western world, where the incidence of lectures and workshops already has a strong foothold in society and the philosophy behind it continues to gain recognition.

Finally, Jnana Yoga is often considered an intellectual endeavor. Its main exponents are Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Shankaracharya. Between the two the best known in our day and age is Sri Ramana Maharshi. Jnana Yoga is also said to be the path of philosophical discrimination whereby all superimposed additions to our earthly consciousness (our ego) are discarded by means of a self-inquiring process otherwise known as Atma Vichara.

The path I have followed over the past 28 years is that of self-inquiry as prescribed in Jnana Yoga in general and in Ramana’s method in particular. The Atma Vichara is the assured direct path leading to a state of being where our day-to-day consciousness dissolves into our timeless, ever-present, all-pervading one.

The Atma Vichara does not fail. If some practitioners do not succeed in their quest is probably because from the outset they had failed to understand with enough clarity the goal pursued in the inquiry, or because across time they failed in implementing the method correctly and/or consistently, but the Atma Vichara itself never fails. It is the sure direct path to attaining the Realization of the Self.

I attained such realization in early 1992 after three consecutive years of practicing the Atma Vichara in a constant, relentless manner, basically during all my waking hours, day and night, anytime, anywhere. Thus, by my own direct personal experience I can in all confidence claim that anyone possessing the required level of understanding and determination can attain the same goal too. What follows after Realization, however, is a matter that will depend on the innate inclinations of each Yogi.

Jnana Yoga is not a devotional (Bhakti) discipline, just as it isn’t a discipline requiring the Jnana Yogi to engage in volunteering or working in any way for any humanitarian cause (Karma). But this does not mean that Jnana Yogis should not be predisposed to lend a hand whenever someone else is in need of it, provided that the Yogi does not in any way hurt himself in the process (and sometimes even if he/she does). Jnana Yoga does not in itself preclude any Yogi from getting involved in social or political causes they believe are conducive to the wellbeing of any amount of people.  

In my case, and given that I hold a Master’s in Political Science from the University of California at Santa Barbara, I am often strongly inclined to express my views on some of those social and political subjects that occasionally call my attention, be it pertaining to the recent elections in the United States, or any other matter concerning any of the 36 countries I have thus far visited or lived in.

Over the past year or so I have been posting in this section of salaroche.com my serious concerns about Democracy in the United States, where many of us see a possible devastating political Tsunami about to be unleashed over the land right after the presidential inauguration on January 20th. This is not a superficial matter. This is something that deserves the full attention and participation of any and all Americans who love their country and do not want to see its political system slowly slipping down the slope of political complacency towards the mire of authoritarianism and possibly worse.  

There are no guarantees that American Democracy will hold firm forever. American Democratic principles have been slowly crumbling in recent decades, particularly after 9/11, when America’s level of self-confidence fell to dismal levels. And the resulting military failures in Iraq and Afghanistan only came to shake even further the foundations of American identity.

A Democratic system lasts only as long as the people think the system works for all or most of them. Once the people start to believe their Democracy only favors the political and moneyed elites the system starts to decay and the coutry may eventually fall under the leadership of demagogues whose interest is barely or not at all in line with those of the majorities.

A darkness somewhat in line with the one we saw in Europe during the 1930s and 40s has been slowly gaining ground around the world over the past couple of decades and the light of that beacon of freedom and democracy that the United States used to represent no longer shines as bright as millions of us would hope it would.

The time for political complacency is long gone and no intellectual or spiritual discipline should be reason enough to muffle the voices of those of us who still believe that Democratic principles and systems are the ones holding the best promises for the harmonious world society of the future.

Salaroche