Recently, in discussions in my sangha and online with yoga practitioners, the question of the benefits of a diluted practice in the West has arisen again. Concerns were raised over the castration of yoga and zen that twists these transformative practices that were meant to foster the development of a profoundly felt ethical comportment toward the world into mere stress management. And the same retort is trotted out time and time again: it’s better than nothing, it’s a start.
I have quoted the following passage by Rollo May before, but I present it here again because I think it highlights the dangers inherent in healing practices in modernity. May was referring to psychoanalysis, but I find his warning to be spot on and completely applicable when considering how modernity can leach the true power out of zen and yoga:
There is considerable danger that psychoanalysis, as well as other forms of psychotherapy and adjustment psychology, will become new representations of the fragmentation of man, that they will exemplify the loss of the individual’s vitality and significance, rather than the reverse, that the new techniques will assist in standardizing and giving cultural sanction to man’s alienation from himself rather than solving it, that they will become expressions of the new mechanization of man, now calculated and controlled with greater psychological precision and on the vaster scale of unconscious and depth dimensions – that psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in general will become part of the neurosis of our day rather than part of the cure.
Make no mistake, the attitudes that “it’s better than nothing” or “it’s a small step that can be an opening to something greater” are not benign ones. While in some cases this may be true, in the majority of cases, we can see that yoga and meditation are being used to reinforce the sicknesses of modernity through the commercialization of yoga and the medicalization of meditation. Questions of accessibility, while valid, are superficial in relation to this danger.
Rather than being a part of the cure, these practices are being used to help us to better function within a system and support ways of being that bring us away from union while giving us the impression we are working toward the opposite. This dangerous delusion embeds existing structures of modernity more deeply into our hearts and minds rather than liberating us or assisting us in forming any real resistance toward the logic that alienates us from ourselves. What I see is how zen and yoga are being used to help us become calmer, more productive workers and better, more prolific consumers. What I see is people largely focused on their individual gains in mindfulness and wellbeing and not much else. And for every person who is brought to a deep existential questioning and radical changes in their ethical character by passing through a castrated practice, thousands more will turn in the opposite direction. Yes, they may be fitter, calmer, nicer, but to what end?
I am not speaking of any specific events, schools, persons or what have you. I am speaking to an overall trend, and a dominant direction, in which zen and yoga are headed, that has nothing to do with deepening contact with reality, developing the discipline required to build ethical fortitude and compassion, or addressing the sufferings endemic to modernity. I am not sure what to call this, but I am certain it is not simply “better than nothing.”
Hester: The boy’s in pain, Martin.
Dr. Dysart: Yes.
Hester: And you can take it away.
Dysart. Yes.
Hester: Then that has to be enough for you, surely?… In the end!
Dysart [crying out]: All right! I’ll take it away! He’ll be delivered from madness. What then? […] Do you think feelings like his can be simply re-attached, like plasters? […] My desire might be to make this boy an ardent husband – a caring citizen – a worshiper of abstract and unifying God. My achievement, however, is more likely to make a ghost!
– Peter Shaffer, Equus
Oculus divinorum v.4 
September 11, 2012 at 5:16 pm
Yoga IS stress management.
The very definition of yoga is to undo the effects that past experience has on the nervous system that prevent one from being in the moment.
Yoga is the subsidence of mind-fluctuations [due to samskaras]. -Yoga Sutras 1:2
September 11, 2012 at 7:23 pm
Hello again, Lawson. Thank you for sharing your comment! I hope it is clear from my post that I am writing about context and purpose. I think there are valid differences on a number of levels, such as intention etc. between yoga (and mindfulness practices) that is geared toward being a more productive, consumptive and more physically perfected citizen and what you have described, i.e., working on samskaras. p.s. I am sure you would agree that yoga/meditation is much more than stress management, even if it is being taught to people this way nowadays!
September 12, 2012 at 7:44 am
Actually, I would NOT agree and I thought that I made it clear in my first remark.
TM theory claims that the practice of TM automatically leads towards turiyatiita, AKA “Cosmic Consciousness” in TM jargon, which is defined as a situation where much of the physiological component associated with pure consciousness during TM spontaneously becomes present outside of TM practice simply by meditating regularly and then engaging in normal activity.
Over time, this “infusion” of pure consciousness into normal activity becomes strong enough that the meditator starts to perceive a quiet background watchfulness during activity.
According to theory, eventually, this leads to a situation where the physiology of pure consciousness becomes strong enough that no experience can overshadow it and a person remains in this state at all times, in all situations, whether awake, dreaming or in deep sleep. At this point, the person realizes spontaneously that this ever-present, pure, non-judgemental awareness is their “real” self while all their thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, plans, memories, etc., are seen as transitory “not-self.”
At this point, the practitioner is said to have entered the beginning stages of Cosmic Consciousness, within which they can mature for the rest of their life. There are further states of enlightenment possible, but they depend on the stabilization of this first state.
In TM theory, this is called “merely normal.” The practice of TM + activity has sufficiently repaired stress and strengthened the nervous system to the point that the natural state of affairs, where turiya (the fourth [state of consciousness] AKA samadhi], is naturally appreciated at all time as the basis for the three relative states.
A possibility exists for people to spontaneously become enlightened without practicing any form of meditation, simply because their nervous system is strong enough and their life has been sufficiently low-stress that as they mature, they naturally grow into this state. It is what people WOULD normally be like if they were truly healthy.
Note that this first state of enlightenment is purely mechanical. No belief or intent is required, although without an intellectual framework on which to interpret it, it can lead to intellectual confusion.
This is actually documented by a researcher named Castillo, who published a paper describing 6 patients of his, who had been practicing TM for a decade or more and found that they were in a state where self was never engaged in any kind of activity.
They had approached Castilo complaining of this condition, but other than the situation of their self being separate from all activity, they showed no pathology. This research has lead the official Diagnostic Service Manual, the DSM-IV-tr, to modify its stance on depersonalization to suggest to psychiatrists that if a patient reports this state, is practicing a meditation technique, and has no other symptoms associated with depersonalization, that the patient NOT be diagnosed with Depersonalization Disorder.
A more chilling example of how psychiatrists can misinterpret things comes from cult-researcher Margaret Singer, who describes former victims of the “TM cult” who suffer from depersonalization so severe that even electroshock therapy can’t “cure” it.
Again, note that this is entirely mechanical, with no beliefs required. However, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi used to call it “glorified ignorance,” because it was actually the state where separation of self and the rest of the world was at its maximum.
Anyway, as you can see, I don’t agree with out about stress management NOT being “real spirituality” at least in the first stages. There’s been research published on how meditators progress towards Cosmic Consciousness, and there are enough people actually IN Cosmic Consciousness (at least in the beginning stage) that research has been published i scientific journals describing their mental, physical and emotional makeup.
In fact, an enlightenment index, officially known as the “Brain Integration Scale,” has been published that reliably tracks people’s growth towards CC.
Other research has been published that compares highly successful people on this scale with not-quite-so successful people and finds that, at least int he case of world-champion athletes compared to non-world-champion, they score higher than the not-world-chanpion, or beginning meditators on the scale, but not as high as the “enlightened” meditators.
Again, this supports the claim that the start of meditation at least is purely physiological.
I can furnish you with links to the published research, if you like.
Cheers.
Lawson
September 12, 2012 at 7:47 am
I should say:
Again, this supports the claim that the start of *ENLIGHTENMENT* at least is purely physiological.
September 12, 2012 at 6:18 pm
It appears that we have very different training when it comes to meditation and as such, different approaches and priorities. I am not concerned over what is or is not “real spirituality”; if a spiritual experience can be described in a purely physiological manner, that does not discount its spiritual validity to me. My focus is on the development of ethical comportment in a distinctly modern context. Yes, some people are more integrated than others, some meditate, some do not, but to what end? I believe there are no real shortcuts to developing an ethical character. Meditation/yogic exercises alone do not necessarily make one a more ethical person. This is why I find it problematic to think of using techniques to allow people to function better in modernity while not addressing the ethical challenges of modernity, as merely benign.
Thank you kindly for offering to share research about meditation. Please note however, that this blog is not an appropriate forum for the promotion of/lengthy discussion of TM.