You will never find truth within any group.

Groups aren’t interested in truth, they’re interested in consensus and ensuring the survival of the group. Because of this, any truth that erodes group cohesion will not spread within a group. EVER. It doesn’t matter how true it is.

Instead, said truth is spun into ideology because ideology is the most effective means of establishing consensus. As I wrote at some length here, ideologies are belief systems which narrow one’s view of reality to better preserve the social order and its status quo. The philosopher Terence McKenna described ideology as an “epistemological cartooning of reality,” implying a condition around which harsh truths are sanded down into something flat with less dimension so they can reside more comfortably in the dissonance of our minds, however false.

Once you see what this looks like you’ll notice it everywhere and you’ll be much better off for it.

Ma vid vasahai

Scott

UPDATE JUNE 15th: It was announced Ridglan Farms would be permanently shutting down, all 500 remaining beagles to be freed. Done. Boom. Victory.

Ridglan Farms is where you’d build a place you didn’t want anyone to know about. Its kennels run along a remote tract of land in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, where there’s no one to hear the dogs’ cries or smell their bodies when they’re burned in large piles out back. I won’t go into a full accounting of their crimes— This information is well documented and best presented by attorney Wayne Hsiung in this video from 2024. Much has changed since then however and some more context should be provided to support my story.

Ridglan Farms is a USDA licensed facility which breeds “pedigree” beagles routinely used in “experiments” conducted in biomedical research and university labs. When you hear mention of “animal models” or “animal studies” you should be aware what’s really being referred to is animal torture— Toxicology tests, forced ingestion of chemicals, fertilizers, cleaning agents, meth amphetamine, heroin, fentanyl and other deadly compounds, vivisection (invasive surgery while still alive), surgery without anesthesia, behavioral experiments, forced bone and skull fractures, severing of vocal cords, and countless other abuses of dubious import. People tend to look the other way when committed in a “lab”.

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO OF ANIMAL ABUSE

There have been over 300 felony counts of animal cruelty cited against Ridglan Farms in the last ten years, yet no legal action has ever been taken because they are in collusion with local authorities. This is why we had to step up and rescue. No one else would. We needed to give voice to the voiceless.

Advocating for the voiceless is not glamorous work. It has no larger political associations so it’s scrappy and under-funded and largely unrecognized. Yet this rescue was arranged in a matter of weeks with no corporate money or mass media behind it. It was all heart, and saw a rapid response from people who were moved by the images coming out of the March 15th rescue, which I wrote about here. The result was a tremendous amount of potential energy that needed to be expended as fully and effectively as possible. The only thing preventing the release of the dogs was getting the spotlight to shine on this place, so it needed to approach the threshold of death for the world to pay attention.

April 18th was unprecedented, with over 1,500 people willing to risk felony arrest and possible domestic terrorism charges to free the 2000 beagles trapped inside. I can only assume everyone participating was aligned with Wayne’s interpretation of the law, which is we had the legal right to rescue. This would be our group defense in the event we were arrested and tried. I was on a team with a high risk of arrest as we would be involved in the initial breach of the facility. Despite our emphasis on nonviolent resistance, this rescue was bound to get ugly. The sheriff’s interpretation of the law is that these beagles are not subject to animal cruelty enforcement because they’re being used in “teaching and research.” Under his watch Ridglan could beat them all to death with hammers and face no legal consequences. Countless times he referred to our effort as “stealing private property”, and was careful to omit the word “dog/s” in his messaging through the press. The police were not going to give, and warned us as much.

So this violence however unwarranted, was to be expected. There were armed goons spotted on the property just days before, harassing and waving guns at passersby. I was expecting to be shot at. I hoped the police would come to some reckoning and sit this one out, but the reality was far more grim than the Hollywood win many of us were hoping for.

What I did see was tremendous courage and selflessness from people of all stripes. A 60+ year old woman taking pepper spray in the face full force. I saw a dude get most of his front teeth knocked out trying to get through the fence. Many people risked their own safety tending to others. Our final attempt to breach the perimeter was met with an overwhelming barrage of tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets. I had been able to evade the gas throughout the day, but this was too much. I made back across the trench and things got hazy as the chemical agents took their toll.

Luckily I was found by my friends, who upon seeing my condition were quick to get me help. Soon I was on my back, gasping for breath as several women erected a makeshift shade structure over me to flush my eyes. It was intense. Having contact lenses in didn’t help.

Then my left arm went numb… I thought for sure my heart was giving out. Then my right. I prepared myself. If I couldn’t sit up to die in padmasana I’d have to go out in savasana, a suitable compromise.

As the numbness reached across my chest I found myself content to die on the dark green grass in the shade, the glow of blue skies calming in my periphery, having made my best effort to save the pups. Several nurses hovered over me, seeing me through the agony. Many women in my orbit are nurses including my mom, so it all felt very familiar, like I’d be guided to the beyond by these women. They assured me I’d be fine and I was.

I was able to sit up after about 30 minutes, rattled but ok. When I returned to standing, the hillside slope towards Ridglan was largely vacated, now occupied by several dozen police spread out across the ridge line, having held the fort. Many rescuers were dealing with injuries of varying degree. Media was there. Many looked bewildered and defeated.

We weren’t able to abscond with any dogs that day, but we drew global attention to crimes the world was not aware of. Nine days later 1500 beagles were released in a back channel negotiation between dog rescue groups and Ridglan. The release drew more global media coverage than we could ever have imagined, in what’s being hailed as the most successful effort in the history of animal rights. If so I’m honored to have played a part.

We brought back 20 beagles to Atlanta, all female, ranging in age from 1 to 14, several of them pregnant. If you are interested in fostering or adopting contact Bosley’s Place. They are a well respected rescue that played an instrumental role in getting these dogs to safety. They can always use donations for this work, as caring and transporting these dogs incur significant costs.

Save the dogs!

savethedogs.io

To the extent we view our ego self as real, we in turn see it reflected back to us in others. This forms the illusion of separateness, commonly referred to as asmita. Asmita is what makes for the “ego trip”, and shapes the personality structure around ideology, culture, market values and biological urge, as it derives satisfaction from trying to impress others with our uniqueness, identity, wealth, status, power, virtue, privilege, influence, talent, AXE body spray— Anything that succeeds in maintaining the illusion the ego craves, all the while oblivious to the cost such pursuits come to bear on our ability to perceive higher order reality.

However, once this illusion is dissolved through yogic practices there is an irreversible shift that occurs, where we slowly begin to recognize ourselves in the other, regardless of how “different” said person may be. When we experience the resistance or downward pull of another person, we can now see it’s only the lower aspects of ourselves being reflected back to us through another incarnation of ourselves, so it ceases to have the gravitational effect it would otherwise have. Likewise when we are in the presence of one who uplifts us, we recognize that higher untapped dimension within ourselves being illuminated through the corresponding capacity in the other. This forms the basis of the teacher-student relationship, or more specific to yoga, the guru-disciple relationship.

Once you awaken to this dynamic you will in turn see the futility in trying to impress others because you’re in effect only trying to impress yourself, an enterprise that can’t be sustained for very long. There’s a tremendous sense of power (virya) and freedom (moksha) that comes with this realization, and is what allows us to be truly free of giving a shit about what other people think— or more specifically— What we think other people think. Yet this preoccupation with pleasing others or seeking validation and acceptance through them in large part comprises the mental static that haunts the collective psyche and makes for the citta vritti we look to neutralize in our yoga practice.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras views asmita as one of the five kleshas, or “poisons.” Kleshas are more commonly spoken of as the primary afflictions or obstacles on the yogic path. I will write more on these in a future post.

Namaskaram,

Scott

Ridglan Farms raises beagles to sell as test subjects to the biomedical industry. Most people aren’t aware of the horrors inflicted on animals in the name of science— Much less that the beloved dog is commonly used in these experiments. When we talk of “animal testing” and “animal experimentation”, what we’re really talking about is animal torture— Including force feeding them commercial laundry detergent and surgically removing their eye glands and vocal cords without anesthesia. These animals live their entire lives in a 2x4’ grated metal cage and never step outside or see the sun. One of the reasons beagles are preferred for these experiments is because they are trusting, loving and forgive easily. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Ridglan Farms has been cited in over three hundred counts of felony animal abuse, and despite this there remain no safeguards in place for these animals. Prosecutors have declined to review evidence because they are in collusion with the industry, and no charges have been filed.

That’s why the activists do what they do.

I strongly support the work of these activists. They are risking their lives and liberty to bring these horrors to light and to alleviate suffering in the world.

Relevant messaging and links below. Please take action.

From Wayne Hsiung (rescue organizer):

We need everyone (including you!) to contact the Dane County DA and Sheriff—and post on social media—that she and the rest of the #Ridglan8 must be returned to the rescuers or an appropriate humane society.

In your post, email, or phone call, you can simply say:

“Dogs facing criminal abuse at Ridglan Farms were illegally seized by police from rescuers and returned to their abusers. Do the right thing and rescue the dogs!”

Dane County District Attorney
Ismael Ozanne
(608) 266-4211
ismael.ozanne@da.wi.gov
danecoda@da.wi.gov

Dane County Sheriff
Kalvin Barrett
(608) 284- 6800 (Press 8 for complaints)
barrett@danesheriff.com

You can donate to the defense fund here.

Wayne’s blog is at The Simple Heart. He has since been released from jail and is providing daily updates on the dogs and their rescuers.

Until all the animals are free,

Scott

In a recent post I sought to dispel the notion of “good” and “bad” karma as seen through the lens of non-dual awareness. Non-dual awareness is yogic awareness and is multi-perspectival, meaning one can see reality through all its jeweled facets while not being identified in any of it. This is an extremely rare, if nonexistent trait. In many yogic traditions, non-duality (Advaita) is considered to be at the very edge (anta) of all knowledge (vidya or veda), and there is nothing greater than this knowledge. Hence Advaita Vedanta, the enduring philosophical system out of which non-duality is best understood.

To fully grasp karma in this non-dual context, one must understand that everyone “acts” from a place of good intentions— Trumps, Clintons, Epsteins, Netanyahus, Jong-Uns, Putins, Ayatollahs, Bill Cosbys, animal torturers— E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E— especially the people we don’t like. Everyone “acts” to best defend what is “right” in any given circumstance. We’re all the protagonists of our own story, playing our hand to the best of our ability to ensure our survival in a brutal and duplicitous world.

Until we understand this we’ll be incapable of understanding much else.

Namaskaram, ma vid vissa vahai

Scott

Karma may be the most misunderstood word in yoga’s export to the West, primarily because it’s made to be interpreted through the lens of Christian moralism and its attendant duality, where reward and punishment, sin and salvation, mercy and retribution, and good against evil remain the basic assumptions through which we signify all things. And while karma does point towards a certain duality within the inescapable cycle of cause and effect, a deeper understanding of its true essence can provide the means through which one might better grasp something as counterintuitive as non dual awareness itself— a state of consciousness that perceives from well beyond the moral and intellectual capacities we are most attuned. Karma characterizes the much broader unfolding condition through which all things occur— especially those things beyond our current ability to understand.

Reality often seems ungraspable because our actions come about through our limitations and are further interpreted by the reality-distorting character of the mind. This cosmic misalignment is what has us experiencing karma through the physical form, and is thus not something we can avoid, cheat or escape, for even attempts at “doing nothing” carry their own causal effects. Death offers no off-ramp either, for if we haven’t come into greater recognition of the irreducible nature of our existence then we take rebirth in another physical form and live out the ego mind process once again, for better or worse.

The word karma comes from the Sanskrit root kr, which means “action” and has a broad variability of interpretations. The most contrived notion is that “doing good” in the world has some built-in reciprocal effect, as if some higher order intelligence logs a running tally of our conduct and doles out rewards to those who act in its interests and creates misfortune for those who don’t. This is the inescapable influence of Christian mythology and its dominator ethos, a scourge we’ve all been indoctrinated under whether we opted in or not. Perhaps less acknowledged is that this dominator ethos of premodern civilization still finds expression in more modern humanist ideologies like capitalism, corporatism, consumerism and technocracy, and is the culturally sanctioned paradigm underlying the destruction of both our mental and physical environment.

The problem with these ideologies is they oversimplify the complexities of being human without having done the hard epistemic work, thereby reinforcing the basic assumption that we have a solid working knowledge of higher order intelligence, and we are “doing good” when our actions are thought to be using such intelligence in service of “humanist” ideals, regardless of how warped or self-destructive they become. The current state of global technocracy and free market capitalism demonstrates just how “default setting” it is to have what we view as “high level intelligence” functioning within ideological systems that are completely void of consciousness, all of it operative under the dubious narrative of progress and human well-being. This chasm between intelligence and consciousness can shed greater light on the spiritual ignorance (avidya) which has us taking a human form in the first place.

This is why karma is often viewed within the context of cycles of rebirth, known as samsara. Samsara translates as “wandering” or “of the world” and is in full recognition of the fact that the human condition is one of not knowing. If we had omniscient knowledge (vidya) we wouldn’t be here having the experiences we do. Instead we live out an endless interplay between this ignorance and some gradual onset of awareness which comes about through life experience and its attendant suffering. This process can be catalyzed by spiritual practice, but if we’re being honest with ourselves we know despite our best efforts we’re ultimately determined to remain karmically freighted in some way, and our lives will give over to rebirth. It’s thought even something as subtle as enjoying the scent of spiced lentils while on one’s deathbed is enough worldly attachment to lure us back into the fold once again. This is not a failure or moral shortcoming— It’s a process unfolding under an eternal cosmic order well beyond our ability to comprehend, yet it does so with complete transparency and an awe-inspiring relentlessness despite whatever action we take upon it. Our inability to act outside our limitations is why we’re able to influence everything but simultaneously control nothing.

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Many people view philosophy as a preoccupation with abstract concepts that are ultimately irrelevant to our immediate concerns and survival. It’s accepted as a legitimate body of knowledge in many circles but exists in some ungraspable void between the true and impractical, succeeding in making one feel aligned toward some higher epistemic good, yet failing to adequately inform the endlessly unpredictable condition that shapes our sense of life as lived. In many ways this is understandable— Just listen to two intellectuals mired in philosophical debate— It’s not hard to see where one might grow disinterested. Why listen to this? How is it useful? Where does it have application? Can it make money? Can it get me laid? But it’s within this quasi-academic milieu where culture sees philosophy best contained— To the lecture hall, the coffeeshop, the far corners of Youtube, your bookshelf and your mind.

Like yoga, philosophy provides tools for better living, and both reveal themselves to be much closer to art than science once understood at sufficient depth. This confluence with art is part of philosophy’s cultural attenuation, as art typically has a much lower barrier to entry than the hard sciences and is therefore less respectable and more disposable. The value of philosophy has been lost to the superficiality and expediency of the modern world. The further it’s viewed as something tangential to solving everyday problems the more masturbatory it all sounds. Yet the more one evolves beyond their own unconscious survival instincts the more the inner world reveals itself to be the true source of life’s quandaries, and the more indispensable the philosophical roadmap becomes.

The word “philosophy” comes from ancient Greek, combining two words: philos (φίλος) - meaning “loving” or “friend” sophia (σοφία) - meaning “wisdom”. So philosophy means “love of wisdom” or “lover of wisdom.” Wisdom is a quality that carries with it knowledge that can only be accumulated over many lives lived, so it’s not something that can be faked. Someone who is wise has reconciled the conundrum of internal contradiction and its myriad traps, self-deceptions and illusions. The wise person is content living in accordance not with the platitudes of the social order, but within the higher aspiration of the cosmic order, where one can grow into greater connection with the source of who and what we really are.

This kind of self-inquiry is certainly not for everyone but it is of very much value to the seeker, for in order to take a true interest in self-actualization one must first come to recognize the unrealized wisdom within themselves. The emergence of this quality is not characterized by the commonly held metrics for intelligence and “book-smarts”, but rather by the ability to see through all of the mind’s projections for what they are— Obscurations of truth. Distortions of reality. Delusions of grandeur. Fear. There is all manner of intelligence around us but very little of it is wise.

This is why the cliched dinner party philosophical discussion puts many people much nearer a place in their mind they’d rather not be, for it’s taboo to uncover those truths society agrees to collectively mask under its cognitively dissonant veils. As I wrote in my post on satya, truth is seldom a welcome topic in any conversation, especially those meant to engender “socialization,” and preserve “social norms”, where the unspoken expectation in speaking with another is to reinforce commonly held beliefs, assumptions and motivations. Challenging others on the philosophical foundations of their worldview is not part of polite society, nor is it beneficial to your intimate relationship or job prospects. However if you are committed to the path you will know not to buy into such traps, if for no other reason than the love of wisdom is not to be found there.

It’s worth noting that yoga emerged as one of the six schools of medieval Indian philosophy, which makes relevant its philosophical basis in the greater scope of its teaching. The branch of yoga that works specifically with the intellect and self-inquiry is called jnana, or jnana marga, denoting the path of discriminative intelligence. Whereas BKS Iyengar harnessed the power of his physical body as the means for transformation, Jiddhu Krishnamurti used the knife edge of his awareness to cut through the mind’s nonsense, making cold hard distinctions between truth and falsity, consciousness and ego, knowledge and ignorance, light and dark, the divine and the profane. In a world drowning in lies what could be more valuable than the finger that points to Truth. Modern yoga has largely abandoned this aspect of the teachings because it’s not part of the value proposition in the marketplace. Self-inquiry doesn’t work as “product”, and has too altering a character to function as both self-transformational vehicle and commercial enterprise. Yet there is no way to wisdom without contending with the philosophical quandary of truth on the yogic path. There is no way around it.

Philosophy reaches a wider audience when experienced through story, for at the heart of any good story is a compelling philosophical conflict. The modern Hollywood myth making machine too often falls short on this, but the enduring power of story is that it reveals cosmic truth through the overcoming of a character’s own delusion, which is unraveled through a compelling plot and earned dramatic tension so you live the experience of that character as if you were that character. A good ending should have said character undergo not just change— but transformation. This transformation is not only about obtaining the storied prize, but having a corresponding awakening or realization— One that comes about through the seemingly insurmountable challenge of rising above their own internal philosophical conflict to the point where nothing of their former self remains. The arc is complete and should provide a satisfying answer to the story level question, whatever it may be— What does it mean to be good? What does it mean to be human? What is most important in life? Who are we? What is love? What is Truth? These are the big picture questions our higher selves seek to understand and is why philosophy endures through great stories.

This correlation between philosophy, Truth and transformation is why all of the ancient wisdom teachings are couched in story— Because story is where emotion is most effectively conveyed— Whether it be the the origin of the Buddha, the Ramayana, the Bhagavad Gita, the Biblical stories, the Illiad, the Odyssey, and even something more modern like the original Star Wars trilogy. Emotion is what imbues events with meaning, which is important to understand because the tension between these two forces is the primary driver of all human behavior. This is how stories taken to scale provide the means to build the value systems of entire civilizations, for better or worse.

When these story myths become corrupted— as they all eventually do— it’s a function of the philosophical becoming lost to the ideological and the self-interested, a dynamic I wrote about in greater detail here. Whereas philosophy seeks Truth, ideology flattens the multi-dimensionality of life by denying the higher aspiration and its corresponding pursuit in order to preserve lies and the status quo. When this downward pull is experienced at scale, it for sure marks an era of societal decline.

I’ve written at length on philosophical subjects in the context of yoga because you’ll not get far on the spiritual path without seeing your way out of your own mental quicksand. My intention is also to show the practical applicability of philosophy in your everyday life. It will give you more clarity and better decision making abilities. It will better help you navigate life’s challenges, better inform your relationships, and allow you to better envision your future. Having a philosophical roadmap in modern times is like having a candle in the dark, or being a three-eyed man in the land of the blind. The twenty-thousand foot perspective becomes the preferred point of view for all things, as it always shows the clearer way forward.

Namaskaram to you all,

Scott

On a physiological level backbends crank the spine, open the shoulders, strengthen the arms, tone the muscles along the vertebrae, massage the kidneys and amp the adrenal glands. Backbends could also be called front body extensions, as they stretch the thighs, open the front hips, lengthen the abdomen and expand the ribcage so the heart can lift higher in the chest, which in turn allows for deeper breaths and better oxygenation of blood. Backbending boosts immune function by better circulating lymph, for unlike the circulatory system the lymphatic system has no central pump, so its efforts are helped by the strong internal dynamism of pushing upward against the force of gravity. This creates a strong internal sense of both extension and resistance— the push and pull— thereby compressing and decompressing the nervous system to great effect. The cellular friction that arises from such work is what generates the purifying heat which is thought to detoxify the organs and blood.*

Above all else, backbends raise prana in the system while simultaneously channeling it along proper pathways to create a feeling of composure and overall well being. They bring a sense of resilience and give one the strength to overcome fear, lethargy, depression, anxiety, compulsion, addiction, and stagnation. Merely lifting the heart while opening the chest has a significant effect on one’s state of being, lending to a noticeable elevation in mood. The straightening of the spine is accompanied by a not so subtle shift in mindfulness and attention which raises one’s receptivity to subtler aspects of the world around them. Backbends are commonly associated with youthfulness, vigor and vitality and is why teaching them always proves a reliable way to get students excited about your classes. Cranking open the spine leaves one feeling less depleted and more whole, oriented towards purposeful action and resolve.

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Ideology is structured to cover up a lie. The most dangerous lies are lies in the guise of truth, where all that you say is factually true, but is part of a semantic field which is in itself a lie. Slavoj Žižek

Ideologies are widely held belief systems which narrow one’s view of reality to better preserve the social order and its status quo. The social orders served under any given ideology are legion and extend to the polar ends of politics and identity. Ideologies are easily recognizable as they often come in the form of isms and are maintained through shared group identities, regulated language, symbology, propaganda, power dynamics and resistance to change. Societies have always operated under competing ideological tensions as they are effective in channeling emotional energy to advance religious, political and economic agendas, as it is through these tensions that society’s conflicts are framed— Capitalism, Marxism, Trumpism, nationalism, communism, socialism, liberalism, Catholicism, humanism, atheism, materialism, consumerism, libertarianism, feminism, disestablishmentarianism, etc. In a cultural addled by distraction, the shallowness of ideology has replaced the rigors of truth seeking and in turn paved the way for societal decline. My aim in writing about these subjects is to jailbreak people’s minds of the endless stream of conceptualization that keeps us shackled to our lesser realized selves. My previous posts on identity and belief are good companion pieces to this as they reveal the psychology underlying the ideological mindset, which is the primary obstacle to truth seeking.

I’ve [advanced] tagged this post because the vast, vast majority of people are under some form of ideological capture and are simultaneously unaware of it, so to suggest one’s worldview may rest on a shaky foundation of fictions, lies and limitations is a point seldom well taken. In fact the grip of ideology is so intense that many people grow hostile at even the mere mention of any idea that runs against the walls they’ve erected in their own minds. The effect of ideological capture funnels all life experience through an “ideological frame” which becomes increasingly narrowed the deeper you wander into it. And even more insidious is these frames have come to occupy nearly all the intellectual and emotional real estate in the cultural landscape, flattening reality and eroding social cohesion like never before.

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When people think of yoga they’re made to think of asana practice, where varying poses are sequenced in some semi-ritualistic way that lends to increased strength, flexibility and vitality. Go one level deeper and asanas can be seen to rebalance the living systems of the body in remarkably profound ways, as they relieve chronic pain, lubricate joints, vitalize organs, regulate blood pressure, fuel digestion, aid in sleep and weight loss, expand respiratory capacity, boost adrenal function and increase the overall speed of healing. Go another level deeper and asanas are seen to work on the psychological body as they dissipate stress, alleviate depression, calm anxiety, thwart addiction and other psychological disorders.

Go yet another level deeper and you enter territory that runs afield of the Western materialist paradigm, where fundamental shifts in perception reframe the metaphysical foundations of who and what we actually know ourselves to be. As to what extent one is able to bridge the physical to the non-physical (boundary defining to boundaryless) is dependent on a wide set of factors as variable as the karmic imprint of the individual themselves. There are people who have practiced asana for years and see it as nothing more than a glorified exercise routine with archaic roots, and the benefits are contained to heightened energy experiences imparted through the body to the mind. The inability to cross the materialist threshold speaks more to the limitations imposed by culture than to the innate potential of any given human being. I make it a point to remind students that any definition of yoga, whether in the Upanishads, Vedas, Mahabharata or Yoga Sutras, points to the non-physical dimension of our being as the means for transformation and makes no mention of the body or physical practices whatsoever. To the extent one finds this intriguing will determine their ability to stay with the practice and experience significant transformation over the course of their life.

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I’m currently teaching twice a week at 27 Waddell Street, Atlanta 30307 in Inman Park.

Thursday night Intro Level 1 at 6p

Saturday morning All Levels at 9a (Six months experience recommended)

You can visit the website for more info and to sign up for classes.

I have a new Substack post on Asana to be released soon.

Namaskaram to you all,

Scott

Authoritarianism is a form of governance characterized by concentrated power, limited freedoms and restricted civil liberties, and has been the prevailing form of social order in most of the world throughout history. In the context of modern liberal democracy it carries an extremely negative connotation, suggesting that liberties once taken for granted could be straight jacketed by forces previously assumed to be held at bay by modernist conventions, for the language adopted by liberal humanists over the last century spoke to a much more optimistic and aspirational future characterized by cooperation, trust, prosperity and individual freedom. “Authoritarian” was a word reserved to denigrate the worldview of the “enemy,” and served as the ultimate anathema to those who grew up claiming to value liberty and free expression as ultimate ideals that were hard to come by and worthy to die for. The authoritarian was the rogue on the world stage, embodying the threat to a way of life deemed superior but which could be stripped away at any moment in a foreign invasion or by traitors in our own midst. In an authoritarian regime lies take center stage, fear reigns supreme, might makes right and disorientation leads to suggestibility.

Authoritarianism is not unique to any time, place, culture, or race of people, and it comes about in ways that are as counterintuitive as they are predictable.

When the US colonies liberated themselves from the rule of King George III the subsequent effect was to double down on humanist philosophies which supported natural rights and the pursuit of personal liberty. This had been expressed in the writings of such luminaries as John Locke, Thomas Paine, Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson among others. The United States was born out of this zeitgeist and with it the Constitution, which despite some glaring contradictions proved a visionary document for its time, as the error correcting mechanisms built into it are what has allowed the US to exist for 250 years with both remarkable prosperity and peaceful transitions of power. The founding fathers demonstrated high-level systems thinking to ideate a form of governance that could endure the vicissitudes of time, culture and geopolitics. And while the framers were far removed from the ancient wisdom of the East, there is language in the Constitution that at least semantically appears aligned with the eternal truths and higher aspirations of the yogi.

Yet this liberal style of governance is not the prevailing social order in most of the world. It’s a luxury to live in an open society, that while fraught with many problems is far preferable to the menu of alternatives, as the majority of the world’s population still lives under varying degrees of veiled tyranny, shackled as much to their lower selves as to the threat of violence, guided by maligned political and religious mythologies that romanticize an idealized past and stoke fear of the future. As the philosopher Marshall McLuhan noted, “We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” This tendency towards aversion, as in “averting” what’s staring us in the face, is the signature of pre-rational cognition and its character can always be found attempting to usurp power and regress the social order to obscure its own shadow. In the yogic sciences this aversion tendency is called dvesha, and while innate to the human condition it can be seen on full display in the domain of right wing extremism, a political movement embodied by its insistence on conserving retrograde ideologies of the past. Right wing extremism rejects the new and the novel and that which is to come and serves as the evolutionary brake pedal to the forward thrust of progress, change and personal transformation.

We in the U.S. are experiencing our first real threat with authoritarian rule and unsurprisingly it’s occurring from the inevitable downward pull within these ranks. It should be interesting to see if the checks and balances so deftly conceived of 250 years ago are able to endure the stresses of dictatorial ambition, wide scale corruption, unprecedented greed, post-modernity, artificial intelligence, environmental collapse and a society asleep at the wheel. The larger wave of authoritarian sentiment finding strong footholds in much of the world comes about as the rate of technological and sociological change accelerates at a pace well beyond anyone’s ability to apprehend, which creates tremendous amounts of fear, disorientation and anxiety.

“People embrace political conservatism because it serves to reduce fear, anxiety, and uncertainty; to avoid change, disruption and ambiguity; and to explain, order and justify inequality among groups and individuals.”

- From John T. Jost’s 2003 psychological review paper Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition.

From the British philosopher Michael Oakeshott:

"To be conservative is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.”

When people are fearful they contract and certain compulsions follow. A compulsion implies one is behaving habitually, which in turn implies the behavior is unconscious and disconnected from the source of being. It’s while prolonged in this state that people look back to the last point in time where they felt safe in an attempt to reconnect, as if to somehow extract from it a magic elixir that possesses the ability to restore “good” in the present and make “right” with their lives. For most people this romanticized era is childhood, before one was corrupted by ideology, burdened by responsibility and confused by the moral complexity of modern life. This “looking back fondly to the past” is the nostalgia fetish writ large and reveals one’s inability to respond consciously to the present moment, which ultimately is all that ever exists. The past and future are merely illusions within the mind (citta vritti) and the future is always feared. The accumulated memory of the past weighs so heavy on the unconscious that it has one longing in desperation for that which can never be truly had, and it’s out of this futility you get something as flat and uninspired as Make America Great Again, a retrograde ideology born of the pain and hopelessness of a dying imagination.

The path towards liberation (moksha) and the compulsions around self-preservation run completely contrary to one another on the ladder of egoic development as seen in the chakras and other such models below:

• Pre-Rational (Instinctual) - Embodied in the lower chakras, preoccupied with base survival concerns— Food, resource acquisition and genetic propagation. What Freud called the id.

• Rational (Intellectual) - This comprises the vast majority of people in modern capitalist technocratic democracies. It’s human-centric, goal-oriented, materialistic and atheistic. See my post on Yoga and Humanism.

• Post-Rational or Trans-Rational (Intuitive) - This is where yoga and self-transformation resides. I often make it a point to emphasize that yoga is not a heightened state of intellect but rather a post rational state of consciousness, intuitive and non-dual.

• While developmental psychology makes distinctions between pre-rationality and mainstream conservatism, there’s far more overlap there than many would like to acknowledge.

Pre-rationality was the prevailing order of mind before the Western Enlightenment, before logic and the sciences took hold and before one even had a distinct sense of themselves as an individual, which is an existence difficult to imagine in modern times. Whereas science and logic have embedded within them the ability to course correct through self-reflection and reason, pre-rationality is contemptuous of such pursuits and can often be seen doubling down on its own erroneous beliefs. The church’s apology to Galileo some 350 years after setting him ablaze is just one shining example of this.

The pre-rational mind is instinctual and predetermined. It knows little other than to channel fear and intimidation as the primary means of securing what it sees as its best survival outcomes in a seemingly brutal and distrustful world. The pre-rational mind sees injustice as an acceptable cost to maintaining its preferred style of social order, which is absolutist, religious, hierarchical, nationalistic, ethnocentric, moralistic, traditional, conformist, resistant to change and highly sensitive to threat, which accounts for its preoccupation with guns, social, racial and gender divisions, territorial boundaries, defense, property rights, and its vehement resistance to barriers around genetic propagation and threats to male paternity. The pre-rational mind is painfully unironic and has an extremely poor track record of seeing the deleterious outcomes of its decision making over long term time horizons. The pre-rational mind finds comfort under the rule of the so-called strong man because it embodies the strict father archetype of their upbringing, which in turn mirrors the wrathful male deity archetype of their religious indoctrination. Authoritarianism is the culmination of this self-fulfilling prophecy and is seen as necessary to maintain order and thwart change, if not to walk it back entirely. The biggest red flag is that under this mindset creativity and the imagination are viewed as subversive, pursuits to be left unclaimed by the higher mind under threat of violence, imprisonment or worse.

One might wonder how it is that a people who claim to put such high value on freedom would elect to the highest office an insurrectionist with clearly stated dictatorial ambitions. If freedom is the ultimate currency then why not open the floodgates and let it wash over the land like milk and honey? The logic here does not proceed along predictable lines as the average person is not interested in either truth or freedom, at least not to the extent that it interferes with their compulsions around security and self-preservation. By “average person” I mean one who is incapable of generating thoughts of their own, whose behavior is determined by tribal affiliation and whose sense of morality is aligned to consumerist propaganda, corporatist media and marketplace values, the shallowness of which they’ve adopted as their own personal ideology.

In yoga one seeks the path out of cyclic existence while the authoritarian unconsciously participates in it, as authoritarianism is fear masquerading as power. And while the enlightened person does not pass judgement on another’s karmic lot, it’s important to note that when the modern American speaks of freedom they’re not speaking of moksha or jivan muhkta as the yogi understands— They’re speaking rather about the ability to keep themselves insulated from experiencing the suffering of others. This is an important distinction to understand, for if these masses of freedom lovers were to avail themselves of true freedom they’d quickly find themselves crushed under the weight of their own ignorance and greed.

Many foresee a point in the future where some kind of universal reckoning will take place around choices poorly made, and we’ll finally be able to bask in the satisfaction of our own prescience and keen judgement. Everyone wants their “I told you so” moment, as if it will be welcomed by some miraculous change of heart in the newly awakened. Unfortunately this is not how it works. Most people do not seem to realize there is no longer any consensus on anything— Even the value of money will soon be made relative. This relativism will be especially consequential on matters pertaining to what constitutes the authoritarian order itself, and at what point the rule of law is sufficiently eroded for it to be recognized as such, as this horrifying specter will wash over us ever so gradually and with lots of distraction to be sure— He’s not a king, he’s a savior, it’s not authoritarianism, it’s law and order, it’s not censorship, it’s hate speech, etc. Half the country will experience the dread of this oppression and will find themselves enduring most of its abuses, while another half will find it perfectly acceptable to see tanks rolling into urban areas with masked mercenaries disappearing so-called “enemies of the state”, most of whom will no longer find erstwhile protections under the Bill of Rights. This difference in interpretation will perfectly illustrate the underlying tension of duality and its role in our causal existence, however difficult.

From a yogic standpoint one must not cower in fear and instead see the darkness for what it is— Just another turning of the karmic wheel revealing those unavoidable facets of the human condition lost to memory but familiar to time— Birth, ego, ignorance, power, dominance, fear, greed, confusion, destruction and death— Repeat. We experience physical reality in cycles because humanity is unconscious and the effects of that unconsciousness generate an infinite field of causality in order to be worked out over and over and over again— Hence cycle, or the Sanskrit samsara. The quality of these phenomena come to shape our experience of life and only too soon does our awakening to it get washed over by time and space like sandcastles at high tide, only for it to resurface again among a new generation of people equally naive and predetermined to wander into the same traps eyes wide shut. This ignorance is the very nature of cyclic existence and will be such for all eternity, and it ultimately has no preference as to whether you feel “free” or “oppressed” at any point in its unending churn. Better to understand this than to not.

Namaskaram to you all,

Scott

Satya is the Sanskrit word for truth and is the second yama behind ahimsa. The yamas are a means of restraint and moral conduct which constitute the first limb (anga) of Ashtanga Yoga. They are the principles one first encounters when on the yogic path.

The word sat refers to “that which exists” or “that which is.” Satya therefore is seeing reality as it is, not as we want it to be. It’s being sincere in our communication and up front about what we know and don’t know. Whereas lies complicate and deaden the interactions between people, truthfulness respects the intrinsic worthiness of another and gives greater power to our words and actions.

YOGA SUTRA 2.36

Satya-pratiṣthāyāṁ kriyā-phala-āśrayatvam.

When one is firmly established in truthfulness, actions begin to bear fruit.

Gandhi was well known to have channeled the yamas in his efforts to liberate India from the British, and it’s quite impressive what he accomplished with just the practical application of such basic tenets. He was often quoted as saying his “commitment was to truth, not to consistency,” which imbues the truth with a certain relativism that isn’t often appreciated because we think of consistency as being a primary characteristic of truth. But what was true ten years ago may not provide the same assurances today, and what is true for us certainly does not hold true for others. Truth is more a moving target than an unwavering set of conditions to which we align our actions, thoughts and speech. It’s seldom “just the facts” as our lower minds would like to think.

We find as life circumstances are brought into greater focus the truth becomes more complex and a greater inconvenience it often proves to be. Truthfulness requires a sobering honesty that while regarded as virtuous will inevitably test the social contract and violate personal boundaries, where there is often an unspoken agreement to avoid confrontation and let sleeping dogs lie. Truth is often averted in favor of words less affecting because the ways in which we've been socialized makes it more acceptable to dodge the truth instead of dealing with it head on. The propensity to lie stems from an unconscious desire for circumstances to be different from what they actually are. Hence dvesha, a Sanskrit word which describes an aversion towards “that which is” and proves to be one of the main obstacles on the yogic path.

When we encounter those whose worldview is corrupted by dvesha, we assume all it would take to “get them back on track” is to present them with the logical progression of “facts” as we understand them. But we increasingly come upon those whose incoherent logic is so deeply embedded that their “truth” becomes their own personal coping mechanism. Covid was a hoax. The Earth is flat. The Earth is 6,000 years old. The election was stolen. The holocaust never happened. The moon landing was faked, and so on. This trait has its origins in pre-rational cognition, a vestige of Dark Age thinking which has yet to resolve itself in the face of reason and modernity.

The cost of this is lack of trust and a regress of civilization, for where there is no truth there is no trust. Where there is no trust there is no connection. Connection is required to have well functioning societies and any semblance of social cohesion. The deterioration of social cohesion we see in the world today comes about as the world is flooded with lies on a scale that is truly unimaginable. As we are washed over with junk information and the fetishizing of opinions we must contend with the paradox that there is no consensus on truth, nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be. This proves quite unsettling as we go about our day with the basic assumption that there are certain universally held axioms that serve as guide rails to steer humanity towards salvation and provide an epistemological foundation to our life as lived. “Our truth” poses as our comfort and security. But this is also how it can become so easily distorted, as our deepest commitments are ultimately not to truth but to our preservation of self. Truth without the practical applications towards making money, elevating status, getting laid, bettering health, etc. seems valueless and is why it’s in such low demand.

People go to extraordinary lengths to suppress or avoid truth because societies are built on fictions and lies. This makes truth a costly value and is why it is exalted as the highest possible index of one’s character. “Honesty is the best policy,” we are taught. Yet when applied to real world circumstances, we know speaking the truth could get us fired from our job, kicked out of school, cast out from our friend group, divorced from our spouse, bullied in the media, imprisoned by governments, or killed by corporate hitmen. “S/he spoke truth to power,” they applaud. To live in this world is to weigh what we assume our highest values to be against perceived threats to our reputation and survival. It often proves more convenient to surrender our truth and tow the company line, drink its kool-aid, accept marching orders and get on with business as usual. This tension between our idealized self-image and the downward pull of societal expectations creates one of the greatest existential conflicts in all human experience, with our personal truth as the value of exchange.

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This is Sam Harris interviewing his wife Annaka about the research she is doing on consciousness, or Consciousness, as the case may be. I post this because it’s interesting to see the gradual acceptance of this perspective by the priesthood of materialistic science. The notion of consciousness preceding matter is the basis of Eastern cosmology and has been understood for thousands of years yet runs completely antithetical to the edicts of materialism, which assert consciousness to arise out of physicality and the brain more specifically. The reason why this disconnect exists is because materialists lack the consciousness required to perceive such an inverted logic, as they’ve been indoctrinated to worship at the altar of the intellect and the senses, which are extremely limited and dualistic.

While I find this trend in the sciences to be a net positive, I personally prefer the perspective of yogis, rishis and mystics, and very much look forward to the day where these worlds fully collide.

I’m reminded of this quote from Nikola Tesla:

The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.

If you’re interested in learning more about these ideas from a scientific perspective look into panpsychism and the work of the philosopher Philip Goff.

Namaskaram

Resonance is a term commonly attributed to sound and harmonics but is also defined more broadly as the ability to evoke or suggest imagery, memories or emotions. Sympathy is having a common feeling or being in unity with another. Sympathetic resonance therefore is the uniting of being through aligned sonic frequency.

From Google:

Sympathetic resonance is a principle rooted in physics, which states that when an object vibrates at a certain frequency it has the ability to induce vibration in another object that shares its resonant frequency.

A greater explanation in the video below:

This phenomenon is not limited to physical objects but extends to the realm of consciousness. I often use the word resonance to describe the impressions left after holding an asana or completing a cycle of pranayama. For example, a 10 minute headstand leaves a very internal, quiet resonance as the grasping tendencies of the nervous system recede. An intense backbend practice leaves a resonance of heat, energy and vitality, as the nervous system and lymphatic system are stimulated. Nadi Shodhana is a pranayama which leaves a very calming resonance, as both channels along the spine are brought into greater balance. These resonances are as real as any other sensations in the body despite having little in the way of scientific instrumentation to measure such things.

Sound itself is physical and is measured in decibels (loudness) and metered by frequency or wavelength, with a longer wavelength producing a deeper vibration and a shorter wavelength producing a higher pitched vibration. There exist many sonic frequencies well outside the range of the average human ear on both the high and low spectrum, but these frequencies are still accumulated by the nervous system and have significant effects on our state of being. It’s important to recognize the sheer amount of sonic bombardment we absorb on a daily basis, whether it be through electronics, gadgets, appliances, traffic, media and the relentless din of urban areas and other people. Even in many restaurants, where one once went to “rest” or “restore”, there is loud music to distract us from being alone with our own thoughts. Many aspects of modern culture are designed to overwhelm the senses because disorientation leads to suggestibility and suggestibility is good for business.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are subtler resonances such as the rotation of the Earth and its electromagnetic fields which have their own frequencies known as the Schumann Resonances, which are found in the ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) range at between 3 and 50Hz, far below what an equipped human ear can audibly register.

Some people claim to have resonance with these frequencies which are said to create a greater sense of calm and well being. These subtle attunements are more commonly known as alpha states and embody the quality of sattva guna, which is the essence of yoga, and one can shift to this frequency through different yogic practices such as yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, nada, mantra, chakra tuning, sub-vocalization of Sanskrit vowels, sound baths, and kriya among other practices. One who is dealing with psychological distress of any kind would benefit immensely by removing themselves from environments where sound is being used unconsciously. This is probably easier said than done however.

From the view of Advaita (non-duality), everything in existence springs forth from a non-physical dimension of intelligence, the initial perturbation of which is sonic in origin. This is called para vak. Vak means “voice” or “speech,” while para signifies “the divine” or “source”. If your worldview is bound by materialism then this might be difficult to grasp, for this notion views sound not as an effect of matter but irreducible to matter itself. This is much akin to how Advaita views physicality to be a phenomenon of consciousness rather than consciousness as a phenomenon of physicality. Advaita sees sound as the primary medium through which life emerges, which we currently understand through the lens of genetics and physical memory. Whether an amoeba or a human being— All are extremely complex sets of electromagnetic processes held together by sonic reverberations within a conscious field over a certain time. When the physical geometry supporting these processes gives way we break down and die, like an ice cube melting back into an infinite pool of water to be undifferentiated from that which had previously defined our physical boundary.

Para vak would explain the emphasis on sound in the yogic sciences and puts the chanting of AUM in greater context, as AUM is said to be the sound of all creation and contains within it all sounds. When we chant AUM we are establishing resonance within ourselves and sympathy with those around us. AUM is how we redirect the senses from the outward towards the inward, which sets the tone for our practice by neutralizing those frequencies out of sync in order to better reveal the source of creation within. We do this with the intent that the mind will follow so it can thereby be stilled. This is citta vrtti nirodhah, or “stilling the movements of the mind.”

In fact the very nature of transformation itself can be correlated to the accompanying change in both the frequencies emitted by one’s being and the corresponding receptivity to subtler frequencies brought into one’s spectrum of awareness. This change in sonic receptivity accounts for the growth one experiences in yoga, and is more commonly understood through the lens of ego dissolution as the ego is a structure fundamentally composed of sound. One who finds themselves with a quiet mind will inevitably fall out of resonance with many aspects of the modern world. The experience of yoga will grow to take on greater value than anything else and will result in major behavioral shifts— Change in lifestyle, change in diet, abandoning certain relationships, friendships and habits, change of career, moving to a different city, etc. While change is frightening to some, living in a constant state of uncertainty becomes an ultimately inconsequential price to pay to remain on the path of self-transformation.

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Humanism is a widely held belief system celebrating human flourishing and progress by way of scientific inquiry, reason and the intellect. It has extremely broad appeal in it suggests being transcendent of cultural, racial and gender divisions, as humanism is inclusive enough to include humans of all stripes. It sits atop a moral hierarchy which puts human survival interests first, implying dominion over non-human animals and that which is viewed as “nature”, or those phenomenon operating outside the envelope of the collective human body and its shared interests.

Humanism has an uplifting air of open-mindedness and progressivism while reinforcing a self-affirming positivity everyone can get behind, so it takes no real courage or specific insight to call oneself a humanist and will be met with acceptance in nearly every sphere imaginable— The capitalists and the corporatists like it, the progressives like it, the libertarians like it, Elon Musk likes it, the conservatives would seem to like it in their own repressed way, for according to them man was made in the image of God, which suggests man is God-like and therefore justified in carrying out whatever edicts deemed “right” or “moral” under such a predictable assumption. It’s important to note though that traditional religious orders are not humanist in their aspirations, and that’s a big dividing line. I include humanism under a certain strain of conservatism here because the “religiosity” of modern America isn’t actually that religious. They may harbor some retrograde views but when the rubber hits the road most of these people will rely on answers provided by science before those provided by prayer. Their values are far more aligned to the materialist / consumerist paradigm than old world orthodoxy. They are not as pre-modern as their words betray and not as pre-rational as tribal humanists assume. On the extreme end would be something like the Taliban, which is a religious order with no humanist aspirations whatsoever. And certain other Christian / Islamist fundamentalists would sit just atop that.

Christianity provided the pre-humanist / pre-modernist ideology of Western culture that took rise in the Dark Ages, which proclaimed a geocentric view of the universe with humanity at its center. While geocentrism was later replaced by heliocentricism (Earth’s rotation around the sun) the humanist undercurrent was seized upon by the Cartesian logic of the Enlightenment in the 16th century when the New World was being settled by Europeans under the rubric of Manifest Destiny, which established the rugged idealism that came to embody the pioneering American spirit. Far less mentioned is this ideology led to the genocide of tens of millions of native peoples and brought with it institutionalized slavery which persisted in North America for well over four centuries.

On the scale of modernist civilization, humanism provides the unspoken social contract for business as usual in the form of liberalism, as in liberal humanism, not to be confused with the liberal / progressive ideology of the “liberals.” Liberal humanism is a much larger overarching ideology which moved many human civilizations beyond the tyranny of kings, pharaohs and the infallible, and gave way for the advent of the citizen, the individual and democracy, which allowed people to think for themselves and experience life with a far greater sense of autonomy and self-purpose. It’s thought by many scholars that the notion of an individuated “self” didn’t exist for most people prior to the onset of modernism and liberal humanism, which in today’s ego fueled world is a sense of self near impossible to imagine and one the modern liberal would go to great lengths to avoid reverting to.

If humanism stands as the ideological barrier between personal autonomy and authoritarianism then casting shade on it will strike many as off base, and the extent to which one feels this way will be directly proportional to how much they identify with their own human form and the satisfaction they derive from acting out the myth of human conquest, i.e. the more they see themselves existing apart from— and in conflict with— nature. While humanism has brought about many fascinating advances and discoveries it’s this boundary between body and everything “other” that is an important distinction to recognize as humanity goes to extraordinary lengths to contrast itself with the natural world (prakriti) and thereby absolves itself of the deleterious consequences which are in full view to anyone willing to pay attention. It should be recognized that humanism is still an ideology existing in a sea of countless other ideologies, the overly simplistic nature of which stands as the primary barrier to all truth seeking. I’m characterizing humanism as an ideology because it’s ultimately not interested in truth— It’s interested in its own survival, which is an entirely different rationalization which leads to entirely different outcomes.

If you and I have common goals under the aegis of humanism we can bond over our shared commitment to shape the world the way we want and lay waste to anything standing in our way, whether it be the environment, animals, or even other humans whose values do not align with our own. Along with this aim of preserving human dominance, it also has embedded within it the moral and ethical justifications for all manner of horrific behaviors— War, destruction of the environment, corporate terrorism, surveillance capitalism, the horrendous treatment of animals in factory farms, animal torture in universities and labs, animals exploited for human amusement— All of this has been integrated into the collective human survival strategy, however maligned, however unconscious.

This dark side to humanism lies in its profound existential ignorance, coming about merely as a predictable extension of our egoic biases. Much in the same way a racist or a nationalist views their skin pigmentation or country of origin as superior to all else, the humanist finds the same satisfaction in our place among the natural order and the food chain, and makes appeals to the self aggrandizing hierarchy of “intelligence” created within our minds to serve our own survival strategies. This can be evidenced most clearly by people rationalizing the eating and torturing of certain animals for their perceived “lack of intelligence”, as if to suggest the less intelligent the animal the further away they are from us and the less we should be concerned with their suffering. A very convenient rationalization indeed, especially given these animals do exhibit astonishing degrees of emotional intelligence that go unrealized by the people around them. Yet you’ll see widespread outrage over the abuse of dogs and cats and other animals deemed “cute” or “smart” or who have been granted a certain value proportional to the emotional fulfillment they provide us. But if you want to eat or experiment on an animal there are a host of them who have been culturally predetermined for such fate, to allow one to participate in said behavior and be absolved of feeling any guilt, or anything at all for that matter. These speciesist assumptions are so deeply encoded into the bedrock of humanist ideology they are hardly ever acknowledged, and are furthermore protected under a nightmarish web of Ag-gag laws, corporate propaganda and a culture asleep at the wheel.

Cows, chickens and sheep are considered dumb and find themselves the butt of many jokes, all this despite exhibiting an emotional intelligence none too different from our own. Yet such kindred similarities are quick to be dismissed lest one be convinced the embodiment of such intelligence might warrant an accompanying change in behavior. Pigs show undeniable intelligence and have a genetic memory so similar to our own that their organs are interchangeable with ours, and some people refrain from eating them on account of this. If one insists on eating pigs then one must rationalize their way out of this quandary which is done by denigrating the pig as a “dirty animal,” a being not worthy of our respect or care. The pig may be smart like us but he’s dirty as fuck, not like us, which too is another cultural myth I’ll dismantle in a future post. The speciesist example I give here employs the same self-serving logic undermining much of humanist ideology and serves to embolden the prejudices of those whose interests lie in maintaining the status quo. The humanist makes these speciesist distinctions not out of some noble search for truth, but to serve their own instinctual predilections— Sensory gratification, sexual identity, convenience, and the maintenance of traditions thought to preserve a certain social order in which those less conscious find comfort and security. Again, survival over truth.

This graphic shows the basic progression of egoic development across a number of different models in cognitive evolutionary psychology, spiral dynamics and the chakras most notably. As you can see humanist ideology and the institutions that give rise under its purview are relegated to a human-centric state of cognitive evolution and are not very evolved despite every assumption to the contrary. It’s through this over reliance on logic that you get what the German philosopher Eckart Tolle describes as, “intelligence in the service of madness,” which embodies the shadow side of humanism and is most evident in the corruption of its institutions.

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I first heard the words “Culture is not your friend” thirty years ago from the late philosopher Terence McKenna and it stands as some of the most enduring guidance I’ve ever received, for like most things true it’s counterintuitive and casts a wider light into the darkness of one’s ignorance. “You know something is true because it can take the pressure,” he would say. “It doesn’t demand you change your opinion to suit it.” Since his untimely death in 2000 McKenna has become an underground icon of sorts and is most known for his contributions to ethnobotany and psychedelic shamanism, but his lesser known views on culture and media are unparalleled and include some of the most visionary wisdom teachings of the modern era. McKenna often seemed contemptuous of yoga, describing his experiences with gurus in India and Southeast Asia to be discouraging at best, fraudulent at worst. It’s not entirely clear what his exposure to yoga was, but he in turn advocated the use of psychedelic plants for the transformation of consciousness and his insights from such experiences are on par with or exceed those of the greatest spiritual teachers of our time and contained profound new revelations into the nature of reality. Much of this profundity came by way of the emphasis he placed on creativity and the imagination, given that classical yoga views the imagination as an obstacle in the form of vikalpa. I talked about this at length in my article on Einstein which can be read here.

I’ve [advanced] tagged this post because like many of McKenna’s teachings this critique of culture will run counter to your current logic.

A debate could be had over what culture is, but for the purposes of this writing I’m defining it as the ever changing set of social conditions around which a society values itself and the organizing principles one should follow to best thrive in the world. Thus we instinctively feel comfort in belonging to culture, for one who is “cultured” is thought to be advancing along the proper channels to ultimately reap the rewards and validation promised within the cultural mythos— The high paying job, the big house, the beautiful wife, the upwardly mobile husband, the nice car, the honor roll kids, the social status, YouTube fame, etc. These acquisitions signify we are living morally, justly and fully, and this value system shows no signs of fading despite growing awareness as to the inherent emptiness of such things. One’s own aspirations run into tension with the norms of society because despite our every attempt to act on our higher nature we find the downward pull of culture in some way prevails, as culture’s influence is so large as to be completely unrecognizable to the common man and woman. It might as well be the air we breathe. It absorbs us and we absorb it.

We should recognize culture’s necessity in the evolution of humanity. We clearly would not have advanced to the degree we have had there been prolonged cultural fracture or stagnation within a lower functioning culture, the inheritors of which can still be seen struggling across the world today— Taliban occupied Afghanistan, or Kim Jong-un’s North Korea, for example. One who is uncultured is thought to be a unhip and lost at the game of life and this is in many ways true. Those who know only the ways of their own culture know very little, and few other endeavors are more consciousness expanding than traveling abroad to experience the worlds other people have created to support themselves.

So to turn around as McKenna did and claim culture is adversarial to one’s development may not find audience with many people for there would seem to be heavy costs associated with abandoning such a deeply ingrained social contract, if for nothing else because of the sense of stability and familiarity culture provides. There is also a built-in sense of indebtedness worked into the cultural condition that from a higher altitude appears not so different from the heaviness of Catholic guilt or the obligations one has to their employer. This uncomfortable set of accommodations exists because culture does in fact provide— It provides jobs, money, food, the power grid, running water, plumbing, police protection, entertainment, news, education, and moreover a somewhat compelling mythological framework which adds structure to our otherwise meaningless lives. It’s understood within the social contract that we should appreciate and give ourselves over to culture in order to support the human enterprise and its greater good, and some of its output is certainly worth appreciating. But as one becomes more conscious the function of culture and its inherent limitations ultimately need to be recognized because the extent of its usefulness will inevitably become clear and shatter the cultural myth entirely, leaving one with no choice but to seek truth from domains well beyond the familiar signposts.

Note that “culture” shares the root cult, from the Latin cultus, which means “to worship,” or “to inhabit.” Whereas “cultural relevance” is a desired trait and synonymous with value, the word “cult” always carries negative connotations, suggesting blind adherence to some controversial figurehead spewing false edicts, where exploitation and unscrupulous business lurks in the shadows not far. A cult is universally thought to be taking you in the wrong direction and if you are foolish enough to join ranks then you deserve all the misery and regret coming your way. But notice culture too is equally full of traps and falsities and shady business, the only difference being said traps are more skillfully positioned within the culture’s current set of “laws and norms”, many of which have been instituted for the convenience of those few who benefit, the details of which can be endlessly manipulated within the system to continue on unchecked and unchallenged. Think of the gun lobby for example.

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Nexus covers some broad ground but the controlling idea is those who stand at the intersection of information networks wield the power, and it’s always been that way whether it be during the reign of Tiberius in Ancient Rome or in the inevitable confrontations with AI that are likely to shape global conflict in the 21st century and beyond.

Here are some stand out insights:

• He contends that most information is junk.

• He challenges the basic assumption of Silicon Valley that flooding the world with more information will give rise to the truth, when in fact it pushes truth to the bottom and brings about fictions and lies.

• Truth is difficult to arrive at and it’s expensive. Fiction is cheap and easy, hence the scourge of conspiracy theories inundating the information landscape.

• He breaks down the idea of “self-correcting mechanisms” and how they hold a functioning democracy in place, and gives a play by play of how authoritarians systematically dismantle these mechanisms to find themselves at this nexus of power.

• AI is Alien Intelligence, and argues there is nothing artificial about it.

• Fake news is not a new phenomenon. It has been in use by power structures and authoritarians since the beginning of time.

I would recommend all of Harari’s books, Sapiens in particular for those just coming into familiarity with his work. Can’t recommend him enough.

Most of you are aware that Pattabhi Jois and BKS Iyengar shared the same teacher, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, and both were taught his vinyasa sequences— Sequences which later came to form the Primary Series as taught by Pattabhi Jois in what is broadly known as Ashtanga Yoga. It is worth noting however that Ashtanga Yoga is not in fact Pattabhi Jois’s own personal brand but rather the name given to the overarching system of yoga codified by the sage Patanjali nearly 2500 years ago in the Yoga Sutras. Ashtanga Yoga is also referred to as classical or Patanjalian Yoga, and I tend to use these names interchangeably. When BKS Iyengar, who does have a method of yoga in his namesake, was asked what he practiced he would say Ashtanga, or Patanjali’s Yoga. Hopefully this alleviates some confusion.

What Pattabhi Jois taught his students is essentially Krishnamacharya’s method of vinyasa krama— Vinyasa meaning to “put or place in a proper order” and krama as “succession or a step by step process.” These vinyasas put emphasis on the flow of asanas into one another in coordination with the breath and gaze, in what is called the tristana method. One could argue skeletal alignment is secondary to the breath in Primary Series, as the poses generally move from one to the next within the space of one breath, with other sets of poses held for five breaths per side.

Iyengar abandoned traditional vinyasas and fixed sequences over time and turned his attention to holding asanas for longer durations and refining the subtler physical geometry therein, and this work came to uncover a hidden architecture within the design of a human being many consider nothing short of divine. This exacting, precision based form of asana practice is what Iyengar came to be most known for and his yoga has since been made synonymous with the notion of skeletal alignment, which is more specifically the aligning of one’s physical geometry to the sacred geometry of the cosmos. This is why his work has proven so effective in the healing of injuries and other ailments. It’s also why it appeals to academics and the scientifically minded, as it is presented with the same degree of rigor and specificity as a nuclear physics dissertation.

But what Iyengar gets less credit for is his sequencing of asanas, which is an equally important and unique contribution to yoga. Sequencing is a quiet art, much in the same way story structure is in a good novel or movie. If it works you tend not to notice it. Senior teachers will sometimes remark how long it took them to put together a certain sequence and it’s unlikely they’ve ever taught the same class twice, as the conditions of a class are never the same way twice. This is what makes Iyengar’s work so endlessly fascinating— It is highly structured while at the same time maintaining a deep heuristic quality, by which I mean it encourages one to experiment within a broad set of parameters— most notably here the sequence— in order that one cognize true understanding for themselves. Iyengar often referred to his body as a laboratory and his output is certainly reflective of this heuristic quality, as true understanding comes from direct experience and experimentation, not theorizing and contemplation.

So within the paradigm of modern Ashtanga Yoga you have Jois’s and Iyengar’s approach, which both put a tremendous emphasis on asana and while sharing some similarities have grown quite divergent over time. And since both Jois and Iyengar are gone their work continues to evolve through the teachers inheriting their lineages. I notice interest in Iyengar’s work appears to be growing among many senior teachers from Jois’s lineage.

So here I’ve listed Primary Series and then re-sequenced it through the lens of Iyengar’s approach, or at least my best interpretation of it. I’m sure I’m not the first to do this, as it makes for an interesting contrast between the two. For those of you less familiar with Krishanmacharya’s work, Primary Series may lend a better appreciation of how Iyengar came to learn yogasanas and the sequence out of which his work evolved. And for those of you less familiar with Iyengar’s work, this re-sequencing may shed some light on the logic behind his sequencing, which is one of the most notable and fascinating aspects of what is called Iyengar Yoga.

Notes below:

Notes:

• Primary Series always begins with sun salutations, both Surya Namaskara A and B. Iyengar sequencing typically does not include sun salutations although I have seen them worked in before. If one were to do sun salutations at the very beginning of the Iyengar sequence, Samasthitti would be the first asana thereafter, not Supta Padangustasana.

• Given that Iyengar moved away from fixed sequences, these poses could have been arranged in literally thousands of ways. Beyond the standing poses, most of Primary Series is done seated so this particular sequence is more seated forward bend oriented. I removed most of the arm balances and backbends because they are too tangential to the preceding sequence and would warrant a different set of poses to build up to properly.

• Notice how I’ve broken up the Iyengar sequence into something akin to the three act structure of a play or film. Standing poses in Act 1, which is the setup. Sirsasana is the transition or inciting incident into Act 2, which serves up the bulk of the sequence, just as it does in most story designs. Act 3 is the end sequence, with savasana as the final image. Setup, build, payoff.

• The idea behind the re-sequencing of the standing poses is that they progress in difficulty from forward facing, to side facing, to revolved. Revolved triangle is far more difficult than triangle, for example.

• Iyengar classified the asanas systematically into standing poses, seated poses, backbends, inversions and restoratives / pranayama. One could subdivide this classification even further by going into forward facing standing poses and revolved standing poses, seated forward folds and seated twists, supported and unsupported backbends, seated pranayama, supine pranayama. etc.

• I left Bhujapidasana where it is in the Iyengar sequence because it allows for a nice transition into Kurmasana if one has the strength to lower into it gracefully. Otherwise I would have left it out.

• Some teachers in Jois’s lineage refer to Savasana (corpse pose) as Sukhasana, which often translates as “easy pose.” When I was practicing Primary Series I always thought it odd how little time students spent in this final relaxation pose, sometimes staying less than a minute before gathering their things and leaving. That leaves no time for the effects of the practice to imprint on the physical body, much less the non-physical body. This is how I came to see the Sukhasana taken at the end of Primary Series and the Savasana taken in an Iyengar class as different poses. They may appear identical on the surface but the qualitative aspects couldn’t be more divergent.

• I’m just skimming the surface of this material here. More to come.

  Namaskaram to you all.

Ahimsa is a Sanskrit word for non-violence, translating as a= without, and himsa= harm. It is the foundation of classical Ashtanga yoga as it is the first yama. The word yama is widely translated as “reigning in control,” and serves in both the Vedas and Yoga Sutras as a means of restraint and moral conduct in relation to others. The yamas constitute the first limb (anga) of yoga in Ashtanga Yoga. Ahimsa then is the very first principle one comes upon when embarking on the yogic path. The very first. Its significance lies in it not being buried deep in the commentary of some obscure sutra or Vedic law, but right out front as the beacon to self-transformation.

Some schools of yoga go so far as to not allow a single asana to be taken until violence is completely eradicated from the body and mind, for they know a yoga practice without adherence to ahimsa is in fact not yoga at all but a preoccupation with physicality, body image, and a “hey look what I can do” mentality. A yoga practice undertaken without ahimsa as its central tenet is like doing mathematics without regard for integers or whole numbers, or studying biologist with no interest in respiration. Or doing cost accounting without knowing the value of a dollar. Ahimsa is that foundational to yoga.

The word ahimsa became known in the West via the work of Mahatma Gandhi, who employed non-violent resistance to liberate India from British imperialism in the 1940s. Gandhi was reluctant to use the word ahimsa because of the word “harm” in its translation, as he didn’t want to frame his efforts in terms of what they were not. He instead chose to define ahimsa as “infinite love” and described ahimsa as “an infinite capacity for suffering”, knowing the significant costs associated with the work he was doing— Costs for which he eventually paid full price. His vision proved effective enough as these same strategies were adopted by Martin Luther King Jr. in the U.S. not long after, who also paid full price in his quest to advance civil rights and human dignity.

Other historical figures who used non-violent resistance to create societal change were Henry David Thoreau (who spent time in jail for not paying taxes in protest of those monies being used to fund the U.S. Mexican War), Nelson Mandela (who spent 27 years in prison for organizing against Apartheid South Africa), Thomas Merton (a priest who was ostracized by the Catholic Church), and the Berrigan brothers (two priests who both served lengthy prison sentences for protesting Vietnam and the Reagan administration’s nuclear weapons program). These people may not have been intimately familiar with yoga or versed in its Sanskrit origins, but they were certainly following ahimsa principles albeit in an activist mode.

On the level of individual transformation, ahimsa is suggesting that as we step into the practice of yoga we must reconsider our most intimate relationship with physical nature (prakriti), which comes in the form of the food we eat. Our relationship to food is deep and lifelong, yet in modern times that relationship has been hijacked and made disconnected by ruthless global conglomerates seeking to maximize profits at the expense of one’s well being, especially that of the non-human animals it commodifies. Over 99% of animals used for food live their entire lives in nightmarish, disease-ridden factory farms where they endure abuses so horrendous it is beyond the entirety of human consciousness to imagine. The scale of these operations is also unimaginable, with some 300 million land animals being slaughtered every single day across the Earth.

Yet factory farming has been enculturated in such a way that one can quite easily go from birth to the grave without ever once having to see, hear, smell, feel or in any way give consideration to and /or participate in the abject horrors that result in getting an animal’s flesh and fluids to one’s plate. It’s in this disassociation between one’s actions and another sentient being’s suffering where the often cited cognitive dissonance around animal agricultural gives rise.

The yoga of Patanjali is an ahimsa tradition which has always been synonymous with vegetarianism, as it first and foremost condemns the killing of animals. Vegetarian was the word used in archaic times, but in modern times ahimsa would resemble the vegan diet, which expands to exclude dairy as well given the tremendous amount of harm inflicted on animals in those industries.

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