I’m not even talking about the “yoga-booty-power-gym” approach much disapproved of by old school “real yoga” practitioners, Western and non-Western alike. I’m kind of with the old-schoolers on this one.
What I’m really talking about is a kind of blind adoption of very traditional ways of viewing the human body that clearly contradict what we know about our physiology, and in some cases, physics itself. I’m talking about shatki, prana, the dualistic relationship of purusha and prakriti, kundalini, astral tubes and mostly, I’m talking about chakras. It’s all unscientific, unconfirmable bullshit, and many yoga practitioners and teachers seem far too willing to credulously buy into every bizarre hangover from a pre-scientific age, simply because it comes as part of the package deal of labeled yoga.
"Keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out." - Carl Sagan
It’s important to remember, that in most societies, perhaps originally as a method of preventing disease before germ-theory was properly developed, and no doubt due to a instinctual revulsion, it was taboo, sometimes on punishment of death, to touch dead bodies.
This was true in Christian Europe, where the dead were only dealt with by the poorest of the poor, and church and civil law alike set specific rules on how to treat the body post-mortem. In Buddhist Japan and China, in the Muslim Middle-east, and indeed, to an almost pathological level, in Hindu India, the idea of touching a dead body for any time more than absolutely necessary for burial or cremation was to risk being tainted yourself. A stain removed only with the most severe and exhaustive ritual purifications.
It was not until the 1700’s that the grip Christian churches had on law began to erode, and doctors, often at great personal risk to themselves, began to cut open and look inside, dead people. And that’s the rub right there. What was discovered, much to the mystic’s chagrin, was that the body is mechanical. There’s nothing especially mystical going on – no unseen energies or subtle elixirs. We’re a brain inside a meat machine; eating, shitting, fucking and dying, all for the rather underwhelming purpose of propagating chains of nucleic acid.
It was a complex series of historical events that put the West on this path. It never happened in most of the world, including India. Without the option of cutting up people and studying what was inside, the same way you would a piece of machinery, Ayurvedic medicine had to come to some understanding of how the body works based on observing the surface, but avoiding at all cost, the guts…
Which doesn’t really work. You’re left with guess-work and fantasy. Since the function of the various organs, including the rather mysterious brain, couldn’t be properly understood, most Indian investigators came up with possible explanations for life which turned out to be wrong. That’s how we get to prana, shatki, chakras and the like, at least when being claimed as non-materialist and yet still “real” in an objective sense.
*note: I'm perfectly willing to accept these ideas as philosophical devices used to frame aspects of cognition; basically, as concepts. Just don't tell me your chakra is itchy and expect me to take you seriously.
As a yoga practitioner, I’m still under the same obligations I am as a regular thinking human being. When hearing a claim, even from someone I deeply respect, perhaps someone I view as an authentic guru, I must consider the evidence they bring, not how much I admire them personally. I must also consider the ability of a claim to be verified independently – it doesn’t count if you need to believe it first.
As a teacher, I’m in the situation of wanting to spread the beautiful aspects of an incredibly beneficial practice, while taking on the personal ethic of not spreading the virus of bullshit to my students or myself.
Should teachers feel obligated to present material they understand to be nonsense, simply because it’s part of the yoga cannon of belief? I hope not. I’m not even willing to shine my heart, I’m certainly not going to start attaching benefits, medical or otherwise, to various asana based on their ability to effect a given chakra. Should we feel obligated to speak out against bullshit in all its forms? I think this one depends, and I’m still grappling with the issue. Students come to my classes for fitness, physical and mental, not to hear me rant against bullshit like chakras and astral tubes.
That’s what blogs are for.