The founder of my school of yoga, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois famously said that yoga is 1% theory, 99% practice, and while I think that’s true, I love me a good conversation about the theoretical, especially the question that has long bedeviled me as a serious student: how deep can I really get into the practice if I don’t buy the metaphysical underpinnings of yoga? If I don’t believe in reincarnation or chakras or the entire panoply of Hindu gods and goddesses can I ever really be a master yogi? Or do I have to really drink the Kool-Aid and start talking about the movement of “energy” through the body and Kundalini serpent power and maybe even start wearing Birkenstock sandals and drawstring pants?
We had a fruitful discussion about all this (except the Birkenstock part) in our workshop yesterday and what David Garrigues emphasized was the role of faith in accepting some of these claims. That’s hard for me, of course; I prefer evidence and reasons as support of the propositions I accept, but I can see the pragmatic value in believing in certain claims—like that my wife and daughter love me—in the absence of, strictly speaking, empirical proof. So, for instance, if it enables me to do some pose that I otherwise couldn’t get into to accept the notion that nectar is gushing from the thousand petaled lotus at the top of my head, then so be it.
One of my main motivations for going to India is to explore just this. I’m sure it will be illuminating to be immersed in a world where so many people believe that these supernatural claims that I find so nonsensical are true. Does that mean that I will become a believer? At this point, I have faith that I won’t, but I guess we’ll see.
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