Thoreau in Mysore

The other day, when I was at the big bookstore in town, Sapna Book House, I saw a volume entitled, The Yogi of Walden, which apparently makes a case that others have made, namely that Henry David Thoreau was basically living the life of a yogi when he spent his couple of years at Walden, by the pond, living alone, meditating, as it were, on the experience and life in general.

I should have picked the book up, but on the other hand, I may not have needed to since it’s become so patently obvious as I retire each evening here in Mysore while reading selections from Walden before drifting off to sleep.

There’s no doubt that Thoreau’s emphasis on austerity, simplicity, and detachment is entirely consistent with the lessons of yoga; he’s constantly harping on the idea that people clutter up their lives with stuff and are driven by unreflective desires, themes that run through the lessons of the yogic practice.

Similarly, both Thoreau and yoga are deeply interested in quieting the mind so as to more clearly grasp the nature of reality. The second of Patanjali’s sutras famously says that yoga is the restriction of the fluctuations of consciousness, all in the name of seeing things as they really are. I take it that Henry David was after pretty much the same thing when he wrote, “”We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.”

Thoreau defines what it means to be a philosopher as “to so love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.” Seems to me that this is exactly what I’m trying to do as I bend and sweat every morning at the shala.

“The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation” may be Thoreau’s most famous quote; I know what that’s like these days when I do my best to refrain from whimpering as Saraswathi yanks me into Maricasana D.