What do you think of when you hear the word “yoga”?
Do you conjure an image of an impossibly bendy bikini model doing pretzel poses in overpriced yoga pants?
Do you think of hot yoga, beer yoga, puppy yoga, or goat yoga?
Maybe you think you “can’t do” yoga because you’re “not flexible”?
Perhaps, if you consider yourself a yogi, you preach about the many physical and mental benefits you have gained from your practice.
Maybe you think of YTTs, expensive mats, shalas (not studios), Lululemon, handstands, mala beads, and meditation.
Or perhaps you consider yoga your spiritual practice, and only share your time and energy with your “high vibe tribe.”
Today, I’m going to tell you why yoga is none of these things.
I started practicing yoga in 2006. It was still pretty freaky back then, and nowhere near as ubiquitous as it is now. Facebook had just been invented, and Instagram didn’t exist. We didn’t know what an influencer was, much less a yoga influencer, so the only yogis I encountered during the first few years of my practice were teachers and other students.
Fast forward to 2020, and yoga — an ancient and esoteric practice developed throughout millennia to help humans achieve enlightenment — has become another product to be bought and sold. Those who sell it are generally (white) women and men with hyper toned bodies and huge social media followings who charge thousands of dollars for their workshops and events and do paid ads for yoga brands whose prices are simply inaccessible for most of their followers. They pedal the concept of “wellness” to often-vulnerable people who are more than willing to part with their cash in the desperate hope it may help them feel better.
Someone recently asked me why I have so few photos of myself doing yoga on Instagram. I used to be known among my friends and family as the “yoga girl,” but as yoga became more mainstream, the objectification of female bodies that we are so familiar with crept into the marketing and promotion. As Insta-yogis took off, I found myself wanting to distance myself from that label. I didn’t feel comfortable self-objectifying to sell a colonialized, culturally appropriated version of a spiritual practice. It goes against everything I stand for as an anti-capitalist feminist and aspiring yogi.
So what is yoga, really? “Yoga” means “union” in Sanskrit, and this is generally interpreted as the union between body, mind, and spirit. But this individualistic interpretation is a Westernization of the meaning of yoga that leads to the development of what I call the “spiritual ego.”
Two studies published by Psychological Science in 2018 confirmed what I had long suspected based on my observations of so-called yogis at retreats, cacao ceremonies, and ecstatic dance parties. While yoga and meditation can help you be more mentally and physically resilient to the stresses of life, they actually increase your ego. In the studies, regular yoga practitioners reported higher self-esteem and communal narcissism (an inflated sense of your impact on the world), while meditation was linked to increased self-esteem and greater levels of happiness.
That’s great. But if you never take any of it off the mat and into the world, you’re not doing yoga.
Yoga — as described by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras — is an Eightfold path composed of:
Yamas — a code of conduct for our behavior towards others
Niyamas — a code of conduct for personal practices and standards
Asana — the postures which are considered synonymous with yoga in the West
Pranayama — breathwork
Dharana — concentration
Dhyana — meditation
Samadhi — absorption, or oneness with divinity, i.e., enlightenment
As you can see, most of modern yoga skips the yamas and niyamas, and goes straight to asana, the most performative — and marketable — aspect of the eightfold path.
Now, remember — yoga means union, but in its original meaning, this refers to union with Atman, or the great universal spirit. Call this what you want — Universe, God, Goddess, the Quantum Field, Universal Consciousness — this is the true goal of yoga.
You experience union with Atman when you can transcend the ego stories that keep you under the illusion of separation. When you not only know you are a drop in the ocean, but you feel that truth in the core of your being.
When you experience true yoga, you are filled with love and compassion for everything else in the universe since you understand that we are all one.
And when you have that experience, it inspires you to take your yoga off the mat and into your life. True yoga is bringing that Zen vibe and that compassion reserved for your friends at the yoga studio (sorry, shala) and into your relationships, your work, and every situation in your life.
As The Yoga Dissident, Nadia Gilani, says on her (brilliant) Instagram account: yoga is political. Yoga is not about withdrawing from the world and being “high vibes only.” Quite the opposite — it is a connection with yourself that brings you to the truth of who you are; you learn what your values are and what you’re prepared to stand up for. And then you take aligned action in the world.
In the Bhagavad Gita, the warrior Arjuna asks his friend, the god Krishna, why he must take part in the war being fought by his family. Krishna replies that purification of the spirit takes place through aligned action known as “karma yoga” or the yoga of action. He urges Arjuna not to withdraw from the world but to take right action from a place of devotion and without attachment to the outcomes.
This is the problem with yoga in the West. It has become narcissistic. It’s a way to strengthen your ego instead of transcending it. To look no further than your own spiritual belly-button, so to speak. And all the while, “yoga” is being bought and sold, perpetuating capitalism, patriarchy, and oppression. So if your yoga does not include aligned action, it’s not yoga. It’s ego-serving self-objectification in stretchy pants.