Hari-kirtana is an author, mentor, and yoga teacher who shares his knowledge and experience of how the yoga wisdom tradition can guide us toward meaningful and transformative spiritual experiences.
Understanding how we got here
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Greetings Reader, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately looking into how yoga philosophy offers us a vision for the future? By which I mean, the future after Trump. And I don’t just mean Trump the person; I mean the racist, sexist, pseudo-religious kleptocratic authoritarian extremism that Trump personifies. It will crash and burn . . . eventually. It’s just a question of when. Personally, I would prefer sooner than later. But even a blue wave next November may only amount to a quick fix that doesn’t last. History tells us that resistance movements defined only by what they oppose fail. Why? Because resistance without a clear vision of a future in which the authoritarian can’t return is like chasing Dracula back into his coffin without driving a stake through his heart. You can try to talk yourself into believing the danger has passed, but when night falls the vampire is sure to rise again. (Yes, I know it’s well past Halloween and you’d rather be thinking about Santa Claus than Dracula, but ICE cares about Christmas about as much as any vampire.) Successful resistance doesn’t just put a stop to abusive authority; it makes sure the abusive authority never comes back by building something better. And not just better than what the authoritarian offered; better than the conditions that made the authoritarian possible. Yoga philosophy offers us a useful way to understand those conditions and change them so that authoritarianism can’t come back: “Ignorance, egoism, attachments, aversions, and clinging to life (fear of death) are the afflictions [that constitute obstacles to the experience of yoga]. Ignorance is the breeding ground of the other afflictions, whether they are dormant, weak, intermittent, or fully activated.” – Yoga-sutra II.3-4 Here we find that ignorance (avidyā) is understood to be the foundation of all the other afflictions (kleśas); the soil in which the rest of the obstacles take root and grow. Similarly, the conditions—the avidyā-soil—in which right-wing extremism took root and grew over the decades consists of not just lack of knowledge, but of a misperception of reality—a collective avidyā that allowed resentment, fear, and authoritarianism to grow. You could go back further, but using the 1930’s as a starting point, a historically grounded characterization could look like this: Economic avidyā: The Myth of the Isolated Individual After Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal dramatically expanded the state’s role in economic life, a counter-movement began to take shape—one that framed collective responsibility as tyranny and equated freedom with unrestrained markets. This produced:
This is avidyā in the yogic sense: the confusion of the transient—economic cycles, demographic shifts—with the permanent: the inherent dignity of all persons. Cultural avidyā: Whiteness as the Presumptive Center From the 1930s onward, U.S. society carried an unquestioned assumption that “real Americans” were white, Christian, and culturally dominant.The civil rights movement contested this assumption. Many interpreted this loss of automatic centrality as oppression, a form of:
This set the stage for grievance politics, racialized fear, and Christian nationalism. Political avidyā: Distrust of Institutions Moving up to the Cold War of the 50s and accelerating in the 70s–90s, deliberate campaigns portrayed the federal government as:
This made it easier for authoritarian leaders to step in and claim to be the only trustworthy figure—an American version of īśvara-pranidhāna gone horribly wrong, where surrender is misplaced in a human strongman instead of in the Supreme Divinity. In addition to providing models for understanding how we got here, yoga philosophy—and bhakti-yoga philosophy in particular—offers us an alternative vision: Dharmic Personalism. Dharmic Personalism is the idea that belonging isn’t granted by tribe, ideology, or the state, but arises from our deeper identity as spiritual beings linked together through a common source. It’s a kind of “social spirituality” that thrives in a civic culture shaped by responsibility, reciprocity, and reverence for the natural world, that’s supported by institutions designed to help each individual discover and express their unique contribution to collective well-being, and that celebrates diversity as a natural attribute of a harmonious whole. So what kind of vision for the future can Dharmic Personalism provide that will change the underlying soil in such a way as to prevent racist, sexist, pseudo-religious kleptocratic authoritarian extremism from growing back? Tune in next Sunday for the answer. Wishing you all good fortune, - Hari-k P.P.S: My next live online workshop will be about how to navigate the intersection of yoga and religion. The nuanced connection between yoga and religion presents a challenge for both teachers who want to explain it and practitioners who want to understand it. In this 90-minute workshop, we'll dive into a comprehensive exploration of how yoga philosophy intersects with concepts of divinity and explore practical ways to lead meaningful conversations about yoga’s theological dimensions in secular settings. Save the date: Sunday, December 14th at 12:00 pm EST. CLICK HERE for complete information and registration. |
Hari-kirtana das
Hari-kirtana is an author, mentor, and yoga teacher who shares his knowledge and experience of how the yoga wisdom tradition can guide us toward meaningful and transformative spiritual experiences.
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