This presentation explores Gandhi’s unique interpretation of yogic disciplines as expounded in the Yoga Sutra, including truth, nonviolence, celibacy, and non-possession, to transform his personal life and instigate social change.
Traditionally, these yogic disciplines are observed to purify the mind and prepare the practitioner for attaining higher states of spiritual awareness and freedom. The Yoga Sutra also ascribes powers (siddhis) to each of these yogic disciplines. Gandhi experimented with them to attain personal inner strength and to create a program to secure political justice and social harmony for people of India. I will analyze how Gandhi interpreted these yogic disciplines as methods of nonviolence (ahimsa) and truth (satyagraha) to be wielded as weapons against the forces of colonialism, racism, and all forms of social and economic violence. Gandhi’s embodied practices of self-restraint enabled him to bring about ground-shaking social, economic, and political change.
The yogic world of medieval India was dominated by the Nath Yogis, whose poetic and mythological traditions were remarkable for their rich and varied imagery. One such image represented the head and torso of the yogic body as a set of wells, the one turned downward and the other upward. Here, t...
In this talk, Ruth will map the esoteric feminine aspect of the subtle body by drawing on Haṭhayoga sources. Taking a textual, historical and anecdotal approach, she explores how the subtle body is presented in gendered terms, probes the substances or concepts that are to be influenced, and trace...
Glimpses of what evolves into Yoga can be gleaned from early sources: the loving attention paid to animals and the seated seemingly meditative figures in the seals of the Indus Valley (ca. 3000 B.C.E.) as well as the invocation of tapas (purifying heat) in the Vedas (ca. 1500 B.C.E.). The naming ...
