I'll never
forget what my yoga teacher, Mona, said to us on the first morning of my 200
hour teacher training: "Your life is never going to be the same. Your life
will change, you will change, your relationships will change, your worldview
will change and it's going to be difficult." She couldn't have been more
right; over the course of the next eight months we were all broken down and
built up again as entirely different people. Ask ten different yogis about
their journeys with yoga and you will get ten different stories, but every
single one of them will involve a profound and intense transformation of the
yogi in question. While yoga has changed immensely over the last few thousand
years, the key thread that continues throughout most of yoga's history is the
understanding that yoga is, as Carol Horton puts it, an "ongoing project
of psychological and cultural 'deconditioning'".
If our settler
colonial society is going to engage in decolonization, each of us as members of
this society will need to engage in a project of psychological and cultural
deconditioning. As a university student engaging in discussions about settler
colonialism, racism, multiculturalism, sexism among other social justice
issues, I've lost count of the times I've wanted to bottle up the intense
transformation that yoga provides and hand it out to social justice activists.
I can't though, and instead I hopefully watch the yoga community tentatively
begin to take yoga 'off the mat and into the world'. From the various
initiatives Seane Corn has taken on, to the increased interest in karma yoga,
by-donation yoga, and 'conscious consumerism', there are members in the North
American yoga community that are beginning to view yoga as a way of living not
just exercising. The consequences of this shift is fascinating as Be Scofield
explores in her essay, "Yoga for War: The Politics of the Divine":
"In
the documentary, YogaWoman, the
world-renowned yoga teacher Donna Farhi stated, "Yoga is one of the most
politically subversive practices that any person, male or female, could do in
our time." With an estimated 15 million yoga practitioners in the U.S.,
her provocative statement, if true, could mean significant shifts for a world
facing complex global challenges."
The moves to
bring yoga and social justice work together have had mixed results, but as Be
Scofield points out, being mindful and raising consciousness does not
automatically equate to the raising of political consciousness. I argue that
the North American yoga community needs to make increasing our political
awareness part of our yoga practice. Jnana yoga, the yoga of wisdom and
learning, needs to be encouraged more, and in turn needs to inform our Karma
yoga, the yoga of action. Educating ourselves on social justice and political
issues has to be a part of our yoga practice in order for us to decolonize yoga
and break the cycle of settler colonial violence that has been incorporated
into modern hatha yoga.
Awareness is key
to yoga because, as Frank Jude Boccio writes, "The various yoga traditions
all seem to agree that the major cause of dukha (suffering, discontent, unease,
etc.) is avidya" which literally translated means not-seeing.
"Understood in this way, avidya means to willfully deny or ignore issues,
question or even the ambiguities that may have uncomfortable implications for
our actions, beliefs and practices. We see only what makes us feel most
immediately comfortable, and refuse to contemplate what does not." If
something does not fit into the narratives we've heard our entire lives (such
as the narrative that Canada was this big open landmass before the Europeans
arrived) we choose not to see it (the narrative of a pre-colonial Turtle Island
with many, well established nations and international relations).
Having become
more politically aware, the path we take to decolonize yoga will largely depend
on each individual's relationship to the settler colonialism. For Indigenous
yogis and yoginis a decolonized yoga practice may take its cues from Ana
Forest, a prominent, Native American yoga teacher, who has incorporated her
indigenous spiritual beliefs and healing practices (which the settler colonial
State has historically repressed) into her yoga practice.
While
'indigenizing' yoga may seem counter-productive to decolonizing yoga, remember
that decolonizing yoga involves recognizing yoga as a far more diverse practice
than it has been constructed by Hindu Nationalists. Yoga has ties to many
diverse Hindu traditions, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, even Islam. Marrying a
yoga practice with practices and beliefs of other traditions is not new, it is
not 'unyogic'. What is unyogic is the cultural appropriation that occurs when
settlers try to mix yoga practices with Indigenous spiritual practices they
know nothing about and have no ties to.
Ana Forest's
approach to her yoga practice works for her and is decolonizing for her, but the
transformation that settlers need to undergo to encourage decolonization in
Turtle Island is quite different than that of Indigenous peoples. My experience
is one of being a settler and so that is the transformation I am going to speak
to in this last part. My decision is not meant to de-center Indigenous peoples
from the decolonization process, rather it is an acknowledgement that I have no
right to tell colonized people how to decolonize.
Essential to my
understanding of myself as a white settler has been the yogic concept of
samskaras. Samskaras are the psychological, physiological and cultural grooves
that get deeper every time you do, think, see someone else do something or hear
someone else say something. Deconditioning ourselves through our yoga practice
involves questioning our samskaras to determine their value, and, if found to
be untruthful or harmful, working to create new, positive samskaras that are in
line with the moral code of the yamas and niyamas.
As a white
settler I have samskaras of (cultural) whiteness and settler mentality that
have been engrained in me from the time I was a small child that continue to
inform what I say, think and do. Some examples would be my sense of entitlement
to this land, and my attachment to settler-Canadian nationalist identities:
"My family has been here for ______ generations! They came here with
nothing and fought for everything we have today, we've earned our privilege" Or my tendency to try and make myself
the center of every issue or topic: "Colonialism is awful! I need to do something about that, what
can I do?" Or the various
stereotypes about Aboriginal people that I've picked up over the years:
"They were all killed in a colonial genocide years ago, they belong in
museums, the ones that are still around are a tiny minority that are stuck in
the past and have a totally hopeless future, etc." These are just some of
the negative samskaras that I have become conscious of over the years; one
thing that Sri Patanjali teaches in the Yoga Sutras is that becoming aware of a
negative samskara is just the beginning. Just because I'm conscious of these
samskaras doesn't mean that they're gone, working to decondition myself and
create new, not racist, unsettled samskaras requires a dedicated practice off
and on my mat.
Also key to my
understanding of a decolonized yoga are the first two limbs of yoga, the yamas
and the niyamas. Settler colonialism is completely incompatible with a practice
of the yamas:
Ahimsa-
Non-harming is easier said than done, but it's more difficult when you're not
even aware of the fact that as a settler you're supporting a system of violence
against Indigenous nations.
Satya-
Similarly, speaking with truthfulness and integrity is easier when you're aware
of the false, negative stereotypes that exist about Indigenous people.
Asteya-
Non-stealing goes completely and totally against the whole idea of settler
colonialism, how can you engage in asteya if you don't even know what your
relationship to the settler colonial state is?
Brahmacharya-
Appropriate and wise use of sexual energy or to use Michael Stone's phrase:
"Encountering all creatures with respect and dignity." The statistics
on Indigenous peoples and gender-based violence are appalling. If we want to
practice Brahmacharya it needs to extend to people of all backgrounds, not just
those that are valued by settler society.
Aparigraha-
Non-clinging or non-possesiveness is so crucial for those of us with settler
privilege, because decolonizing requires us to let go of those privileges.
Conversely, the
niyamas help us move past the anti-colonial discourse that the yamas encourage,
and help to foster decolonization:
Shaucha- To seek
nourishment over toxicity requires us to realize how toxic settler society is
and then try to find ways to decolonize and create a more nourishing society.
Santosha-
Contentment; if colonialism was driven by a desire for more land, more
resources, more wealth then Santosha is being content with what we have in the
moment.
Tapas-
Discipline or embracing transformation is so crucial to the decolonization
process, because it's a long process, settler colonialism isn't going to pack
up and leave without a fuss.
Svadhyaya-
Introspection is also crucial to the decolonizing process, because colonialism
affects our external world as well as our internal experiences.
Ishvara
Pranidhana- Trusting and embracing uncertainty is also critical to
decolonizing, because we cannot actually predict what a decolonized Turtle
Island will look like and be like. We have some vague ideas, but otherwise its
a commitment to taking a chance and trusting that if we do this with care we
won't end up with a mess like the one we're already in.
The following
pieces helped me write this article and are definitely worth checking out:
Yoga PH.D. by Carol Horton
"Questioning
the 'Body Beautiful': Yoga, Commercialism and Discernment" by Frank Jude
Boccio in 21st Century Yoga
"Yoga for
War: The Politics of the Divine" by Be Scofield in 21st Century Yoga
"Our True
Nature is our Imagination: Yoga and Non-Violence at the Edge of the World"
by Michael Stone in 21st Century Yoga
