What is Green Yoga? As explained in Green Yoga, which I have coauthored with my wife, Brenda Feuerstein:
Green Yoga is Yoga that incorporates environmental mindfulness and activism in its spiritual orientation at a time of great global crisis. It stands for a sattvic mind and and a sattvic world.*
In other words, Green Yoga is the consistent application of traditional yogic values and virtues in order to make our lifestyle and all our actions not only appropriate and wise but, above all, also conducive to the welfare of all beings on planet Earth. What this means is that our lifestyle must be environmentally responsible, or sustainable in the long run. It is easy to see that Green Yoga is a form of Karma-Yoga, the path of self-transcending action. In this case, however, self-transcending action must include environmental activism.
Green Yoga continues the ancient ideal of loka- samgraha, as propounded in the Bhagavad-Gîtâ. Loka- samgraha stands for the benign attitude of furthering the welfare of, and solidarity or cooperation, between people. But the Sanskrit word loka not only stands for “people” but primarily for the “world.” Thus, loka- samgraha is heartfelt caring for all of the Earth’s numerous life forms. This could be called the first of two moral pillars of Green Yoga.
The second pillar is the Buddhist ideal of bodh- icitta, which represents the bodhisattva’s unconditional resolve to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, with the ultimate goal of liberating everyone from the realm of suffering.
These two noble sentiments are interconnected and demand to be cultivated simultaneously. Because of our present-day global crisis, we are called to cultivate them rigorously and without further delay. Green Yoga is yogic wisdom and compassion in action at a time when the survival of humanity and all other species is severely at risk.
Every day, 150 or more species become extinct, and the extinction rate is acceleration as environmental conditions are worsening. Seven out of ten biologists believe that we are in the midst of what they call the Sixth Mass Extinction, which in scope and speed exceeds the previous mass extinction that, 65 million years ago, wiped out the dinosaurs and apparently over 70 percent of all other life forms.
This time, the catastrophe was not triggered by a large meteorite. The human race itself is to be held responsible for the present unprecedented calamity. Overpopulation, overconsumption by the developed nations, rampant pollution of land, water, and air, and other similar factors caused by ignorance and greed have contributed to a our present planetwide crisis. Unless Homo sapiens, true to its self-designation, demonstrates real wisdom very quickly, the Earth’s biosphere is likely to collapse—an unthinkable specter.
Yoga practitioners of whatever persuasion and from whatever part of the world must now step forward to deal fearlessly and sanely with the environmental (and correlated social) challenge in the spirit of the ancient viras, or heroic adepts.
*Georg and Brenda Feuerstein, Green Yoga (Eastend, Canâda: Traditional Yoga Studies, 2007), p. 35. This book is available from Traditional Yoga Studies (www.traditionalyogastudies.com). TYS also offers a free membership to anyone wishing to support and implement the goals of its Green Yoga Initiative.
Yoga is like an ancient river with countless rapids, eddies, loops, tributaries, and backwaters, extending over a vast, colorful terrain of many different habitats. In this volume I have provided a bird’s-eye view, giving the reader the broader picture and, I hope, a deeper appreciation of the inviting waters of Yoga and of the checkered cultural landscape through which the river of Yoga has flowed in the course of its millennia-long development. Occasionally, however, I have zeroed in on a particularly relevant feature, exploring it as space and available sources permitted.
Our last glance fell on the riverine current of Hatha-Yoga, that aspect of Tantrism which seeks to accomplish both spiritual enlightenment and bodily immortality. It is this branch of the meandering river of Yoga that carries us to the ocean, the world beyond India. For Yoga has definitely come West. There are today tens of millions of Hatha- Yoga practitioners around the world who benefit from this age-old technology of bodily wholeness and personal growth. There are also millions of practitioners of meditation. They enjoy glimpses of the secrets of consciousness and its astonishing capacity to lift itself up by its own bootstraps—that is, to go beyond its own conditioning.
Yet, only a few people deeply and consistently commit themselves to exploring the intricate psychotechnology of the various branches of the Yoga tradition. It is they who are discovering that consciousness, the human body- mind, is a well-equipped laboratory in which can be found, through ecstatic self-transcendence, the philosopher’s stone—the alchemical elixir of enlightenment. Admittedly, not everyone is able to follow their example.
Nonetheless, the tradition of Yoga, for which there are still representative masters to be found, offers a wonderful opportunity to delve into the psychic and spiritual dimensions that our postindustrial civilization has tended to neglect and even shun. We can study the scriptures of Yoga, both ancient and modern, and allow their esoteric knowledge and wisdom to enrich our understanding of human nature. With guidance, we can even try to verify in our own person some of the claims made by Yoga authorities past and present. This should, of course, never be a matter of merely imitating the East, but we can learn from its triumphs and its failures.
Certainly, Yoga deserves far more careful attention from scientists than it has so far been granted. Our modern Western civilization, which now exerts a strong influence in all reaches of the globe, is in desperate need of a psychotechnology that can counterbalance the baneful effects of the excesses of scientific technology and the deficient consciousness that created and developed it. Scientists, who are after all committed to understanding reality, have a special obligation to explore the great intuitions of the spiritual traditions of the East, which vigorously challenge the current scientific view of the world.
The limitations of the materialistic paradigm have become increasingly apparent in the course of the twentieth century. More and more scientists are less and less certain of what it is they are trying to observe, measure, describe, and comprehend. This newly won virtue of uncertainty is a possible open door to a more spacious worldview that also accommodates the psychospiritual aspects of existence. The insights and findings of India’s spiritual traditions, painstakingly gathered over many millennia, can give us a glimpse of what we are likely to find on the other side of the door once present scientific dogmas have been transcended.
Practitioners of such a reformed science will then truly be able to sift reality from fiction, and creative imagination (mythology) from mere wishful thinking.
They will also be in a position to create the new language that is undoubtedly necessary to describe what they will encounter. Above all, they will leam to stand again in awe of the great Mystery of existence and be humbled and transformed by it. This challenge of the spirit confronts us all, and today it confronts us more pressingly than ever before in human history.
Collectively and individually we will definitely have to find our own answers—our own Yoga.
INTRODUCTION
1. The adjective “Vedântic” is derived from the Sanskrit noun vedânta, meaning “Veda’s end” and designating a body of spiritual teachings connected with the Upanishads, which are the concluding portion of the Vedic revelation. According to Vedânta, there is only the one Reality that underlies all finite beings and things, though various schools propose different answers to the question of how the Many is related to that Singularity.
2. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine (Pondicherry, India: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1977), vol. 1, pp. 3-4.
3. K. Wilber, The Atman Project: A Transpersonal View of Human Development (Wheaton, 111.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), p. ix.
4. G. Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics (New York: Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1979), pp. 42-43.
5. J. Lilly, Simûlâtions of God: The Science of Belief
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975), p. 144.
6. R. Tagore, Gîtânjali (New York: Macmillan, 1971), p. 44.
7. See C. Norman, The God That Limps: Science and Technology in the Eighties (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981).
8. F. J. Dyson, Infinite in All Directions (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), p. 270.
9. Bubba [Da] Free John, The Enlightenment of the Whole Body (Middletown, Calif.: Dawn Horse Press, 1978), p. 377.
10. J. N. Sansonese, The Body of Myth: Mythology, Shamanic Trance, and the Sacred Geography of the Body (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 1994) , p. 39.
11. See C. G. Jung, Psychology and the East (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978).
12. We can clearly see the difference in style between, say, the Buddha’s sermons or Patanjali’s Yoga-Sûtra on one side and the hymns of the Rig-Veda on the other. I have explained this in some detail in Wholeness or Transcendence? Ancient Lessons for the Emerging Global Civilization (Burdett, N.Y.: Larson Publications, 1992). For a discussion of the Gebserian model, see my book Structures of Consciousness: The Genius of Jean Gebser—An Introduction and Critique (Lower Lake, Calif.: Integral Publishing, 1987).
PART ONE: FOUNDATIONS
Chapter 1: Building Blocks
1. For a review of this intricate question, see Usharbudh Arya, Yoga-Sûtras of Patanjali, with the Exposition ofVyâsa: A Translation and Commentary, vol. 1: Samâdhi-pâda (Honesdale, Penn.: Himalayan International Institute, 1986), pp. 76ff.
2. See M. Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 77.
3. The words jîva-âtman and parama-âtman are respectively written jivâtman and paramâtman.
4. For a discussion of the Upanishads, see Chapters 5 and 15.
5. For a detailed historical survey of the Hindu pantheon, see S. Bhattacharji, The Indian Theogony: A Comparative Study of Indian Mythology from the Vedas to the Purânas (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1970). See also A. Danielou, Hindu Polytheism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964) and D. and J. Johnson, God and Gods in Hinduism (New Delhi: Amold-Heinemann, 1972).
6. The “fourth” (turya, turîya, or caturtha) is the transcendental Reality beyond the three modalities of consciousness, namely waking, dreaming, and sleeping.
7. According to some researchers, Jesus was educated in Kashmir, but this is mere conjecture. Others maintain, on literary and archaeological grounds, that he retired to Kashmir after surviving his crucifixion. See, e.g., A. Faber-Kaiser, Jesus Died in Kashmir (London: Gorden & Cremonesi, 1977) and H. Kersten, Jesus Lebte in Indien (Munich: Droemersche Verlagsanstalt, 1983).
8. The term yoginî also applies to a member of a group of female deities who are regarded as manifestations of the universal creative energy (shakti); they play an important role in certain schools of Tantrism. The cult of the sixty-four yoginîs dates back to the sixth or seventh century C.E. See H. C. Dâs, Tantricism: A Study of the Yoginî Cult (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1981).
9. M. Eliade, op. cit., p. 5.
10. Ibid., p. 5.
11. Hence the word bhikshu for “monk.”
12. See, e.g., the grammarian Patanjali’s Mahâ-Bhâshya, commenting on Pânini’s Sûtra 2.1.41.
13. See M. P. Pandit, The Kularnava Tantra (Madras: Ganesh, 1965), pp. 98-99. The twelve types of teacher are: (1) dhâtu-vddi-guru, who gives the disciple the elements of practice, (2) candana-guru, who naturally emanates the divine Consciousness like the sandal tree (candana) gives off fragrance, (3) vicâra-guru, who acts upon the disciple’s intelligence and understanding (vicâra), (4) anugraha-guru, who uplifts by mere grace (anugraha), (5) sparsha-guru, whose mere touch is uplifting and liberating, like the touch of the philosopher’s stone (spar- shamani), (6) kacchapa-guru, who uplifts the disciple merely by thinking of him or her, just as the tortoise (kacchapa) nourishes its offspring by thought alone, (7) candra-guru, who promotes the disciple’s welfare like the moon, which has a natural radiation, (8) darpana-guru, who, like a mirror (darpana), reflects the true Self to the disciple, (9) chayd-nidhi-guru, whose mere shadow (chaya) blesses and uplifts the disciple, just like the shadow of the chayanidhi bird is said to bestow kingship upon a person, (10) nâda-nidhi-guru, who transforms the disciple, just like the magical nâdanidhi stone transmutes ordinary metal into gold through sound (nâda), (11) kraunca-pakshi-guru, whose mere remembrance of the disciple bestows liberation upon him or her, just like the kraunca bird nurtures its offspring from a distance, (12) surya- kdnta-guru, whose mere glance is liberating, just like the rays of the sun (surya) bum material when they are gathered in a crystal.
14. See S. Kramrisch, The Presence of Siva (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 57.
15. The term pumams, meaning literally “male,” refers here to the transcendental Self, conceived as the cosmic Man.
16. The word purusha, or “male,” is here employed in the same transcendental sense as the term pumams in the opening stanza.
17. Written sarvatmatva.
18. Shankara affirms here the common Indian notion that God-realization yields not only transcendental autonomy, or “sovereignty” (îshvarat- va), but also “lordship” (aishvarya) over the universe. That is to say, by stepping beyond the universe the enlightened adept becomes its master. These are the eight mahâ-siddhis of Tantrism.
19. The word daksha is meant to explain the name Dakshinamûrti, though it should properly be derived from dakshinâ, signifying “dexterous,” “right,” and “southern.”
20. The prânava is the hummed or nasalized sound om, the greatest Vedic mantra.
21. Consciousness is omnipresent; hence, strictly speaking, it cannot be transmitted. A person’s awareness of its omnipresence can, however, be intensified through the compassionate intervention of a guru or the guru of all gurus, that is, Dakshinamûrti.
22. For an English translation, see Swami Narayânanda, The Guru Gîtâ (Bombay: India Book House, 1976). There are also Guru-Gîtâs attributed to the Rudra-Yâmala and the Brahma-Yâmala, two Tantric scriptures.
23. For an English rendering, see N. Dhargyey et al., Fifty Verses ofGuru-Devotion by Asvaghosa (Dhârâmsala, India: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, rev. ed., 1976).
24. For an English translation of the Shraddhâ-Utpâda-Shâstra (written Shraddhotpadashâstra), see D. T. Suzuki, Asvaghosha’s Awakening of Faith in the Mahâyâna (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1900).
25. Kriyâ-Samgraha-Panjikd, manuscript, p. 5.
26. Chogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala, 1973), p. 58.
27. The crown of the head is the locus of the “thousand-petaled lotus” (sahasra-dala-padma), the seat of Shiva/Shakti.
28. The Kashmiri Shaiva schools distinguish between the following four modes of initiation: (1) anupâya-dîkshâ, or initiation without external means, which is possible in the case of highly evolved practitioners who can attain enlightenment simply by proximity to an enlightened adept; this appears to be identical with the vedha-mayt-dîkshâ; (2) shâmbhavî-dîkshâ, which has been described; (3) shakti-dîkshâ, or initiation by means of the innate power; this seems to be identical with the shakteyt-dîkshâ referred to earlier; (4) ânavî-dîkshâ, or “atomic” initiation, which refers to the individual self called anu in Kashmir’s form of Shaivism; this type of initiation comprises various ritual means and conscious cultivation through Yoga.
29. See, e.g., the Kula-Arnava-Tantra 14.56. All truly great adepts are able to impart the blissful Reality, though whether their gift instantly transforms a disciple’s consciousness depends on the spiritual groundwork done by that disciple.
30. The date of the Mahdnirvâna-Tantra is still disputed. Some scholars place it in the twelfth century C.E., while others see in it a recent fabrication during the British Raj.
31. The most detailed explanation of the enlightened adept’s spontaneous spiritual transmission can be found in the works of the contemp
orary teacher Da Free John (Adi Da), notably in The Method of the Siddhas (Clearlake, Calif.: Dawn Horse Press, 1978).
32. This is verse 69 (or 68 in some editions) of Umâpati’s Shata-Ratna-Samgraha (“Compendium of One Hundred Jewels”). The next verse explains the word dtksha as connoting both “destruction” (kshapana) and “giving” (dana). What is destroyed is the state of “animality” (pashutva), or spiritual blindness, and what is given, by grace, is the supreme condition of Shivahood (shivatva).
33. See G. Feuerstein, Holy Madness: The Shock Tactics and Radical Teachings of Crazy-Wise Adepts, Holy Fools, and Rascal Gurus (New York: Paragon House, 1991).
34. The term tattva means literally “thatness” and can stand for “reality” or “principle,” in this case the ultimate Reality.
35. For an English translation of the Ashtâvakra-Gîtâ, see Swami Nityaswarûpânanda, Ashtâvakra Samhitâ (Mayavati, India: Advaita shrama, 1953). For a critical edition of this work, see R. Hauschild, Die Astavakra-Gîtâ (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1967). For an English rendering of the Avadhûta-Gîtâ, see Swami Ashokânanda (Mylapore, India: Sri Râmakrishna Math, [1977?]).
36. See H. S. Joshi, Origin and Development ofDattâtreya Worship in India (Baroda, India: Maharâja Sayajirao University of Baroda, 1965).
37. Curiously, the eighth chapter of the Avadhûta-Gîtâ attributed to Dattâtreya has a decidedly misogynous tone (and could be a later interpolation).
38. See G. Feuerstein, Holy Madness, and also “The Shadow of the Enlightened Guru,” in R. Walsh and F. Vaughan, eds., Paths Beyond Ego: The Transpersonal Vision (New York: J. P. Tarcher/Perigee, 1993), pp. 147-48.
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