Applied Yoga

The ancient sages believed that thinking was at least as important as Downward-Facing Dog in reaching our full human potential.

By Douglas Brooks

As Mr. Spock might say, it's not only what we think and feel that transforms our lives; thinking clearly and effectively is itself transformative. As the renowned sixth-century Buddhist philosopher Jnanagarbha went so far as to say, "Reason is ultimate." By this he meant that logic is essential in creating the highest yogic experience. Logic and intellectual cultivation are this important because we all can do it and we all must do it. We can't really function in the world without it.

The Need for Philosophy
Like the student who was surprised to hear me cite Mr. Spock as a half-exemplary yogi, some yoga practitioners seem to believe that being logical somehow blocks us from more direct, personal levels of experience. Certainly yoga has always taught that there is more to us than logical truths. Yet the great yoga masters never suggest that transcending logical boundaries means forsaking logic itself. Thinking and expressing ourselves rationally isn't a liability that somehow prevents us from going more deeply into our emotions or ourselves. In fact, being able to give a logical, coherent account of one's deepest experience has always been considered a vital part of a yogi's development. We cannot hope to reach our full potential without developing effective practices based on sound thinking.

The importance of yoga philosophy is actually part of yoga's emphasis on practicality, which historically has meant that yogis prefer results they can measure one way or another and also that people are held accountable for their claims of experience. Failure to give a persuasive account means you are describing an experience that we can't share or one that you yourself don't fully understand. If your experience is so overly personal that it is just yours, if your account fails to convey a deeper, common human experience, what good is it to the rest of us? Yoga traditionalists are pragmatic. They insist that we make sense of our experience. This emphasis on clarity as well as accountability has resulted in texts and teachings that continue to inspire and guide us today.

The Purposes of Yoga
Although the ancient yoga masters taught that we must integrate minds and hearts and be able to give a full account of our thoughts and feelings, we might ask ourselves if this requirement is still relevant to our practice. Our answer depends on what we think yoga is for, what purpose it serves in our lives. Do we practice yoga primarily for physical exercise? Or do we practice yoga for more spiritual reasons? The ancients created the paths of yoga because they believed these were the best ways, indeed the only ways, to realize our full human potential. No one makes this any clearer than Patanjali, the second-century author of the Yoga Sutra.

Patanjali states that yoga has two distinct purposes or goals. In Chapter II, verse 2 of the Yoga Sutra, he states that yoga's "purpose or goal is to cultivate the experience of equanimity [samadhi]" and "to unravel the causes of negativity." Patanjali tells us, in effect, that yoga will help us figure out and eradicate the reasons why we suffer, even as it leads us to feel the deepest of human experiences.

Because Patanjali describes yoga's two distinct projects-cultivating true equanimity and unraveling the causes of negativities-he suggests that yoga creates two different but yet connected results. A practice that leads to deeper equanimity empowers us to bring our joy to others as well as to ourselves. In this way, we become free to act for a higher purpose. (At the same time, we need to uncover the causes of negative experiences so that we learn to avoid them and thus to become more free from the sources of negativity.)

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