An Introduction to Yoga Philosophy: The “Spiritual” Principles of Yoga Philosophy

This is an introduction to yoga philosophy for beginners.

 

Indian philosophy is generally taught as being comprised of six schools or darśana-s. Darśana means “view”. To view something is always to view it from somewhere. We cannot ever take up a view from everywhere, or a view from nowhere. The systems of Indian philosophy take up different stances on (and thus represent different views of) the experience that you are always having.

 

Yoga is the study of experience itself. Yoga is not the study of some other world/time/place that is outside of the experience you are always already having. Yoga is the study of the experience that you are having right now, which is the basis for all of your thinking, feeling, acting, perceiving—and your identity, your knowledge, your will. The one, single experience that is always happening is the horizon of your experience, and any changes you experience will be changes within this singular experience—the one thing that is going on. Experience is the thing in which (or as which) you exist. Understanding the object of the philosophy of yoga (experience itself, which we could—depending on context—also call awareness/consciousness) an important first step in attempting to understand the spirit of yoga (i.e., living yoga philosophy). This orientation is important to understand even the most basic principles of yoga philosophy. Yogic philosophy is the result of trying to understand the inescapable dimensions of our experience.

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The experience you are having right now tends towards “suffering” of various forms, the most foundational of which is produced by a sense of being incomplete, never “enough” as the self that we are. Instead of investigating this sense of inner lack, we run from it, seeking to secure our identities in the world via attention/security—more money, more fame, more status, more love, more enlightenment, etc.—more recognition. We become trapped in a cycle of running from (or trying to destroy) a sense of inner lack by trying to secure our independent existence in the world. 

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Based on each philosophical system’s stance towards experience, they each make different recommendations about how to achieve freedom from this suffering. Generally speaking, the practices include some form of being able to sit with oneself (if even just to be able to train focused attention) so one can develop the kind of inner stability required to clearly see the truth/solution. (Your existing access to said truth/solution is too wrought with self-interest.) And the “realization” to be made is some version of the fact that your individual existence “belongs” to forces that precede and exceed you. You have never self-existed and could never self-exist, and much of your suffering is the result of trying precisely to self-exist, to rise above (and secure yourself against) the non-optional (and inherited/developed) vulnerabilities of your life.

 

We do this by attempting to add weight to our individual image/existence (sometimes called our “ego”) so we can matter more, so we can feel more “real” and guard against unpredictable occurrences that stimulate our discomfort—so that we never feel compelled to strive for anything ever again. (Or, at the very least, we blend in enough so as to not seem any less real than everyone else.) We become tired of a world that won’t bend to our will. Needing the world to be a certain way because of our own self-insecurity is the source of discontent. And if/when we do manage to re-configure our world in ways we think will make us (finally) less insecure, we don’t feel “cured” because the configuration of the world was never the problem—our insecurity was the problem, and our needing [our insecurity to go away] only reinforced our insecurity (rather than made it go away).

 

The antidote to our suffering is to address the very needing/striving, not by attempting to directly extinguish it, but by bearing direct witness to its many incarnations and to its texture and tone—and then by bearing direct witness to the myriad forces that determine our awareness: the body, society, language, culture, desire, other people, etc.—that is, by becoming self-aware, aware of our “whole” self, so to speak. We discuss this more in our article on a “spiritual” approach to yoga practice(s). Collectively, this content belongs to our guide to yoga and spirituality. 

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This is the section of our guide to spiritual yoga for beginners in which we explore the philosophical foundations of yoga for beginners. Introductory videos on yoga and the philosophy of yoga and articles exploring the principles of yoga philosophy and other yoga teachings/topics can be found below.  Our guide to spiritual yoga for beginners also includes sections on the practice(s) of yoga and how to use the wisdom of yoga to live a more fulfilling and “successful” life (where we consider aspects of our lives related to happiness, such as relationships, career, emotional health, time freedom, meaningful living, etc.). We look forward to adding content on embodiment in yoga (i.e., the “lived” body). In the future, we may add content relevant to such topics as jñāna yoga, bhakti yoga, the saṃkhyakārikā, and the yoga sutras. We will likely not cover philosophies associated with most commonly-known forms of yoga practices, old and new, including tantra yoga practice, kriya yoga practice, hatha yoga practice, ashtanga yoga practice, “vinyasa” yoga practice, “yin” yoga practice, and/or forms of yoga named after particular figures (such as Iyengar yoga practice or Sivananda yoga practice), and/or some of the more ultra-contemporary forms of yoga (such as aerial yoga, acro yoga, power yoga, etc.). We also do not have any content offering metaphysical explanations of the yogic body (or the tantric body), including the chakras, koshas, nadis, etc., and/or the therapeutic practices involving the physical body (and/or metaphysical body), including using yoga practices to improve/master one’s physical body (or metaphysical body).