America as a community of shared values is broken.
By Doug Keller
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America as a community of shared values is broken.
It is as broken as it was back when half the country fervently believed it was morally justified and economically necessary - i.e. profitable - that human beings be enslaved. And the atrocity of enslavement was justified by deeming the enslaved less than human.
This is not about politics.
We just saw people from opposite ends of the political spectrum join together to warn against the choice being made, not on the basis of policy, but of fundamental values — which included focus on the character and instability of the person in question.
They explicitly put shared values over politics.
They were not only ignored, but vilified, complete with musings and fantasies about violence against them.
Politics happens within a diverse community joined in shared values. This election was a resounding rejection of shared values, and thus a rejection of community.
Until the consequences of this dawn upon the majority who made this choice, we are left to coalesce within communities that reaffirm our conscience, sense of self, and values.
Yoga is such a community.
It has long been difficult to define just what yoga ‘is,’ particularly when the focus was upon practices - ‘poses’ and breath practices, and so on. That was always a tenuous basis for identifying just what it is that we ‘do,’ especially when there is so much cross-pollination between disciplines of physical training, dance, gymnastics and so on, and there always has been.
Yoga is not even defined by its goal, since descriptions of the ‘goal’ of yoga vary.
There has nevertheless been a basic bedrock identification of values that unite those practicing yoga as a community.
The most familiar are the short list summarized by Patanjali that uphold nonviolence, truth, and a respect for personal boundaries that precludes stealing, jealousy and envy, and sexual manipulation, harm, and abuse. The reasoning for these values varies (Patanjali was inwardly focused on reducing the ‘Kleshas,’ but his reasoning was nevertheless valid. But the values are the same, and are not distinctively ‘religious’ values or relative to culture. They are universal to any who live in community as well as to those seeking inner peace.
What was missing from Patanjali was a sense of wider community; but that emphasis upon community based in ‘equal vision’ was amply filled in by the other, especially later, philosophies of yoga. Seeing your own self in others and honoring that with respect and dignity according to the same values of eschewing violence and violent speech, honoring and exemplifying truthfulness, and respect for selfhood by not taking from others or harboring enmity out of jealousy, or manipulating others for your own profit or pleasure.
To practice and teach yoga is to reaffirm those values as a community.
Those who find exceptions with regard to those values are not excluded from participating in the practice or in classes, in hopes that by improving their well-being, an expanded awareness of the humanity enshrined in these values might be awakened or nurtured within those who join.
But to practice and teach yoga is to affirm and reaffirm those values in word and deed, quite clearly and unequivocally. Those who take exception to that, given their other allegiances, are not doing ‘yoga,’ whatever it is that they are doing or claiming to do.
And while the foundation is equal vision of our humanity and respect for the individual, that does NOT include tolerance of intolerance. At all. To reject or take exception to those values, especially when it leads to the harm of others, is intolerance. The rejection of intolerance is not a form of intolerance, and no one should be gaslighted into thinking otherwise.
Whatever has been said in the past, America is not a community of shared values right now. That was made abundantly clear by those who actively chose the person who successfully ran on lies, hate, exclusion, and aggression. A majority looked that straight in the face and CHOSE that. A rejection of community, truth, and a clear threat against peace.
Within the very trying context of being in a country in which that choice was just made, we can, must, and should coalesce within communities that affirm the values of our humanity.
Not ‘tribes.’
Communities.
And yoga is one such community, and can and should present and reaffirm itself as such, bound by shared fundamental values.
The biggest obstacle to humanity is the mind, which can easily be broken, leading to the abandonment of values, and ultimately of humanity itself.
We have been warned of that. And the truth of that warning has just been reaffirmed.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
DOUG KELLER is a visiting American teacher that will be teaching in November 2024 at Yoga Moves. He has written many books, is an exceptional therepeutic yogi, and philosopher and, as you can see - has a vibrant view of the intersection of politics, community and yoga.
