Inspiration and Expiration: Yoga Practice through Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of the Body Author(s): James Morley Source: Philosophy

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INSPIRATION AND EXPIRATION:YOGA PRACTICE THROUGH MERLEAU-PONTY'S PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE BODY

JamesMorley in Psychology,The AmericanInternational SeniorLecturer Universityin London

Introduction of the yoga practiceof pranayama Thisessay offersan interpretation (breathcontrol) that is influenced by the existential phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. My approachto yoga will be less concerned with a comparisonbetween MerleauPonty'sthoughtand the texts of classical yoga than with the elucidationof the actual experience of breath control through the constructsprovided by Merleau-Ponty's philosophyof the lived body. The academic discussion of yoga can answer certain pedagogical goals, but it can never finally be severed from doing yoga. Academic discoursethat is centered entirelyon the theoreticalconcepts of yoga philosophies must to some extent remain incomplete. Patanjali'sYogaSutrasis itself a manual of practice. It is for this reason that I have chosen to take as the basis of my study T.K.V.Desikachar,ratherthan a more the commentaryof the scholar-practitioner exclusively theoreticalcommentary.In so doing, I have approachedyoga as an experience or phenomenon, and not only in the context of a series of academic debates. While comparisonshave been made between yoga and phenomenology,these studies have taken a differentdirectionfrom the presentstudy. Earlier comparative studies have been concerned with the thought of Merleau-Ponty's philosophical predecessor, Edmund Husserl, and the consonance between the transcendental aspects of his earlierthoughtand thatof the more idealistschools of classical yoga.1 While I will not contest the validity of these comparisons, I wish to offer another perspectiveon the yoga-phenomenologycomparisonthat is less idealisticor transcendental and more existentialor concrete in orientation.Thus, I shall distinguish existentialfromtranscendental phenomenologyand then proceed to show how this other version of phenomenology can make a fruitfulcontributiontoward providing a frameworkfrom within the Western philosophical traditionfor understanding the practiceof yoga, just as transcendental phenomenology has alreadyprovideda means for establishinga common conceptual ground. between ClassicalYogaConcepts Summaryof ConceptualConcurrences and Transcendental Phenomenology Phenomenologyin general seeks to comprehendthe perceived or lived world prior to metaphysicalcategorizations.This is made possible by a method of radical re-

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flection that is widely known as the "phenomenologicalreduction"or epoche, perhaps best explained as an absolute suspensionof belief, doubt, or any kind of precomparative suppositionabout the existence of the world and its objects. Earlier studies of yoga and phenomenology have rightlystressedthis particular aspect of out in Husserl's transcendental as first set early approach, converphenomenology, show a gent with yogic meditativepractices.Certainaspects of the yoga literature consonance with the epoche of transcendentalphenomenology;this is especially evident in Patanjali's where the Sanskrit term nirodahacan be shown to YogaSutras of yoga, "chittavritti approachclosely Husserl'sepoche. Pataijali'sclassic summary of the fluctuanirodaha,"roughlytranslatesas "Yoga is the suspension (nirodaha) of thought (chitta)." is tions (vritti) nirodaha a meditation Thus, rigorous technique the goal of which is a purifiedperception (purusa)untaintedby mental conditioning or habits such as present passions, futuredesires, or past impressions(karma). Nirodahais the routeto attaininga pureconsciousness (samadhi), which lies beyond the psychological mind (chitta)and envelopes the division between perceiverand perceived.2As pure, self-evidentknowledge, samadhican only be occupied by the but neverdescribed,forto do so would be to turnthe experience into an practitioner and hence distortits meaning. object In a remarkably similarmanner,Husserldistinguishesthe "hidden 'I"' of transcendental subjectivityfrom the psychological ego that is still immersed within the subject-object bifurcation.3Like Patanjali,he advocates a transformation of the mental structuresthat inhibit clear perception in order to develop a reflexive "witnessconsciousness"towardour own process of perceivingthe world. Builtinto both theories is the ideal of a pure consciousness that remainsas a residue of this methodologicalcleansing process: an a priorior pure subjectivitydistinctfrom an externalobjective world. Existential of PureSubjectivity Phenomenology:TheCritique "Existential" phenomenology appeared through Heidegger'scritique of the metadualism cast in binaryopposiphysical implicitin the idea of a "puresubjectivity" in tion to a "puremateriality."4 the convention Western Rejecting thoughtto thinkin termsof binaryantonyms,Heideggerassertedthatthere can be no subjectivity apart fromthe world, or, to put it anotherway: it is the relationbetween subjectand world that is priorto their categorical division. Individualhuman beings are immersed within and arise out of existence generally. Heidegger'sconcept of dasein (literally is that of a historically "there-being"), typically translatedas "being-in-the-world," situatedexistence that is aware of itselfas existing in a finite temporalhorizon,that is, towarddeath. As a developmentaway from Husserl'searlierphenomenologyof transcendentalsubjectivity,Heidegger'sdasein is always already "in and of" the world. Hence, in existential phenomenology, human existence is adhered to the nor an externality,neithersubject nor object, but a spaworld, neitheran internality contributionwas to tighten the concept of tiotemporalopenness. Merleau-Ponty's dasein throughan existential-phenomenological of the humanbody.5 rehabilitation

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Merleau-Ponty's Conception of the Lived Body

than a Buildingon Heidegger'srevisionof subjectivityas a self-worldrelationrather focused on the "zero point" of consciousness apartfromthe world, Merleau-Ponty this relation: the lived body is this relation,which he shows to be the pre-categorical ground sought by Husserland Heidegger,that crosses subjectivityand objectivity. Merleau-Ponty highlightshumansensoryexperience as emblematicof metaphysical such as subject and object or interiority and exteriority.His term sens antonyms connotes both "sense experience" and "meaning."The lived body, in contrastto the medical or physical body, grounds personal life as well as the impersonalor "Now we mustthinkof the objective dimensionof natureof which it is a participant. human body ... as that which perceives naturewhich it also inhabits."6 The lived body is the embodied consciousness, a nexus between the twin roles of the active agent of perceptionand the passive object of perceptionby others.The nexus may not be separated into subject and object or self and world, but is an irreducible foundation. Althoughwe will remain with the term "lived body" for the purposes of this essay, it should be mentioned here that in his final work, The Visibleand the Invisible, Merleau-Ponty adopts the term "flesh" to express the continuitybetween the surfaceand depth of the world and that of the body. The "lived body" of the earlier or elemental writingsis recastas "flesh" in the laterwork, to capture its primordial character.Flesh contains the ambiguous interplaybetween subject and object, innew phrase "flesh-of-the-world" ternal and external. Merleau-Ponty's deliberately the where term replaces Heiddeger's"being-in-the-world," philosophical "being"is not only laden with centuries of traditionbut is itself an abstractand overly intellectualized term. "Flesh,"on the other hand, betterserves Merleau-Ponty's goal of bringingphilosophy "down to earth";7it capturesthe intimate,personal,embodied characterof human life. To Merleau-Ponty, flesh is a way of describingnot only the but the basic substance of the world. then describingthe body in terms Rather body, of inanimate materialelements, he turns convention around to view the external world in termsof the body's elemental corporeality.8 Where "body"could suggesta "flesh" better an (chair) complex system, expresses elemental, raw dimensionthat is a crossingpoint between subject and object, body and world. TheLivedBody and Yoga A concept of the lived body, which refusessubject-objectdistinctions,is especially relevantfor the experience of yoga. Yoga not only affirmsthe existence of the externalworld, but employs the perceptualrelationbetween the self and the world as the means of meditationpractice.Controlof the body is equated with the masteryof externalnature,and this control is achieved throughfocusing the senses. The focus on sense experience grants primacy to the body. The body is understood as a microcosm of the external universe, or, in Eliade'sterms, the goal of yoga is to achieve a cosmic "homology"between the body and the world.9 Breathcontrol is

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the emblem or mastermetaphorof this goal.10The centralplace of the body in the thesis of the theoryand practiceof yoga suggestsa comparisonwith Merleau-Ponty's of the and could serve as a of mutual clarification. primacy body point Our habitual tendency, in our awareness of our bodies, is to separate the "outer"body in contact with the externalworld fromthe "inner"body-that which we carry around inside ourselves. Such a separationtends to an alienation that we habituallyexperience in relationto our bodies. The objects of external sense become the focus of our experience, so that we tend to privilegethat aspect of our body that is accessible to the external-observer perspective.We thinkof ourselvesin termsof our mirrorimages, that is, as images observablefrom an externalpoint of view. Correspondingly, our perception is alienated from the sentient mass of our or bodies, which is relegatedto the marginsof our ordinaryexperience. Pranayama, breathcontrol, integralto the practiceof yoga, prevailsagainstthis alienation:it is the concrete experience of the body as a relationbetween inside and outside. To breathe is to pull external air into ourselves and rhythmically to release outward somethingof ourselves.Thissimple experience, so common to us all, is broughtinto focus by yoga practice. is invertedperception,the perceptionof the deep tissues of the Proprioception body, of enclosed or encircled corporealspace. When we fall ill or experience extraordinary body sensations,perceptionbecomes directedto the source of discomfort. Ill health makes us acutely aware of our potentialfor perceptualinversionperceptiondirected inwardto the hollow of the body, ratherthan outwardto the world. Unfortunately, in the case of illness, this is such an unpleasantexperience that we tend to "depersonalize"our bodies, distance ourselves or "defend" ourselves from the traumaof pain. The yogic practice of pranayama,on the contrary, outside the context of illness. Throughthe practiceof posgives us proprioception tures (asana)togetherwith pranaya-ma, we develop an invertedsense of our muscles, heart and cavities. We come to live the opening and closing of tendons, valves, lung these corporealzones as we do with externalvisible limbs. We experience the expansionof the chest in inhalation,the quickenedtempo of the heart,and the blood's flow throughthe course of the arteries.We incorporate the autonomic nervoussystem into the realm of the voluntary.We note how the lungs change tide between contractionas expirationmoves outwardonly breaths,and the movementof interior to pause between breathsbefore beginningthe cycle again. Inthe context of asanawe focus only on breathingrhythms; we take up what is involuntary and pranayama appropriateit into what Husserl would call "the sphere of ownness."11 In psychoanalytic languagewe "cathect,"occupy, or inhabit,the corporealspace that is otherwise habituallyrelegatedto the zone of external nature.I am made aware of the body, habituallyexperienced as an "outer body" in contact with the external world, as being also an "inner body," not just occupying physical space, but as inhabited,psychical space. The experience of pranayamapoints us to a central aspect of Merleau-Ponty's and exteriority. philosophy of the lived body, that is, his explication of interiority Used conventionally,terms like "outside" and "inside" are inimical to Merleau-

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Ponty'sprojectof collapsing the subject-objectdistinctions,that is, to the view that the body and the world are a continuum:"whereare we to put the limitbetween the body and the world, since the world is flesh?"12"Outside"and "inside" seem to world imply the exactly rigid demarcationbetween the thing and the surrounding that Merleau-Pontyis arguing against. At the same time, the terms "inside" and "outside" become semantically necessary when we engage with the body's spatiality. Merleau-Ponty's descriptivelanguage of spatiality,depth, or dimension surmounts this difficultyby framinginteriority and exteriorityin a way that is distinct fromthe Newtonianconcept of abstractspace, which is purgedof subjectivity. In traditional philosophy,space is used in relationto inorganicmatter,and not, as Merleau-Ponty uses it, to understand the experientiallyfullspace of sentientflesh. focus on the human body as a mass of consciously occupied flesh Merleau-Ponty's recasts the meaning of space. Mass is the continuum of interiorand exteriorthat defines human embodiment. The enclosed space of the body is, almost in yogic terms, a homology with and microcosm of the world. This is exemplified in the phenomenonof sight.The perceivingor sentientbody bringsobjects into visibilityas much as it is itselfbroughtinto visibilityby the seeing power of othersentientbeings. Thus, the active power of seeing is also interwovenwith one's passive enclosure within the world of visible things. Yet, to see a visible world is also to maintaina distance. Seeing and being seen are not collapsed into one another. It is thatthe thickness of the fleshbetweenthe seerandthe thingis constitutive forthe Itis forthe samereason as forthe seerof hiscorporeity.... thatI am thingof itsvisibility andis thereby of thevisibleandthatIamfarfromit:becauseit hasthickness at the heart destined to be seen as a body.'3 naturally uses the words "thickness"and "corporeity" as synonymsfor Here, Merleau-Ponty "The of the far thickness body space. He continues: body, from rivallingthat of the world, is on the contrarythe sole means I have to go into the heartof the things, by makingmyselfa world and makingthem flesh."14The concept of "flesh"expresses, crucially,the idea of differencewithin identity.As much as the surfaceof my body me fromthe objects aroundme, this differentiation differentiates is what also permits an empathy with the surface of the objects. So it is with depth: my body's spatial as an occupied, or inhabitedclosure is itselfthe means throughwhich configuration I apprehendthe depth of the objects and entities aroundme as co-enclosures. Corporeity, then, is not matterin the Newtonian sense, but is closer to the traditional concept of "element"-earth, air, fire, and water, which combine qualitywith substance. The body, not seen as matter,but as an exemplarsensible, allows the "outside" to be drawn entirelywithin it: "In any case, once a body-worldrelationship of my body and a ramification is recognized,there is a ramification of my world and a correspondence between its inside and my outside, between my inside and its
outside."15

and exteriorityis immediatelyrelevant Merleau-Ponty's explicationof interiority to the practiceof pranayama, throughwhich we experience exactly this corresponhis use of the metaphorof breathingto explain the self-worldredence. Strikingly,

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In his last publishedpaper, lation applies preciselyto the experience of pranayaima. he of and "We and Mind," writes, speak 'inspiration' the word should be taken "Eye and an expirationof Being...."16 literally.Therereallyis an inspiration Yogaand Reversibility To graspfully the natureof corporeityas a relationof inside and outside, we must turn to Merleau-Ponty's appropriationof gestalt psychology's conception of the The dynamic. figure-ground gestalt psychologistsposit that all perception is bound within certain perceptuallaws, the most primarybeing that of field phenomena or the figure-ground. We focus on an object at the cost of losing our focus on its This background. background,however, never disappears.In fact, it sustains the formof the object. The backgroundis presentthroughholdingthe object or offering the field throughwhich it may come into focus. Visibility is possible through its invisiblefield. The important of figureand ground is point here is that the structure itselfa totality.Moreover, this totalitycan invert: we can switch,or reverse,the figure and groundback and forthat will. Reversibility is at the heartof the figure-ground relationand is fundamentalto Merleau-Ponty's philosophicalproject;in particular, it is intrinsicto his understandingof the self-world relation. There is a "correspondence between" my body's inside and the outside of the world and, reversibly, between the interiority of the world and my body's exterior."If one wants metait would be better to say thatthe body sensed and the body sentientare as the phors, obverse and reverse... ."17 Thus,there is a reversiblerelationbetween the body as it actively senses and the body as it is passivelysensed by, the life aroundit; MerleauPonty takes from Husserl the term "interwoven" (verflockten)and "within one another"(ineinander) to preservethe distinctionbetween sensing and being sensed while also maintaining the mutuallyconstitutiverelationbetween these active and passive aspects of the humanbody. The notion of reversibility, of the active and passive aspects of the humanbody as co-constitutive,may be seen to underlie Desikachar'sdescriptionof yoga practice. In his manual The Heartof Yoga:Developing a PersonalPractice,Desikachar asks the practitioner to recallthat "yoga is the practiceof observingoneself without and he as "somethingwe experigoes on to define yoga informally judgement,"18 ence inside, deep within our being. Yoga is not an externalexperience."19It is disbeforean audience because "We do it only for tinguishedfromotherartsperformed ourselves. We are both observerand what is observedat the same time. Ifwe do not pay attentionto ourselves in our practice, then we cannot call it yoga" (emphasis mine).20The state of yoga is described by Desikachar in terms not only of the observing "witness consciousness" but also of "what is observed."The identityof the practitioner is not extractedfromthe observablebut is experienced as a totality thatjoins the observerand the observed. In a working note to The Visibleand the Invisible,Merleau-Ponty writes, "The true philosophy" is to "apprehendwhat makes the leaving of oneself be a retiring into oneself, and vice versa. Graspthis chiasm, this reversal.That is the mind."21

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In much the same vein, Desikachar observes, commenting on Yoga Sutra 1.12, "The state of yoga is achieved by simultaneouslystriving(abhyasa)and lettinggo The yogic technique of pratyahara, translatedby Desikacharas "to (vairagya)."22 withdrawoneself fromthat which nourishesthe senses," lends itselfto comparison to the figure-ground thesis. "While the termpraprocess centralto Merleau-Ponty's in construed terms of in is we withdrawal, tyahara literally practisingpratyahara, concentrateon one sense object (of any sense) to exclude external distractionsor one develops an ability to push them into the background."Throughpratyahara in a switch between terms, gestalt perform, figure-ground general world and single In the relation,deliberatelyadopted by the practitioner, object. figure-ground any will of focus do (such as an image or sound) but breath is the most parapoint digmatic point of focus. In breath extension, I focus on breath to put the rest of the perceived world into the background.But in yoga I paradoxicallywithdraw my senses to achieve control over my sensory processes: I diminish my senses to strengthenthem. My perception becomes heightened once I learn to withdraw perception.The classical yoga traditioncalls this ekagrataor "one pointedness"to describe this yogic concentration.Once accomplished, concentrationis held and sustained(dharana) by holdingthe point of focus, and a linkor relationis developed between self and object; this is meditationproper (dhyana).The subject engages with the point of focus until he or she is joined with and assumesthe positionof the point of focus (samadhi). Conclusion At the beginning of this essay, I offered a brief summaryof how the goal of yoga practice, pure consciousness or samadhi, may be approachedtheoreticallythrough Husserl'stranscendentalphenomenology. Specifically, I mentioned the theoretical convergence between the concept of samadhi and Husserl'sconcept of transcendental subjectivity.But when consideringthe concrete yoga practices requiredfor the attainmentof samadhi,the key practice,pranayama, the body in a foregrounds which has manner not sufficientlyacknowledged in Husserl'stranscendentalism, hithertobeen the sole basis for the comparisonof yoga and phenomenology. In this context, without rejectingHusserl,we might productivelyturn to Merleau-Ponty's Merleaudevelopmentof Husserl'slateramendmentsof his own transcendentalism. of existential with its the lived manifests key concept Ponty's body, phenomenology, a concurrencewith yoga practicethattakes greateraccount of the centralrole of the and exteriorityand his thesis of body in that practice. His explication of interiority resonate with the reversibility phenomenologicaldescriptionsof yoga as exemplified in the writings of the scholar-practitioner, T.K.V.Desikachar.The significance or value of the comparisonbetween Merleau-Ponty's thought and yoga is not that it framework for an established nonto a Western attempts impose philosophical Westerntradition: such an attemptwould do less than justice to the integrity of the I yoga tradition.Rather, hope to establish, even throughthis brief study, that yoga is an importantresource for phenomenologistsundertaking future research in the

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namely to bring Western thought ongoing project prescribedby Merleau-Ponty: "down to earth"by focusing on the lived human body as philosophicaland psychological ground. Notes I wish to thankthe National Institute of Advanced Studies,Bangalore,India,for the researchfellowshipthat enabled me to begin this essay. Thanksare particularly due for many prolongedand enjoyable academic discussions. to Dr. SundarSarukkai A version of this paper was published in the newsletterof The Transpersonal Psychology Review. This was without the author'sknowledge or permissionand after the author had grantedcopyrightto Universityof Hawai'i Pressfor publicationin -PhilosophyEastand West. 1 - See A. Paranjpeand K. Hanson, "On Dealing with the Streamof Consciousness: A Comparisonof Husserland Yoga," in Asian Contributions to PsycholAnand ed. C. Y. F. David W. Rieber(New York: Ho, and Robert Paranjpe, ogy, PraegerPublishers,1988), pp. 215-231; R. Puligandla,"Phenomenological Reductionand Yogic Meditation,"PhilosophyEastand West 20 (1) (January 1970): 19-33; and Ramakant Sinari,"The Method of PhenomenologicalReduction and Yoga," PhilosophyEastand West 15 (3-4) (July-October1965): 217-228. All of the above focus exclusively on the earlywritingsof Husserlas the point of comparisonbetween phenomenologyand Patahjali'sYogaSutras. 2 - See lan Whicher,"Nirodaha, of the Mind," Yoga Praxisand the Transformation in Journalof IndianPhilosophy25 (1997): 1-67. Whicher providesa detailed etymological and philosophical analysis of the term nirodaha. In brief, he claims the conventional translationof nirodahaas "stoppingthe mind" does not do justiceto the subtletyof the termand to yoga philosophyand practicein general. 3 - EdmundHusserl,"Phenomenology,"in EncyclopaediaBritannica (1951), vol. 17, p. 701. 4 - In Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrieand Edward Robinson (New York:Harperand Row; San Francisco:HarperSanFrancisco, 1962). 5 - Inthe less-knowntext of IdeasII,which was only publishedin Germanin 1951 and translatedinto Englishin 1989, we can see how Husserlhimselfbegan to focus on the lived body. He states that every object, real or imagined, is in some kind of spatiotemporal orientation to the perceiver'sbody. Only through the body does the world become real:"all that is thingly real in the surroundHusserl,Ideaspering world of the ego has its relationto the body" (Edmund a to Pure a and to taining Phenomenology PhenomenologicalPhilosophy,2d trans.RichardRojcewicz book, Studiesin the Phenomenologyof Constitution,

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and Andre Schuwer [Dordrechtand Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989], p. 61). He even goes so far as to say: "Furthermore, obviously connected with this is the distinctionthe body acquires as the bearerof the zero point of orientation,the bearerof the here and now, out of which the pure ego intuitsspace and the whole world of the senses. Thus each thing that appears has eo ipso an orientingrelationto the body, and this refersnot only to what actuallyappearsbut to each thingthat is supposedto be able to appear"(ibid., p. 61). Thus for the later Husserl,even a fantasyexists in relationto the corporeal "zero point," which is "the bearerof the here and now." Fromthis we can see how Husserlwas moving in a direction,which was only extended by Merleau-Ponty, groundedon corporealexperience and not the transcendental ego that is the basis of the comparativestudies cited above. 6 - Maurice Merleau-Ponty,Themesfrom the Lecturesat the College de France: 1952-1960, trans. John O'Neill (1968; Evanston:NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1970), p. 128. See also M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenologyof Percepand Smith London: trans. Colin tion, (1945; Routledge KeganPaul, 1962). 7 - MauriceMerleau-Ponty, The Primacyof Perceptionand Other Essayson Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History,and Politics, ed. Northwestern with an introd.JamesM. Edie(Evanston: UniversityPress,1964), p. 13. 8 - Merleau-Ponty's reversalof convention here is akin to Kant'sreversalof emin his famous premise,"supposethat objects mustconform convention piricist to our knowledge" (1781; ImmanuelKant,The Critiqueof PureReason,trans. with an introd.NormanKempSmith[New York:Macmillan,1929], p. 22). and Freedom,trans.Willard R. Trask(1954; 9 - Mircea Eliade, Yoga:Immortality Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1969), p. 97. Eliade'sscholarly discussion of hathayoga and tantrismis especially helpful(pp. 200-273). 10 - YogaSutra2.49-55. The standardacademic translationis by JamesHaughton Woods, The Yoga-systemof Pataijali: Or, The Ancient Hindu Doctrine of of Mind, Embracing the Mnemonic Rules,Called Yoga-sutras, Concentration of
Patainjali..., Harvard Oriental Series, vol. 17 (Cambridge: Harvard University

MotilalBanarsidass, in 1966). A more recenttranslation Press,1914; Varanasi: a popular style is by Barbara Stoler Miller, Yoga:Discipline of Freedom:The A Translation to Patanjali: of the Text,with Commentary, Yoga SutraAttributed of and Introduction, Glossary Keywords(Berkeley:Universityof California Press, 1996). The translationI have preferred,with a commentarydirected toward practiceand rooted in a living yoga tradition,is Patanijali's Yogasutras: An Introduction, trans. and comment. T.K.V.Desikachar(Madras:Affiliated East-West Pressin associationwith Rupaand Co., 1987). 11 - Edmund Husserl, CartesianMeditations,trans. Dorian Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,1977), pp. 92-99.

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12 - M. Merleau-Ponty, The Visibleand the Invisible:Followedby Working Notes, ed. Claude Lefort and trans.Alphonso Lingis(Evanston: Northwestern UniverLe Visibleet l'lnvisible: sity Press, 1968), p. 138. Also see M. Merleau-Ponty, Suivi de Notes de Travail,ed. Claude Lefort (Paris: Gallimard,1964). The Visibleand the Invisible,p. 135. 13 - Merleau-Ponty,
14- Ibid.

15- Ibid.,p. 136 n. 16 - Merleau-Ponty, Primacyof Perception,p. 167. 17 - Merleau-Ponty, The Visibleand the Invisible,p. 138. 18 - T.K.V.Desikachar,The Heartof Yoga:Developing a PersonalPractice(Rochester, Vermont:InnerTraditions International, 1995), p. 23. 19- Ibid.
20 - Ibid.

21 - Merleau-Ponty, The Visibleand the Invisible,p. 199. 22 - Desikachar,TheHeartof Yoga,p. 113 n.

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