YOGA AND ECOLOGY

BY GEORG FEUERSTEIN
© 2021, Brenda Feuerstein
First Published in The Yoga Review Vol. III No. 4, 1983

All right reserved. Full or partial reproduction requires written permission from the copyright
holder.

Traditional Yoga Studies

www.traditionalyogstudies.com
 1. De ning ‘Yoga’

Both Yoga and Ecology have each a spectrum of meanings which make it essential to specify
how precisely these two concepts are used here. By Yoga, then, I mean all those minor and
major spiritual traditions of India which go by that name and whose central objective is the
radical transformation of human nature, on the level of consciousness, of social interaction and,
as in Hathayoga, even on the purely somatic level. How this transformation is envisaged and
effected, and how the ultimate target is conceived, varies from on tradition to another. Suf ce it
to say that there is considerable divergency of means and ends. Common to all these yogic
schools of thought are at least four fundamental premises:

(1) the ordinary human nature is in some way inadequate, unsatisfactory, i.e. we live well
below our potential
(2) the human condition as we know it can be changed;
(3) the direction of such a change is towards greater self–actualization, or the realization of
our human potential;
(4) this transmutation can actively be promoted by means of the battery of techniques and
attitudes which form the life–blood of Yoga.

Let us examine these traditional propositions more closely. Yoga ideology—be it of the dualist
calibre (as in Patañjali’s school) or of the non-dualist type (as represented, for example, by the
so-called Yoga-Upanishads but also by the pre–classical traditions)—hinges on the profound
insight that existence is essentially ‘sorrowful’. The axiom, found in the Yoga-Sūtra chapter 2,
15), that “all is but sorrow” (duḥkham-eva sarvaṁ) is shared by all orthodox and heterodox
systems in Indian philosophy, with the exception of the materialists.

Already the upaniṣadic sages of the pre–Buddhist period searched for that reality which is
beyond hunger and thirst, beyond grief, delusion, decay, and death (see for example
Brhadāraṇyaka
̥ Upaniṣad III. 5.1). Later, the Buddha made the actuality of omnipresent suffering
the very rst of his four noble truths which constitute the corner–stone of his teachings, and his
contemporary Mahāvīra, the great tīrthaṅkara of Jainism, taught the very same valve. We read
identical exclamations in the great pic, the Purāṇas, Śaiva Āgamas, Vaiṣṇava Saṃhitās, the
Śāstras and Tantras and other sectarian works, and there are probably few scriptures in which
the inescapable reality of duḥkha is not forcefully driven home.

This, together with the evidently ever–present tendency throughout the long history of Indian
civilization, to renounce the world in favour of spiritual pursuits, has led some scholars, notably
the in uential Arthur Schopenhauer and then Albert Schweitzer, to summarily stamp Indian
thought as pessimistic. Though few students of Indian culture nowadays would subscribe to this
entirely mistaken view, it is still echoed among the educated elite of the west, not infrequently
accompanied by the biting remark about India’s economic problems.
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 The naïveté of this prejudice becomes readily apparent when on reads, as one ought to, the
duḥkha axiom in conjunction with the second proposition which clearly af rms that the intrinsic
precariousness of the human condition is remediable, and as is implied by the subsequent
assertions, that is in fact fully remediable. What greater optimism can there possibly be than the
positive conviction that Man can recover his authentic being despite, or perhaps because of, the
utter unsatisfactoriness of life on earth? Far from draining man’s energies and turning him into a
powerless puppet of destiny, duḥkha—not unlike Christian philosophy—is more like a thorn
which aches one until it is removed. “That which is to be overcome”, says Patañjali, “is sorrow
yet to come”1, thereby re-stating the Buddha’s third truth of the cessation of suffering.

Since sorrow, is, by de nition, co-essential with nite and transient existence, the elimination of
duḥkha necessarily must somehow entail the establishment or making evident of an alternative
reality which is non- nite (in nite) and non-transient (permanent). Yoga, as indeed all other
darśanas, readily concedes to this logical conclusion. Duḥkha is effectively suspended when it
is superceded by the bliss (ānanda) of Self–realization, to use the nomenclature of vedāntic
Yoga. Not withstanding that in Classical Yoga the ultimately Real is not characterized as
Existence – Consciousness – Bliss, the obliteration of sorrow, which is the simultaneous
eradication of ordinary space-time cognition, is nonetheless considered equivalent to Self-
actualization (or purusa-jdnāna).

Whichever way the Self’s relation to the world and the transcendental ground of the world is
conceptualized, it constitutes the very essence of Man and as such is the precise antipode to
the empirical world-bound self caught in the meshes of space, and time, and sorrow. The Self,
announces Yājñavalkya, never suffers and is never injured.2 It is that which is beyond all fear.

Yet, how is the transition from the nite reality to the In nite, from self to Self, effected? Clearly,
no outer journey is involved. The problem is one of cognition, and the battle eld is the
kuruksetra of the mind. Śaṅkara’s Viveka-cūḍā Cādāmaṇi contains these relevant stanzas:

The mind continually produces all the objects, to be experienced by oneself as course or
very ne, [including] the differences of body, estate, stages-of-life or class, and the
[various] qualities, actions, reasons, and fruits [of those actions]. (177)

Deluding that unattached form of [pure] Awareness, and binding it by means of the ropes
of the body, organs, and breath, the mind causes it to roam incessantly in the self-
in icted experience of the fruits [of one’s actions], [believing in such erroneous sides as]
‘I’ and ‘mine’. (178)

1 Yoga-Sūtra (II. 16)

2 See Brhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad IV. 2. 4.
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 Hence the learned, who perceive the truth, say that the mind is nescience, by which
alone the world moves about, like cloud banks by the wind. (180)

[Therefore] the seeker – of – liberation should diligently effect the puri cation of the
mind. When it is puri ed, liberation is [as close as] a fruit in the hand. (181).

Though couched in non-dualist metaphysical language, this prescription is acceptable to all

Yoga traditions, and even such a staunch dualist as Patañjali would readily endorse it. The mind
is the gateway to the Self, and the opus is accomplished in the mind.

The Self, which is per de nition our true identity, is also our greatest potential. One may nd
temporary ful lment in one’s work as an artist, scholar, parent, community leader, or even
religious Vorbild—all these roles allow only a partial actualization of one's potential. Only the
Self-realized yogin can be said to have exhausted the full human potential. He is a master of
the entire keyboard of the possibilities open to sentient life. The Bhagavad-Gītā and other
didactic portions of the Mahābhārata describe him as a ‘superman’ (atimanuṣya) and as one
whose purpose is accomplished (Kṛitha-artha), that is, whose human destiny is ful lled, who has
achieved what man alone is capable of achieving, this self–transcendence: to outwit the senses
and the mind and realize, against all odds, that consciousness – of (citta) is but a function of
transcendental Awareness (cit), that his nal identity lies in the transpersonal Self and not in the
nite ego.

This realization, which is not merely an intellectual understanding or even an intuitive insight,
but a mode of being, is subject to voluntary control—at least to some degree. This is the eld of
Yoga praxis—our fourth point. Yoga is guided change. It is one of the essential principles of
Indian metaphysics that the universe—which is everything but the transcendental Self (or
Selves)—is in perpetual motion. Hence the popular image of the wheel of existence or saṃsāra-
cakra. Finitude entails impermanence. This Heraclitean idea is as much part of the guṇa
doctrine of Yoga, Saṃkhyā, and Vedānta, as it is of the dharma doctrine of Buddhism or of the
doctrine of expanding and contracting souls (Jiva) in Jainism.

To transcend the ever-changing world of space and time, man is called upon to actively control
his fate by utilizing the incessant ux of Nature and propel himself forward, upward, out of the
cosmic egg. All these are metaphors for a process which, since it occurs in the non-extensional
space of consciousness, does not easily lend itself to linguistic xation. This is the fundamental
paradox of the liberation process: that the energies of the world are employed to transcend the
world. Yoga is the ladder which, having led us to the goal, is cast aside. Whichever school of
Yoga one selects, the real work of Yoga, including Hathayoga, is always performed on the stage
of the mind. Yoga is effective only to the degree that the mind is applied to whatever practice is
pursued. Yoga is the Ecology of the internal environment.
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 To be sure, implicit in all Yoga is the recognition that man is not an island unto himself, but a part
of a larger environment within which his struggle for self-expression, self-actualization, and self-
nding and Self-realization takes place. Hence one of the rst and primary considerations of the
yogin concerns the relationship between the individual and the life-world. This concern is
embedded in the well-known rst ‘limb’ (aṅga) of classical Yoga, viz. ethical observance (yama),
whose component moral practices are found in all other traditions as well.

2. De ning ‘Ecology’

This brings me to the second key concept, that of ‘ecology’. The term stands for the actual
relationships ‘out there’ between individuals and their several biological ‘eco-systems’, as well
as the study of these eco-systems or environments. Both these usages, again, need to be
demarcated from the concept of ecology as a social movement, i.e. ‘environmentalism’, which
actively seeks to check and correct the impact of our post-industrial civilization upon the natural
environment and help create a ‘benign environment’. However, in some respects ecology has
happily surmounted the chasm between theory and praxis which characterizes so many other
disciplines.

In the following I wish to understand the terms in a truly comprehensive sense, as the study of
biological and non-biological eco-systems. In other words, its subject-matter is the whole of
human and non-human existence as seen from the particular viewpoint of the systemic nature
of life. Thus, it embraces not only the natural environment, also the cultural systems — viz. the
political, economic, social ideological, and philosophical actualities. It is human ecology in the
broadest possible sense, of the ecology of consciousness, that is, the consideration of the
experienced world of Man. In the formulation of Frank Barron, it deals with “the complete
environment that Man experiences and with the interrelationship between structure and process
in it that condition consciousness”.3

In contrast with yoga, the beginnings of which date back to the hoary past, ecology as a science
is of recent birth. It grew out of the biological explorations of Ernst Haeckel and Charles Darwin,
but has quickly acquired more inclusive dimensions and a broad philosophical basis. Its
theoretical underpinning is the notion of interlocking environments, which was readily adopted
by other sciences, notably sociology, anthropology, psychology, and history. This has led to what
may be styled ‘general ecology’ and ‘eco-philosophy’ or, as some writers prefer, ‘ecosophy.’
Archaic precursors of the modern ‘systems’ frame can be met with already in the upaniṣadic

3 F. Barron, ‘Towards an Ecology of Consciousness’, Inquiry, vol. XV (1972), pp 96.

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literature, as for instance in the notion of the food chain (anna) expounded in the ancient
Taittirīya-Upaniṣad (III), or in the still older idea of macrocosmic equivalences.4

3. Ecological Crisis

One of the principal concerns of ecology and ecosophy is the fact that the human presence has
dramatically altered the natural environment and introduced balances whose repercussions
affect the human population in many obvious and less obvious detrimental ways. In fact these
imbalances are experienced by many as a genuine crisis which even leads them to seriously
question the survival of our species as a whole, if not of the total biotic environment of the globe.
The problem is that such insights, which understandably have a highly emotive appeal, are all
too readily taken up by the masses and then echoed mechanically, almost hypnotically, to the
point where the power of unthinking repetition actually renders the original insight ineffective.

Sp perhaps it is not out of place to re-af rm the impinging actuality of the ecological crisis. Let
us recall as vividly as possible the barren wastelands of the America Mid-West where there was
once fettle, arable soil; the poisoning of the earth through the wise-spread and intensive use of
chemical fertilizers; the pollution of the air; the contamination of rivers, lakes, and even the
oceans through the incessant in ux of chemical and other waste-products from industrial sites,
ships and whole towns; growing garbage mountains; the radiation leaks from nuclear power-
stations; the ransacking of the earth’s mineral and oil deposits resulting from over-population,
over-consumption in the af uent societies and mismanagement of resources in less developed
areas. This catalogue is necessarily incomplete. The scars and wounds in icted upon the earth
by our species are far too numerous to list individually, and perhaps also far too shocking to
contemplate in detail.

However, over and above what has been said so far, it must also be pointed out that this crisis,
as the Swiss cultural philosophy Jean Gebser ably demonstrated, is not merely one of
environmental disequilibrium, or even of economy, politics, social practice or religion, but
fundamentally one of consciousness. He writes: “The crisis of our time and our world prepares
the ground for a total transformation which […] seems to rush towards what from our viewpoint
can only be described as a ‘global catastrophy’ which when looked at from a non-
anthropocentric angle, reveals itself as a re-structuring of global extent. and we should be quite
clear about the fact that only a few decades remain until that event […] unless a new factor
becomes effective which will remedy this threatening situation […] should we fail to surmount

4 See A. Janacek, ‘The Message of Patanjali’s Yoga-Sutras’, in: Shri Yogendra (ed.), Yoga in Modern Life
(Santa Cruz, 1966), pp. 111 .
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 this crisis through our own insight and thus effect the short-term or long-term survival of
mankind through a transformation (or mutation), then the crisis will survive us.”5

For Gebser, the only way out of the present-day dilemma is by the actualization of what he
styles the ‘integral – aperspectival’ consciousness. This new form of consciousness is, as he
tries to show in his encyclopedic study, an imminent possibility. His magnum opus is his
monumental documentation of the thematization of the various structures or frequencies of
consciousness operative in different periods and societies and partly latent, partly active in
contemporary humanity.

In yogic terms, the external disequilibrium is a faithful re ection of the chaos of the inner man –
his insatiable hunger for possessions and social recognition, his tunnel vision, his abysmal
ignorance, his alienation from the world and himself, his lack of faith and conviction, his fear and
hybris. Signi cantly, traditional Indian chronology places 20th century mankind in the middle of
the kali-yuga, the age when “the fertility of the earth has gone, and yields a poor harvest”, when
“brothers, kinsmen and companions, prompted by the desire for some tri e, will strike one
another.”6

Interestingly, the four yugas match up perfectly with the Gebserian model of the four primary
structures of consciousness, viz. archaic, magical, mythical, and mental-rational consciousness.
Contrary to appearances, Gebser eschews historicist explanations and thus also rejects the
cyclical theory of the yugas. He understands his structures as much a progression away from
the Origin as a move forward or progress entailing a dimensional gain. In addition, he postulates
—and adduces rich evidence for—a fth mutation of consciousness, viz. the integral structure,
which has much in common with Śri Aurobindo’s notion of the ‘supermind’ and Teilhard de
Chardin’s concept of ‘Omega point’.

What distinguishes Gebser’s integral consciousness from any notion of a Hegelian Weltgeistt, or
even the idea of a recurrent satya-yuga, is his insistence upon the mere possibility of such a
mutation. Although he spent considerable time and effort in evincing its imminent break-through,
he is adamant that the new consciousness cannot come into its own without the conscious and
sustained effort or each and every individual. Observes Gebser with aphoristic poignancy: “The
newly opened way must not only be surveyed, but actually walked”.7

5 J. Gebser, Ursprung and Gegenwart [Origin and Present] (Stuttgart, 1966) Vol. 1, p. xix.—An English
translation of this work is by Professors Noel Barstadt and Algis Mickunas.
6Mahānirvāṇa-Tantra (IV. 53-55); translation by A. Avalon, Tantra of the Great Liberation (New York, repr.
1972), p.52.
7 op. cit., p 8.
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 When viewed from such a panoramic screen, the present day ecological crisis assumes a novel
signi cance. Suddenly we nd that the problems of pollution, radio-active spillage, over-
population, etc., are rst and foremost problems of the mind—And they are a challenge not only
to develop new modes of living, of technology, but above all, new ways of cognition, which
replace the ego-centric, angular tunnel vision of contemporary humanity with integrative
attitudes, and values such as openness and that kind of centredness which springs not from
self-interest but it rooted in the whole (pūrṇa).

4. Yoga as a Corrective

Originally I intended to title this section ‘Yoga as Counter-Technology’. For, not only has Yoga
been considered as a form of (psycho–) technology, but technology itself has not infrequently
been identi ed as the root cause of the present ecological crisis. However, both notions are not
without their inherent dif culties. Firstly, technology as commonly understood cannot be
conclusively shown to be the cause of the contemporary malaise. Rather, the present day
environmental crisis is due to a fairly complex set of factors. On the other hand, technology can,
as Martin Heidegger has taught us, also be looked upon as a way of encountering reality, an
angular vision, a mode of being. In his own words: “Technology is a way of unconcealing
[aletheuein]” 8 Nature is revealed in a new manner in as much as one provokes it to yield up its
hidden energies which are then utilized to drive on the technological machinery.

Only when technology is understood in this philosophical sense, could Yoga feasibly be
contrasted with it as a kind of counter-technology or complementary technology. For, it consists
essentially of a body of techniques and attitudes for the mastery fo the internal environment, the
unconcealing of the inner nature, the tapping of the energies within. However, unlike technology,
Yoga demands a non-exploitative approach to be at all viable. Where this is ignored, it merely
reverts into magic and thus becomes a source of great personal danger to the practitioner and
those who are under his in uence.

Yoga is essentially a large–scale reversal (pratikūla) of typically human behaviour — including

the exploitative attitude rampant in the human family. Basically, it consists in preventing the mind
from engaging in its normal activity which is centrifugal, diffuse. All its numerous techniques
evolved over many centuries of experimentation, aim at achieving the harmonization of the inner
world. This variously expressed in terms of catharsis (śodhana), tranquilization (prasādana),
restriction (nirodha) and equilibration (samarasa). Part of this process from chaos to cosmos is
the yogin’s emulation of the non–ordinary reality which he endeavours to reach or actualize, as
when Kṛṣṇa admonishes his devotees:

8 M, Heidegger, ‘Die Frage nach der Technik’, in: Vortrage und Aufsätze (Pfullingen, 1967), part I, p. 20.
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 Whatever the noblest does, that verily other people will do as well. The standard he sets
[for himself], the world will follow.

For Me, O son–of–Pṛthā, there is nothing to be done in the three worlds, nothing
unguided to be gained and yet I engage in action.

For, if I were not untiringly ever to abide in action, people would, O son–of–Pṛthā, follow
everywhere My ‘track’.9

Therefore always perform unattached the deed to be done, for the man who performs
action without attachment attains the Supreme.10

Thus Kṛṣṇa sets himself up as the archetypal yogin, and the same idea is also embodied in the
concept of the ‘lord’ or īśvara which is one of the common denominators of all Hindu schools of
Yoga.

Ultimately, the multiple techniques and attitudes of Yoga are employed to an attempt to
demolish the human personality as such Yoga seeks to replace man by Man (puruṣa). Its
medium and supreme target is self–knowledge — an ideal once held high but nowadays
belittled, if not sneered at. This self-knowledge is of the radical kind, viz. which expose, by way
of meditation and enstasy (samādhi), the constituent structures within ourselves and leads, at its
peak, to Self-awareness.

Some may argue that, although they can see nothing wrong with this sort of knowledge, they fail
to perceive its ecological relevance. In other words, they question the credo implicit in the
Platonic ideal of gnothi seauton, namely that self–knowledge has the inherent power to
transform the world (for the better). This, true enough, is no fashionable point of view. Yet, when
one realizes that self-knowledge is possible only on the foundations of the knowledge of the
other (inter-subjectivity), this notion may perhaps lose some of its strangeness. Are not the very
categories which we employ to analyze ourselves to a large extent the gift of our cultural
environment? Yoga does not escape this fact. Its metapsychology (e.g. buddhi, ahaṃkāra, etc.)
is as much prescriptive as it is descriptive.

In Vedānta, at any rate, this nexus between ego and alter is carried right through to the highest
metaphysical level, since the ultimate subjective principle (the ātman) is none other than the
ultimate objective principle (the brahman). Although Classical Yoga does not prescribe to this
interpretation, nevertheless its liberated Self (the puruṣa) is, by de nition, omniscient which
means that it knows all alters in their entirety in a single instant. Thus Self-knowledge is world-

9 Bhagavad-Gītā (III.21–23)
10 ibid. III.19
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knowledge, irrespective of the way in which the metaphysical relation between Self and world is
conceived.

This being so, we can expect that at least in principal self-knowledge yields insights about the
world which can be put to constructive use. The concrete interface between self and other is in
the realms of values. Here Yoga has a good deal to say. It proffers a whole range of
interconnected moral values—such as non-harming (ahiṃsā), truthfulness (satya), self-restraint
(dama), and so on—which are on the one hand, re ective of its distinct ontology with the Self as
the apex of all ontic structures, and on the other hand are aids to the actualization of the
summum bonum of existence.

Yogic self–knowledge entails the integration of the human personality in its relation to the larger
framework of Nature. Having eliminated the vacillate identities (role playing) of the personality
and transferred the locus of consciousness to the transcendental fulcrum, i.e. the Self, the yogin
as it were ‘squares’ with Nature. No longer does the ego oppose or interfere with Nature, and
the vector of all impulses issued by the Self-realized yogin is the Self.

Implicit in this ideal is the notion that whatever actions are initiated by such an adept, they are
ultimately in the best interest of the whole of mankind. As is stated in the Bhāgavata–Purāṇa (I 4
12):

Those people who are dedicated to the higher world live only for the welfare, promotion
and prosperity of the world. They have no self–interest.

Most Westerners nd it dif cult to understand and accept that the apparent inactivity of the Yoga
adept, his seeming disinterest in life and preference for quietude and remote spots, is neither
destructively egotistical nor ineffective. By harmonizing his own personal universe, the yogin
simultaneously contributes to the cathartic transmutation of his environment. Folklore is rich in
tales which portray this aspect of the yogin’s life: by his sheer presence he calms wild beasts
and instills peace in the hearts of his disciples and those who approach him for help, which, one
is apt to ask, is better: to be quietly constructive or to be overtly active at the risk of adding to
the chaos of one’s surroundings?

“Harmony between man and nature is no longer a mystical and abstract but a practical and
pressing matter”, writes one of the leading spokesmen of the ecology movement.11 Our present
attitudes and values are blatantly incapable of even approximating this desideratum. I do
believe, however, that Yoga can furnish us with a viable alternative. The type of self-knowledge
which it promulgates is not sterile analytical understanding, but Being–knowledge and therefore
has the power to transform not only the mind environment but, via the mind, also our social and

11 M. Nicholson, The Environmental Revolution (Harmondsworth, 1972), p. 19.

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physical environs. We live in perilous times, and the environmental ‘revolution’ or crisis is the
creation of every single member of our exploitative society. The enemies are we ourselves. In
conclusion I wish to quote two well-known stanzas from the Bhagavad-Gītā (IV. 5–6):

One should raise the Self by the Self: one should not let the self sink: for [as] the self is
indeed the friend of the Self, so [also] is the self Self’s enemy.

The self is the friend of the Self of him whose self is subdued by the Self; but for [the
person who is] bereft of the Self, the self is like an energy in enmity.

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