Does Yoga Believe in God?
The fundamental precepts of yoga come from an atheistic tradition known as Samkhya (or sometimes spelled Sankhya). The Samkhya tradition does not have a god, does not need a god, nor does it see that the pursuit of god is a worthy endeavor, and for this reason Samkhya, even though it is a spiritual philosophy is considered atheistic.
Then why are there gods and goddesses all over the walls of your yoga studio? (valid question)
There are three things we need to cover here to clear things up. The first is semantic, the second is the differences between yoga philosophy and Samkhya (even though they are almost exactly the same, there are some key differences), and the third is the cultural influences of the locale where yoga has evolved, in particular, in India.
So lets start with semantics. We are using the English language and the word god, where the languages of the ancient yoga practitioners was not a part of that language tree, and whose concept of god was entirely different even if they were to have a concept of god. While we cannot reconcile the cultural differences, we can acknowledge them, so acknowledge that sometimes things are confusing because we are trying to use language to convey facts about a belief system that did not use this language.
When you hear the term “higher power” what do you think of? Well, the word “higher” has a spacial and/or directional connotation; it means “up”. This word is from a language that was developed by Aryan ancestors, who were not dualists, like the yogis were, but instead they were monists. A monist believes that the universe is “all one”, meaning that if there is a god, that god must exist where we are, in the same plane or dimension as we are existing. As a result, monistic religions have to find a place to put god, and so god ends up in the sky, in the heavens, in the stars, and the devil (who is not a “higher” power) ends up under ground. This is the case not only with some legends of monistic traditions of Christianity (I say some because not all Christians are monists), and legends of polytheistic traditions such as Greek or some aspects of Hindu Mythology. All of these aforementioned belief systems are monistic in the way that they interpret gods and goddesses.
In respect to Hinduism, please note that there are many subtle attributes to Hinduism that are dualistic, or at least non monistic, but when a Hindu believes in the Vedantic concept of Brahman, or the “all is one” or “one without a second” and that all things ultimately are of and from one creator that is beyond our perception both as beings and as spirits, but we are ultimately united with that being, there is no more duality at all, in fact, this belief is often referred to simply as “non-duality”.
The duality that exists in yoga did not first transmit through an Aryan language; instead it is likely that it transmitted through an ancient Dravidian one. It is also likely that these people transmitted their belief systems without transcription (they may not have written it down), because, after all, if you are a dualist, and believe that the body will die and the spirit remains forever, then there is little sense in preserving anything that is done while you’re alive, in fact, quite the opposite is true; these folks may well have practiced the art of non-attachment and had a culture that avoided preserving physical things… this is very clearly a part of yoga philosophy.
So, if there is a concept of god in yoga, there is no way it would have a shape, or character, because all shape and character exists solely within the 3 dimensional time space realm called prakriti (natural order), and this natural order is completely separate (Yoga Sutra 2:20-23) from purusha (spirit), and thus there is no way that spirit can “take on” a shape or form from prakriti. You can see now that the deities of Hinduism, or the concept of god dying on a cross would not fit into yoga philosophy. At the same time that yoga philosophy allows you to believe in god if you want to, it simply does not acknowledge, refute, or deny its possibility. Patanjali very skillfully allowed for it, and stopped there.
Note: Many manuscripts that mention yoga involve religion, and concepts of god, and that is okay. People who write books are allowed to interpret god however they would like, but that is different than saying that “yoga” believes this. People can define yoga in unlimited ways. For this work, yoga is being defined by its historical foundations, as found in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, where there is no word that means “god” found anywhere, despite some translations equating god to Ishvara, we can see that they are not the same to a yoga (they may be the same to someone who believes in god), but there is no “higher power” in the yoga sutras, there is just a spirit, and perhaps that spirit is broken down into levels, with Ishvara being the most accessible part of it, that is also within us.
Now lets talk about the differences between Samkhya philosophy and yoga philosophy (and if you’re going to google these terms, please use only the wikipedia pages because there is a lot of nonsense out there). Samkhya came from ancient India; this is debatable, but we are going to accept it because there is more proof of Samkhya originating there than anywhere else. We are also going to accept that Samkhya has not changed much in thousands of years, because the theory rests on a fundamental duality, that is drawn from to exact several inferences about reality. If you do not believe in the fundamental duality that is presupposed by Samkhya then it isn’t of much use to you.
Yoga, definitely does believe in this duality, and it is the basis of its entire theory. However, yoga is humanistic, as it uses the theories of Samkhya to empower human beings to overcome suffering (Samkhya doesn’t do that). We can look at Samkhya as being the table of the elements, the explanation of how the universe works, and we see Yoga as the experiments, theories, and results from applying the table of elements (Samkhya) to human life. You, then, as a yogi, are a scientist, and without Samkhya you would have to start all over, but instead, you get to stand on the shoulders of giants, so to speak, and carry out your own experiments.
One thing that Samkhya and Yoga are similar in is the way they interpret knowledge. Both of them see that the mind is an illusion, or at least it is very limited in scope, like that of a survival tool designed to protect the body or instrument that consciousness is occupying for a limited amount of time. Both Samkhya and Yoga have the exact same viewpoint of what life is, and they both guard against accepting things as true that are not experienced. Both Yoga and Samkhya prize experience, and the testimony of trusted sources, and their experience, and the truths discovered from meditating on these experiences. As a result of Samkhya’s very strong position on only accepting knowledge that comes from direct experience, it is called “The Realist School” by Hindus. This is a good name for it. In fact, if you someone asks you what kind of philosophy do you practice as a yogi, you can say “I am a student of the realist school”.
One thing that is very unique to Yoga is the concept of Ishvara. We find two points in the Yoga Sutras where Ishvara is mentioned, during Sutras 23-28 in Chapter 1, and in Sutra 2:1. Some yogis believe that Ishvara is god, and so that makes yoga a theistic belief system. Others note that Yoga believes strongly in choice and free will, and the yoga sutras do not mandate that you believe in Ishvara at all, in fact, it is regarded as an optional path, only for those who would like to believe in such a thing (yes, that’s really in there). Other yogis such as the great BKS Iyengar may have suggested that Ishvara was invented by the yogis irrespective to the existence of a higher power, but because yoga is utility oriented, and the experience of believing in a higher power yielded a particular desirable result, and being the realists that yogis are, they then acknowledged that there is proof that it is just helpful to have something like a god that along the path (like an imaginary friend). Whatever your viewpoint is on god, any of these concepts will do, and they will not contradict yoga because there simply is no definition of a god, being a higher power that is a being, only an aspect of spirit, and a practice of surrender to that spirit. It is not that yoga says “yes” or “no” to god, as it were, it is more that yoga says to you (as a practitioners); we have proof that this works for some people, so we included it in the sutras, so use your own discernment.
Please note that in Yoga Sutra 2:1 that Ishvara is one of three practices of yoga, but it does not note that you need to do all three practices. The three are (in English): discipline with pain (tapas), self study (swadhyaya), surrender to the depths of your spirit (ishvara pranidhana). It is common for people to practice any variation of the three, although it would be unusual to practice tapas all by itself; that would just be weird. Perhaps any two of the three would be sufficient. Please note that the outline of the practice of Ashtanga Yoga, Isvhara Pranidhana is listed as one of the niyamas (external disciplines), and so it is not even one of the 8 limbs, such as pratyahara (sense withdrawal) or dharana (meditation). Please see that ishvara is not the centerpoint of yoga philosophy. While some people are fascinated by it, that is their choosing; that is their individual path.
One thing that is not true of Ishvara is to say that it is the same as an almighty god that controls the universe; that is simply not in Samkhya or the Yoga Sutras, and notably, there are no deities whatsoever in Samkhya or the Yoga Sutras, and Ishvara is described as a subset of the purusha that is beyond the pain and suffering, so it is not described as a being, more than it is explained as a force inside of you, that is an aspect of your spirit that you can tap into if needed.
It is very unfortunate that some religions have claimed yoga as their own, and suggested that Ishvara is simply another name for the god(s) they worship. This is the case with many Hindu believers that suggest that because of the quick mention of Ishvara, that Ishvara is then Brahman, and that Samkhya philosophy and Yoga philosophy no longer believe in duality. This is simply not the case. Nowhere in Samkhya or the Yoga Sutras does it deny the dualistic nature of the universe, in fact, the entire system of thought of both sciences relies completely on that, so it would not make sense to say that the philosophy that suggests that the entire universe is dualistic, would have a god that is not dualistic.
What is duality? The duality mentioned in Yoga Sutra 2:17, and others, is simply the belief that the physical phenomenal 3 dimensional world that we perceive as humans, is distinct from the spiritual world. As a human being, you are a “jiva” which means you are a spirit occupying a body, this is a very unique and special experiment, but it is not permanent. The only thing permanent in the universe, according to yoga, is the spirit, and Ishvara is the depths of the spirit.
Is Yoga Hindu or Buddhist?
Yoga was originally a way of life that was practiced by the ancient people of India (or around there), who were dark skinned, and are now called “Dravidians”. This way of life existed before both Buddhism and Hinduism, but that does not mean that Yoga was isolated from them, and it does not mean that those two religions did not, over time, use some of the concepts of yoga in their practices.
The ancient civilizations of India were very spiritually evolved because their way of life was not desperate, it was not warring, and they stayed where they were in a place with abundant resources. It is likely that the Dravidians were direct descendants of homo sapiens that migrated out of Africa, and literally walked to India and stayed there.
Imagine that human beings all came from Africa; that is also likely true, but for now lets not necessarily declare that true, but just use it as an example, as it gives us a way of imagining how this all might have happened. So, imagine all human beings leave Africa many thousands of years ago. Some of them go up north to modern day Europe, and some travel to China, and some travel to India and start eating the fruit and spices and say to each other “hey this is a pretty nice place”. As a result, if you just look at the resources available in India at the time compared to other places, and you look at the fragility of human life, it makes sense that India, due to its abundance of resources, and close proximity to Africa, would be one of the first places that had a major human habitation, society, culture, and all of that fine stuff.
No imagine what was happening to the people evolving up north in Europe. Ice ages, cold temperatures, and winter. It is not to say that the people who were evolving in India did not have their own problems, but it was a different set of problems. While Indians were trying to decipher what mother nature was, and how the cosmos was put together, while sipping coconut water next to the Indus, the people living in the North were trying to kill woolly mammoths so they wouldn’t starve during 6 month periods of low sunlight and snow (and without any snow boots!).
The result in the genetic evolution of these two sets of human beings is very clear; one adapted to a place of low light and scarce resources, and the other adapted to essentially the opposite. The people in the north, the “Aryans” became adapted to living indoors, they also developed sophisticated survival systems to maintain life during hard times. They learned to live on animal flesh (in particular cows), and grain. They also learned how to fight because just like any place where groups of human beings coexist amidst scarce resources, they will eventually take from the other when their survival depends on it. The people of the north became, thus, adapted to war; they became tall, strong, and they learned how to govern and dominate over the people they took over to ensure maximum utilization of resources. They also learned how to travel because if they used up all the resources in one place, they would move to another this is all natural human behavior given the circumstances. Their skin became lighter in color so that the body could absorb more vitamins from the sun. Those with darker pigmentation developed bone density problems due to malnutrition and died off. Those that were left were tall, light skinned, and brutal.
The people of the south did not have those pressures, so they focused more on spirituality and how to live in harmony with the life of abundance they were blessed with. They did not have to war with each other, because there was no reason to. They were relatively peaceful, stayed in the same place all of their lives, and did not develop machinery for intensive travel, nor weapons for war.
While the people of the north put their efforts into war, survival, economics, and government structure, the people of the south had little use for such things, and thus they focused their energy on answering the most important question of all; what are we?
The Tragedy of the Collision
As trade routes developed, and the technology of the people of the north became increasingly efficient at imports and exports, there came to be trade to and from India for spices. Eventually, the people of the north decided they would simply take over India, because even thought it was a long way away, it was resource rich, and it would simplify things for them. As a result, starting around 5,000 years ago, the people of the North began occupying the lands that were previously only inhabited by the people of the South, this is often called the “Aryan Movement”.
There is plenty of proof that this occurred by studying the genetic structures of people that live in India. Those with darker skin, and typically those who live in the south of India have more Dravidian genetics, while people with lighter skin have more Aryan DNA.
The perhaps more tragic proof is in the remnants of the caste system. When the Aryans took over the Dravidian peoples, they maintained that their light skin made them superior to the people whose land they occupied. The caste system made sure that the darker skinned native people of India were not given power. Further, those at the top of the caste system were in charge of governance, war, and religion. This was one of the most important ways that yoga was driven out of society, and it is why so many archeological sites that contain yogic artifacts are in caves; they were hiding.
While the conquerors get to write history, we can deduce what happened in India by looking at what has happened to other cultures when Aryan people came to take over, and for those familiar, we can use the American Indigenous Peoples as an example. The Aryans (Europeans) had more sophisticated weapons, means of travel, and had much more advanced methods of war. Once they took a place over they did not always wipe out the natives entirely, but they subdued them, and often took away their native languages and religions, and replaced them with their own. This is very likely what happened in India, and an in depth study of yoga philosophy will reveal that it has actually very little in common with the modern religions of India.
The Dravidian Nationalism movement is one example of the descendants of the original inhabitants of India to reclaim their independence from the invading regime. While it may not be common knowledge, and it most certainly isn’t commonly talked about in yoga class, it is almost certain that yoga philosophy came from the Dravidians, and was claimed by the Aryans.
Is Yoga the same as Hinduism
The term Hindu is a new term, and was originated by the British, who, like many people from the north before them, took over India for a couple hundred years, and needed a simple word to summarize all of the native beliefs of one of the largest nations in the history of Earth. The result; Hindu became an accepted way to define thousands of indigenous people.
The very real belief systems that are called Hinduism are deep, mystical, and profound. They are in many ways cousin sciences to yoga because they share some of the very same roots, but they are not the same.
Most of the core ideas of modern Hinduism are Aryan, and are a set of beliefs that is the same in origin as that of the Greek gods and goddesses of that ancient culture. The pantheon of polytheism equates with Vishnu as Apollo, Dionysus as Shiva, and several others taking the place, taking new names, but still representing the same basic powers. Modern Hinduism is an Aryan religion, and it came to India much later than Samkhya and Yoga, which are both Dravidian in origin, and thus not a part of the Aryan thought complex. As a result, you can consider there to be differing levels of influence that Hinduism has on yoga depending on where you learn it. If you learn yoga from a place that is steeped in Hinduism, you will likely learn it as a part of Hinduism. If you learn yoga from a place that is not Hindu, you will likely not learn Hinduism with yoga. If you decide you want to learn yoga in a way that is original or most directly tied to the practices taught by the ancients, it will be very difficult because that culture did not survive in tact; its languages and behaviors have been largely wiped out (it has now been almost 4000 years since the Aryans began taking over). Even Sankrit, the language of the Yoga Sutras, is written in Sanskrit. So, it is much easier to learn yoga as a part of Hinduism, but there is a way to learn yoga independently.
Is Yoga the same as Buddhism?
Yoga and Buddhism have a common ancestor known as the great Sage Kapila. Kapila (not to be confused with the person of the same name in the Hindu Upanishads) was also referred to as “The Atheist Kapila". Kapila was a famous philosopher who is credited by some for founding modern Samkhya. As a result, there was a city named after him called “Kapilavastu”. The historic Buddha (whose birth name was Siddhartha Gautama) was a prince of the region that included Kapilavastu, and lived in the city. It is well documented that the philosophies of Kapila were learned by Buddha, and that the two lived only a partial generation apart (it is not known if they ever met, but more likely that Kapila died before Buddha was born).
Buddhas life has been well documented, and he did in fact study Samkhya. At the time of his life, the majority religions in the area were influenced by the Aryans, but keep in mind that Samkhya isn’t Aryan, and so it is likely that Buddha was steeped in Samkhya philosophy. This explains why Buddhism uses so much of the same terminology and core beliefs such as that of the kleshas (root causes of suffering), avidya (ignorance) being the root cause of all suffering, and in general a more compassionate view of humanity, and a deep rooted desire to free each person from it.
While Hinduism, like the Aryans who conquered India, practiced a religion that worshipped gods that existed in the stars, and guided them along their path (Aryans, like the Greeks, had strong affinities for the gods being in the sky), Buddha, like the yogis, sought to discover the treasures of the universe by looking inside himself. Most Buddhists believe that he accomplished what he set out to do and conquered suffering for himself, and set into motion a pathway for others to follow. Certainly, the path of the Buddha is similar to that of a great yogi, but Buddhism as a religion differs significantly from the path of yoga in several ways.
The first way that yoga is unique to Buddhism is that it is simpler. Yoga relies on an 8 step approach, and has only one document outlining its entire practice, the Yoga Sutras. Buddha went much further, and developed a very thorough, robust, and articulated system by which people from all walks of life could redeem themselves from suffering. Yoga left a lot more open, and that could be very well because the basic idea of yoga is that the mind doesn’t exist, so after all; why feed it then?
Anyone who practices yoga is taking part in a way of life that is designed to limit human suffering, and much the same could be said about Buddhism. The emphasis on self care, meditation, ethics, and kindness are both similar. The steering away from power abuses, and looking for buddha nature or Ishvara is similar in that neither of those things are deities, and thus both paths could be considered atheistic, or non theistic by some people.
Yoga and Buddhism are also similar in that they are both rebelling sciences towards the Hindu belief systems.
Buddha was very outspoken in his criticism of the religions of his time, and viewed the belief systems he was surrounded with as superstitious, and tended to imprison its followers (this is a similar conclusion one comes to when they study what the Aryan religions did). Buddha, like Jesus, encouraged people to break free of the religions that had become a part of the power structure, and were being abused by the greedy people in charge of the power structure. Buddha encouraged people to seek the “middle path”, between outright asceticism and indulgence. In a way, Buddha was a yogi, who decided to take it a step further, and just destroy the very thing that yoga was designed to overcome. If you believe that he did that, then you may be a Buddhist. As a yogi you can believe he did, or did not do it, but either way, Buddha learned many of the principles of yoga, and utilized them in his teaching.
What makes Yoga Unique?
Yoga is a non dogmatic approach to spirituality that looks at your spirit as a matter of fact, and not as a supernatural force that is out of your control. Thus, yoga is not a religion, and has no need at all for gods or goddesses, or any power outside of yourself. To practice yoga, all you need is you.
Imagine that there were a group of people in India 5000 years ago who were minding their own business, doing yoga, sharing fruit, and living and dying in relative harmony. This is the picture that many people have of ancient India, and the origins of yoga; a life of harmony where the people had for the most part solved all of the deeper riddles, and were not tormented by their separation from spirit, they lived amidst it, while understanding that they were also living in the physical world. They took this existence on with gratitude and humility, though the awareness of impermanence.
Now imagine that the people from the north come in and start to take over, they change things, and they force conversion into their hierarchical way of governance, and a belief system that was not separate from the power structure. Imagine that many of the people who believed in the old ways tried to rebel, but failed, and were killed, or placed into slavery. Imagine then that others fled into the mountains to live in caves, and practice a way of life that was close to nature, and close to the way of life that found them peace.
Around 400 BC, a great person came, who became known as Buddha, and stood on the shoulders of the philosophies of yoga, and who was a student also of other belief systems, who came from privilege and had ample access to resources, and devoted his entire life to overcoming suffering. Imagine then, that perhaps he did accomplish that, or at the very least he accomplished something so that the entire region began to convert to the way of life that he founded, and by the time several centuries had passed, the region and nation of what is now India, was predominantly Buddhist.
Now imagine that many wars, exchanges of beliefs, economic systems, and governments came to pass, and even the ancient ideas of the Aryans became a small minority. There came a young philosopher named Adi Shankara, who was not a student of Buddhism, but of Hinduism. Shankara decided to unite all of the Hindus, and declare the final sacred school of thought, the last darshana, which was to be called Vedanta.
Vedanta was the Hindus answer to Buddhism, and it was a way to prevent the loss of those ways of life that had existed between the time of the first Aryan invasion, and the current time (the 8th century or so). Like Buddha, Shankara was privileged, and gifted with super intelligence. He also was surrounded by great teachers such as the great Gaudapada, and through the scholarly help of those around him, developed a cosmology that became modern Hinduism.
Now imagine yoga as being the most ancient of these, practiced in the mountains, in the caves, and behind closed doors, in discreetness, in silence, and in a way that it could not be found (yoga was at many times outlawed). This is our science. It is most certainly unique, and one of the ways that it is most unique is that it has survived through tribulations, and times of desperation, through until today, where it is more relevant than ever.