International Yoga Day 2021: Evolving along with the coronavirus, through the lens of yoga

Applying yogic perspectives to the coronavirus and the subsequent pandemic can enable an inquiry into the direction towards which we are evolving collectively. The onset of the coronavirus has revealed that as a civilisation, we are far from a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms of our body-mind complex as well as from a socio-economic design which enables a harmonious collective evolution inclusive of all life forms. In contrast to the ignorant view that as humans we are in complete control of this planet, we have been faced with the certainty of impermanence, the first universal characteristic of experience as laid out by the Buddha. Impermanence — within the functioning of the individual body-mind complex as well as within our collective structures of society including habitual ways of living — has been a result of the coronavirus. Though as a civilisation we have ‘progressed’ in some sense over the last century, the most obvious being in technology and capitalistic economies, this has undoubtedly come at a price. One of the fundamental views in ancient Indian wisdom is the understanding of inter dependent existence — that as humans, we are all connected to each other as well as to other life forms in the very depths of consciousness. Not only are we connected to and influenced by each other in subtle ways, but our fundamental sense of prosperity and ‘health’ is interdependent. For the ancients, nature was understood to possess a tremendous amount of wisdom and power as well as an ability to influence human life in ways which are beyond ordinary sensory perception. At the heart of yoga is the technology to transform our sensory and cognitive faculties and through this, the ability to ‘see’ and ‘know’ what is beyond ordinary conditioned life. It is from this process that the laws of karma and understanding of cause and effect are revealed. Applying these fundamental karmic laws, it could be worth inquiring into whether the structures of society which have been created through the past century are in alignment with long term prosperity and well-being for the planet as a whole. Indeed, it is possible the ongoing pandemic may lead to systematic changes in socio-economic culture and in medicine amongst others. Disease, from the perspective of yoga, is often seen as something which is encountered on the path of evolution. Rather than looking at disease as something to simply get ‘rid of’, if there is a genuine attempt to understand and tackle the root of what is causing an imbalance, there is a likelihood that this will result in the opening up of higher consciousness. Moreover, disease is nearly always looked at from the perspective of the inter-relation between the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies. In contemporary ‘western’ systems of medicine, there is an insufficient understanding of how the body and mind are related to each other. The mechanisms of mind and consciousness to a large extent are not comprehensively understood and arguably as a result of this, we have been seeing the emergence of a large amount of mental illnesses in the past decades which have accelerated through the pandemic. It is here were we can look to systems of medicine and holistic well-being based out of yogic wisdom where there is a fundamental interest in examining the various mental conditions and states of consciousness and their relation to the physical body. The essence of ancient Indian wisdom is in the view of non-duality. To put it simply, the perspective is that our true existence is not in the limited and personal ego, but as pure undivided consciousness which is present before the arisal of ‘self’ and ‘other’. It is in this fabric of consciousness where the laws of inter dependent existence are found. Needless to say, the socio-economic structures which have been prevalent in the recent past, along with how nature has been treated in general, have not been aligned to the wisdom of non-duality. In addition to this, we have seen the decline of invaluable ancestral knowledge as well as spiritual and cultural heritage. As the coronavirus has revealed to us our limitations and ignorance, it may be worthwhile to inquire into what sort of structures of society are better alignment to this perspective of non-duality, and whether these could help to alleviate the current situation in various parts of the planet, and subsequently pave the way for a collective evolution. Keshav’s work is based on inquiry into the nature of the non-dual consciousness. He has a background in a range of ancient Indian wisdom systems. See www.dharmayog.co.in for more information.