YOGA LAND: Threads of Divine Union … Or Not
Svami Duhkhananda doesn’t like me to call him “my teacher.” “You’re not ready for a teacher,” he lectures me, “and I’m not interested in baby-sitting.” But I always enjoy visiting with him at Café Loka, though I could easily do without his “partner-in-time,” as he calls him, Ratanjali, who’s around pretty much all the time. Ratanjali never acknowledges my presence, only talks to me indirectly through the Svami, and only then to comment sarcastically on something I’ve said or some question I’ve asked. Needless to say, he makes me very uncomfortable, an effect I imagine he has on most people. As far as I can tell, among the small, tight-knit community of maha siddhas who reside today or make their home base in the East Bay, the Svami is his only friend, if friend is the right word. Though I’m sure he was pulling my leg, the Svami once confided in me that the two of them had been companions for nearly 200 years, and that he believed he’d been paired with Ratanjali karmically in order to learn compassion. He added sardonically that the lesson, now finishing its second century, wasn’t working.
So whenever I head over to Loka, in the back of my mind I’m always wishing that Ratanjali won’t be there. Today the planets must have been aligned just perfectly, or maybe it was that lucky penny if picked up from the sidewalk, because when I walked into the café and looked over at the Svami’s usual table, there no Ratanjali. But the reason why had nothing to do with planets or pennies, neither of which I actually believe in anyway. No, it was sitting right there at the Svami’s table, Meshugenatha, one of my favorites of the East Bay maha siddhas. In yoga a pair of opposites is called a dvandva, literally a “two-two,” as for example hot and cold. Meshuganatha and Ratanjali are definitely two-twos. The latter is pint-sized, barely five feet tall, with ears like dinner plates stuck out from the sides of his head, a long pointy nose, below which flounders a scraggly moustache that looks as if someone had yanked the bristles out of a tooth brush and glued them haphazardly to his upper lip. But despite this ill-favored appearance, Ratanjali’s IQ is pushing 200, which ranks him a genius among geniuses.
In contrast, Meshuganatha is 6½ feet tall and weighs 320 pounds. With his completely bald head and off-center nose (he broke it many years ago, he claims, while scaling Mount Everest), bull neck, Popeye-the-Sailor-Man arms and tree trunk thighs, he resembles more than anything else an American football tackle or defensive end. But despite his imposing appearance, Meshuganatha is about as threatening as a kitten. Everyone—except Ratanjali, who’s rarely about when Meshuganatha’s in the neighborhood, which accounts for his no-show today—is immediately attracted to him, and after just a few minutes of his acquaintance, think of him as an old friend.
When I sat down at their table they were thoroughly immersed in conversation, so much so that neither greeted or even looked at me, not unusual for the Svami, but quite so for the back-slapping Meshugenatha. “Why does it bother you so much?” Meshugenatha was saying to the Svami. “Because the way the sutras are being interpreted is misleading, that’s why, and so adds to and reinforces the widespread distortion of the tradition in the West.” Meshugenatha burst out laughing, a bellowing roar that sent shock waves through the room, rattling dishes and windows and turning heads in our direction. “Tradition?” he snorted, “since when do you give a hoot about tradition? Aren’t you always telling everybody the old books are outdated?” “He told me that just the other day,” I chipped in helpfully. Meshugenatha grinned and laid an enormous hand on my shoulder. “I rest my case,” he said. The Svami turned toward me, frowning. “When did you get here?” he said, irritated, “and do you always butt into other people’s conversations like that?”
I didn’t bite. “ What are you two talking about?” I asked cheerily, trying to diffuse the potentially volatile situation, although I knew exactly what was going on, the word “sutra” was a dead giveaway. One of the Svami’s hobbyhorses is the disservice—in his view—being done nowadays to the old Sanskrit texts, especially the Yoga Sutra, when translated into English. “It’s not a self-help manual,” he’s insisted in the past about Patanjali’s classic bare-bones outline, “it’s not a guide to daily life, it wasn’t written by a ‘sage,’ and ‘yoga’ in this context doesn’t mean ‘union,’” was the usual litany. Chuckling, Meshugenatha said, “We’re talking about the Yoga Sutra and how it’s been interpreted”—“MIS-interpreted,” corrected Duhkhananada emphatically”— by the West over the last 100 years.”
Meshugenatha rummaged around in a pack slumping on the floor beside his chair. “One of my students gave me this new book,” he said, offering me the slender volume to examine. It was titled “Threads of Divine Union: The Yoga Sutras for Everyday Happiness and Well-being,” by the “sage Patanjali,” and translated by a couple I didn’t know, each one having concocted one of those awkward sounding Indian-Western hybrid names, like Satdev Finkle and Shakti Peterson. There was a drawing of a lotus on the cover that, if looked at squinty-eyed, was really a stylized OM syllable. I looked over at the Svami, who was staring at me with a smirk on his face. “Read the second one, I dare you.” The famous second sutra of the first chapter—“yogash chitta vritti nirodhah”—was one of the Svami’s touchstones for the quality of text’s translation. Whenever he came upon a rendition he wasn’t familiar with, the first thing he did was turn to that oft-quoted preliminary definition of classical yoga. I flipped to the sutra and read: “For all those suffering souls who seek to fill their lives with boundless joy and love by merging with the Divine Truth-Essence, I offer these threads of union to bring the unquiet mind to everlasting stillness and peace.” “Oy.” I didn’t want to be dismissive of or dis-respectful to the translators, but I couldn’t help myself ... “boundless joy and love?” OY again. “Told you,” Duhkhananda crowed triumphantly to Meshugenatha, “even he thinks it’s ridiculous.” I handed the book back to Meshugenatha, who said, “Why don’t you keep it, I’ve already read it.” The Svami laughed. “Yeah,” he said, “you should read it, you need a little joy and love in your life.” “Good idea, I’ll put aside the Sanskrit for awhile,” I said, but only to annoy Duhkhananda, who knew full well I had no intention of reading the book ... ever.
“It’s one of those strange co-incidences that you two should be talking about this text,” I said, laying the book on the table, “because just yesterday a student asked me about the practice of Ishvara Pranidhana.” In curiosity, I’d skimmed through about a dozen different translations in my library, and most of them agreed that the practice, which is counted among the five niyamas or listed as the third of three elements in Kriya Yoga, as “devotion to the Lord” or “God.” As soon as I said the magic words, “Ishvara Pranidhana,” Meshugenatha recoiled in cartoon-like horror. “Don’t get him started on that,” he pleaded. But alas, it was too late to close the barn door, the horse had bolted. “Devotion to God!” the Svami cried, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands clasped tightly as if in prayer, his voice trembling fervently with false piety. “Duhk, Duhk,” Meshugenatha began, “there’s nothing wrong ...” The Svami cut him off. “There’s nothing wrong with telling unsuspecting people that an atheistic system has a god?” “Well now,” Meshugenatha began again, “it’s not exactly atheistic ...” And again Duhkhananda interrupted, not to be headed off. “You know as well as I do that the older Indian systems were all godless. Ishvara is a special purusha, it’s a soul like any other with one essential difference: it’s never itself touched nor has it ever been touched by matter, and so has neither generated nor accumulated any karma of its own, it’s a karma virgin. But like all purushas, Ishvara has no qualities except maybe blissfulness, and no way to act on or in the world—look Ma, no hands, no feet, no nothing—it’s forever and for all time, a totally, passive, massless cloud of pure consciousness. Yes, you can translate the word ishvara as god, but not in this book, here it means “beloved master,” though it’s a stretch to call a do-nothing like Ishvara a master. And yes, you can translate the word pranidhana as devotion, but not int this book, here it means to “fix onto something.” Ishvara is basically a role model, what all these yogis aspire to be, an immaterial cloud of self-absorbed, blissful, content-less consciousness for all eternity—now there’s something to strive for, eh Rosen?,” he said aside to me in his best stage whisper—“but since there’s nothing substantial about Ishvara to fix on, they had to come up with a convenient hook to hang your meditation hat on.” He looked at me. “And tell us what that is, sir,” he said in his formal teaching voice. “The pranava,” I replied with my best schoolboy we-aim-to-please artificiality, “OM.” “But in the end there’s no union with some ‘higher’ entity, just a release from the trammels of matter when the mind is brought under the control of yoga, which means ... um,” he peered around the café, as if getting ready to call on the suit-and-tie dressed businessman at the next table, before his eyes settled on me. “Ah, Mr. Rosen?” “Harnessing,” I said, aware that the Svami was poking fun at me with these kindergarten questions. “Co-rrect,” he said, “and so the implication?” “The goal of Patanjali yoga is just the opposite of union,” I said primly, “and technically speaking it should be called viyoga, ‘disunion.’” “Excellent,” beamed the Svami, the insincerity in his voice poorly disguised. “And now, dear Meshugenatha, have you anything to say in response, however weak it may be?”
Meshugenatha leaned back in his chair, which creaked and groaned in futile protest over the enormous weight it was commandeered to bear, and one more time dishes and windows rattled, and heads turned, a few faces now scrunched in disapproval at the repeated outbursts. “But Duhkh,” he gasped, struggling to get his mirth under control, “you said it yourself, this book, the one you’re talking about is outdated, it satisfies no one’s soul anymore. But this book,” and Meshugenatha poked the copy of Threads of Divine Union lying on the table in front of me, “this book isn’t. You’re the one always going on and on about innovation, how important it is to keep the spark alive. Admit it, Shiva and Shakti, or whatever their names are, are innovators, they’ve taken a tired old set of talking points and transformed them into a viable plan for successful living in the world, something the old yogins never tried. If you want innovation, you have to accept all kinds, even if it rubs you the wrong way. So now,” Meshugenatha winked at me, “what do you have to say?”
I looked cautiously at the Svami, expecting the worst, but all he did was shrug. “Look,” he said quietly, “I don’t give a hoot what they do to these old books, though personally I’d just as soon bury them and move on to things written more recently and in the West. All I’m asking is if you’re going to re-interpret a traditional text in light of your own preferences, say so up front in the introduction, don’t try to pass it off as the authentic message. That’s what’s misleading.” He looked at me. “You know what, Rosen, I need another coffee and my friend here is craving a large chai, with an extra helping of sugar, so here’s a dollar, I’ll buy and you fly.” “A dollar?” I said dubiously. “Yes,” he said, “and don’t forget to bring me the change.”
So whenever I head over to Loka, in the back of my mind I’m always wishing that Ratanjali won’t be there. Today the planets must have been aligned just perfectly, or maybe it was that lucky penny if picked up from the sidewalk, because when I walked into the café and looked over at the Svami’s usual table, there no Ratanjali. But the reason why had nothing to do with planets or pennies, neither of which I actually believe in anyway. No, it was sitting right there at the Svami’s table, Meshugenatha, one of my favorites of the East Bay maha siddhas. In yoga a pair of opposites is called a dvandva, literally a “two-two,” as for example hot and cold. Meshuganatha and Ratanjali are definitely two-twos. The latter is pint-sized, barely five feet tall, with ears like dinner plates stuck out from the sides of his head, a long pointy nose, below which flounders a scraggly moustache that looks as if someone had yanked the bristles out of a tooth brush and glued them haphazardly to his upper lip. But despite this ill-favored appearance, Ratanjali’s IQ is pushing 200, which ranks him a genius among geniuses.
In contrast, Meshuganatha is 6½ feet tall and weighs 320 pounds. With his completely bald head and off-center nose (he broke it many years ago, he claims, while scaling Mount Everest), bull neck, Popeye-the-Sailor-Man arms and tree trunk thighs, he resembles more than anything else an American football tackle or defensive end. But despite his imposing appearance, Meshuganatha is about as threatening as a kitten. Everyone—except Ratanjali, who’s rarely about when Meshuganatha’s in the neighborhood, which accounts for his no-show today—is immediately attracted to him, and after just a few minutes of his acquaintance, think of him as an old friend.
When I sat down at their table they were thoroughly immersed in conversation, so much so that neither greeted or even looked at me, not unusual for the Svami, but quite so for the back-slapping Meshugenatha. “Why does it bother you so much?” Meshugenatha was saying to the Svami. “Because the way the sutras are being interpreted is misleading, that’s why, and so adds to and reinforces the widespread distortion of the tradition in the West.” Meshugenatha burst out laughing, a bellowing roar that sent shock waves through the room, rattling dishes and windows and turning heads in our direction. “Tradition?” he snorted, “since when do you give a hoot about tradition? Aren’t you always telling everybody the old books are outdated?” “He told me that just the other day,” I chipped in helpfully. Meshugenatha grinned and laid an enormous hand on my shoulder. “I rest my case,” he said. The Svami turned toward me, frowning. “When did you get here?” he said, irritated, “and do you always butt into other people’s conversations like that?”
I didn’t bite. “ What are you two talking about?” I asked cheerily, trying to diffuse the potentially volatile situation, although I knew exactly what was going on, the word “sutra” was a dead giveaway. One of the Svami’s hobbyhorses is the disservice—in his view—being done nowadays to the old Sanskrit texts, especially the Yoga Sutra, when translated into English. “It’s not a self-help manual,” he’s insisted in the past about Patanjali’s classic bare-bones outline, “it’s not a guide to daily life, it wasn’t written by a ‘sage,’ and ‘yoga’ in this context doesn’t mean ‘union,’” was the usual litany. Chuckling, Meshugenatha said, “We’re talking about the Yoga Sutra and how it’s been interpreted”—“MIS-interpreted,” corrected Duhkhananada emphatically”— by the West over the last 100 years.”
Meshugenatha rummaged around in a pack slumping on the floor beside his chair. “One of my students gave me this new book,” he said, offering me the slender volume to examine. It was titled “Threads of Divine Union: The Yoga Sutras for Everyday Happiness and Well-being,” by the “sage Patanjali,” and translated by a couple I didn’t know, each one having concocted one of those awkward sounding Indian-Western hybrid names, like Satdev Finkle and Shakti Peterson. There was a drawing of a lotus on the cover that, if looked at squinty-eyed, was really a stylized OM syllable. I looked over at the Svami, who was staring at me with a smirk on his face. “Read the second one, I dare you.” The famous second sutra of the first chapter—“yogash chitta vritti nirodhah”—was one of the Svami’s touchstones for the quality of text’s translation. Whenever he came upon a rendition he wasn’t familiar with, the first thing he did was turn to that oft-quoted preliminary definition of classical yoga. I flipped to the sutra and read: “For all those suffering souls who seek to fill their lives with boundless joy and love by merging with the Divine Truth-Essence, I offer these threads of union to bring the unquiet mind to everlasting stillness and peace.” “Oy.” I didn’t want to be dismissive of or dis-respectful to the translators, but I couldn’t help myself ... “boundless joy and love?” OY again. “Told you,” Duhkhananda crowed triumphantly to Meshugenatha, “even he thinks it’s ridiculous.” I handed the book back to Meshugenatha, who said, “Why don’t you keep it, I’ve already read it.” The Svami laughed. “Yeah,” he said, “you should read it, you need a little joy and love in your life.” “Good idea, I’ll put aside the Sanskrit for awhile,” I said, but only to annoy Duhkhananda, who knew full well I had no intention of reading the book ... ever.
“It’s one of those strange co-incidences that you two should be talking about this text,” I said, laying the book on the table, “because just yesterday a student asked me about the practice of Ishvara Pranidhana.” In curiosity, I’d skimmed through about a dozen different translations in my library, and most of them agreed that the practice, which is counted among the five niyamas or listed as the third of three elements in Kriya Yoga, as “devotion to the Lord” or “God.” As soon as I said the magic words, “Ishvara Pranidhana,” Meshugenatha recoiled in cartoon-like horror. “Don’t get him started on that,” he pleaded. But alas, it was too late to close the barn door, the horse had bolted. “Devotion to God!” the Svami cried, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands clasped tightly as if in prayer, his voice trembling fervently with false piety. “Duhk, Duhk,” Meshugenatha began, “there’s nothing wrong ...” The Svami cut him off. “There’s nothing wrong with telling unsuspecting people that an atheistic system has a god?” “Well now,” Meshugenatha began again, “it’s not exactly atheistic ...” And again Duhkhananda interrupted, not to be headed off. “You know as well as I do that the older Indian systems were all godless. Ishvara is a special purusha, it’s a soul like any other with one essential difference: it’s never itself touched nor has it ever been touched by matter, and so has neither generated nor accumulated any karma of its own, it’s a karma virgin. But like all purushas, Ishvara has no qualities except maybe blissfulness, and no way to act on or in the world—look Ma, no hands, no feet, no nothing—it’s forever and for all time, a totally, passive, massless cloud of pure consciousness. Yes, you can translate the word ishvara as god, but not in this book, here it means “beloved master,” though it’s a stretch to call a do-nothing like Ishvara a master. And yes, you can translate the word pranidhana as devotion, but not int this book, here it means to “fix onto something.” Ishvara is basically a role model, what all these yogis aspire to be, an immaterial cloud of self-absorbed, blissful, content-less consciousness for all eternity—now there’s something to strive for, eh Rosen?,” he said aside to me in his best stage whisper—“but since there’s nothing substantial about Ishvara to fix on, they had to come up with a convenient hook to hang your meditation hat on.” He looked at me. “And tell us what that is, sir,” he said in his formal teaching voice. “The pranava,” I replied with my best schoolboy we-aim-to-please artificiality, “OM.” “But in the end there’s no union with some ‘higher’ entity, just a release from the trammels of matter when the mind is brought under the control of yoga, which means ... um,” he peered around the café, as if getting ready to call on the suit-and-tie dressed businessman at the next table, before his eyes settled on me. “Ah, Mr. Rosen?” “Harnessing,” I said, aware that the Svami was poking fun at me with these kindergarten questions. “Co-rrect,” he said, “and so the implication?” “The goal of Patanjali yoga is just the opposite of union,” I said primly, “and technically speaking it should be called viyoga, ‘disunion.’” “Excellent,” beamed the Svami, the insincerity in his voice poorly disguised. “And now, dear Meshugenatha, have you anything to say in response, however weak it may be?”
Meshugenatha leaned back in his chair, which creaked and groaned in futile protest over the enormous weight it was commandeered to bear, and one more time dishes and windows rattled, and heads turned, a few faces now scrunched in disapproval at the repeated outbursts. “But Duhkh,” he gasped, struggling to get his mirth under control, “you said it yourself, this book, the one you’re talking about is outdated, it satisfies no one’s soul anymore. But this book,” and Meshugenatha poked the copy of Threads of Divine Union lying on the table in front of me, “this book isn’t. You’re the one always going on and on about innovation, how important it is to keep the spark alive. Admit it, Shiva and Shakti, or whatever their names are, are innovators, they’ve taken a tired old set of talking points and transformed them into a viable plan for successful living in the world, something the old yogins never tried. If you want innovation, you have to accept all kinds, even if it rubs you the wrong way. So now,” Meshugenatha winked at me, “what do you have to say?”
I looked cautiously at the Svami, expecting the worst, but all he did was shrug. “Look,” he said quietly, “I don’t give a hoot what they do to these old books, though personally I’d just as soon bury them and move on to things written more recently and in the West. All I’m asking is if you’re going to re-interpret a traditional text in light of your own preferences, say so up front in the introduction, don’t try to pass it off as the authentic message. That’s what’s misleading.” He looked at me. “You know what, Rosen, I need another coffee and my friend here is craving a large chai, with an extra helping of sugar, so here’s a dollar, I’ll buy and you fly.” “A dollar?” I said dubiously. “Yes,” he said, “and don’t forget to bring me the change.”
