Kevat: Waiting on Yogic Realism
“For me, Yogic Realism is the application of the spirit of yogic principles and forms, and the application of Indian/Hindu philosophy and concepts to writing. In other words, it is where the writing is serving as a conduit, or yoga, for union with the divine spirit/consciousness—not yoga serving ‘art’ though there is a fine line separating the two, and even instances when the two may well run with and complement the other.
Why Yogic Realism and not magical realism, post modernism, etc.? Because while all of these may be found in yogic realism and yoga and its attendant systems of philosophies, none of these contain the cultural philosophy which engenders yoga: that mind ultimately triumphs over body, that each consciousness is part of That Consciousness from which it came, working itself back to that pure consciousness, that any activity, any expression—even writing—which is not unselfish is ego; that, in the words of Radhakrishnan on the spirit of Indian philosophy, “…it is not enough to merely know truth but to realize it and become one with it. ” The musician sings unconcerned about the song, about the form of the song, the meaning of the song, yet at the same time cognizant of all of these as part of a community and a society and an aptitude out of which the song births and lives and dies—utilizing that to make the cross-over to self and Self, the union.
The form for yogic realism, that referencing to the spirit of yoga, if we are to take it further means that there is no constraint on form but a working with that form, any form, whichever form at a particular space and time is best suited. So, one person adapts to hatha yoga, another to bhakti, yet others at particular stages using hatha and later, or even alternately, raja yoga or other yogas. The very exposition by yoga theorists on the kinds of yoga, coming from that most seminal text the Bhagavad-Gitawhere Krishna tells Arjuna about the three broad categories of yoga—and more importantly that no matter what path is sought/used the end result is the same, supports the plurality, supports that it is the journey as process and the destination that are important. In the Bhagavad Gita, the most extraordinary book of poetry in that great library of poetry, the Mahabharata, Krishna is expounding on yoga, dharma and ethics to Arjuna as Arjuna sits in his chariot in the middle of the battlefield unable to decide if he should or shouldn’t do battle with relatives, gurus and friends in the opposing army. Krishna, in a way that culminates in a darshan—a moment of cosmic grace—for Arjuna, explains the three broad but interrelated categories of yoga; Bhaktiyoga (a one-pointed devotion and surrendering of self to the cosmic spirit), Karmayoga (the way of selfless action), and Jnanayoga (the way of knowledge). And Arjuna knows what he must do, and how he must do it.
All this is relevant in the discussion of form of writing, of yogic realism where there is form and noform—a multiplicity of ways. That famous line of Krishna to Arjuna, “as men approach me so do I accept them…” which I grew up hearing the pandits quote again and again and again at pujas, metamorphosing in the writing. There are more than two thousand years of dissecting of yogic concepts (which we cannot begin to exhaust here) and which seem as contradictory as Hinduism itself seems contradictory (if we take the philosophies of dvaita and advaita—dualism and non-dualism— we have as good an example) but which is not at all contradictory or even important to someone referencing it for a window on self and Self.”
- Sasenarine Persaud in his essay “Kevat: Waiting on Yogic Realism”
