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The Promised Land
Every Wednesday night in Rishikesh, an organization called Bhakti Yoga Rishikesh hosts a kirtan and dharma talk in the loft of a local guesthouse. Spiritual seekers of all nationalities and religious backgrounds gather in this intimate space, seated knee-to-knee on floor cushions, listening in rapture as a guest speaker delivers a sermon on yoga philosophy. These speakers are as diverse as the audience to whom they speak, ranging from Brahmin monks raised in the Vedic tradition to German scholars who spent decades studying yogic texts.
Yet, despite their differing backgrounds, many of these spiritual teachers share a core message: that “the West” is a cesspool of materialism, capitalism, and individualism, populated by people who are overworked, wealth-obsessed, disconnected from their bodies, and out of touch with nature. By contrast, “the East” (India, in particular) is a spiritual place, characterized by collectivism, laid-back attitudes towards work, and a connection to the earth. With surprising regularity, the speakers of these Wednesday night dharma talks construct a binary of East vs. West to instill the value of yoga for ‘Western’ practitioners.
Bhakti Yoga Rishikesh is not alone in these ideas. Indeed, much of the yoga industry in Rishikesh rests on this messaging: that ‘the East’ is the moral antithesis of ‘the West,’ defined broadly by cultural practices, social behaviors, and spiritual beliefs. I have encountered many foreign yoga students who spout similar sentiments – that other people from [insert home country here] are too focused on money, too apathetic, too stressed about things that don’t matter. These respondents tell me that they’ve come to Rishikesh in search of an alternative lifestyle, and many of them seem to view themselves as *enlightened* just for having left ‘the West.’
Problematizing 'the East' and 'the West'
What is ‘the West,’ anyway? The United States and Canada easily make the cut, but Latin America usually doesn’t, despite being firmly situated within the western hemisphere. Often, when we speak of ‘the West,’ we mean wealthy, developed countries (what academia calls the ‘Global North’). But Australia and most of Europe are in the eastern hemisphere, so we can dispel any notion of ‘the West’ as a geographic locator. And if ‘the West’ merely indicates wealth or development, where does that leave underdeveloped countries in Eastern Europe, such as Ukraine and Moldova? What of the millions of Americans who live below the poverty line – does their socioeconomic status preclude them from ‘Western’ identity?
More confusingly, what is ‘the East?’ The geographic area suggested by this phrase is comprised of thousands of distinct ethnic, cultural, and linguistic communities who are united by little more than rough proximity. To group them together under the umbrella of ‘Eastern’ is to flatten their vast differences. Such homogenization was a tactic of early orientalists and colonialists in Asia, who deemed all Asians uncivilized to justify imperial control. In this way, the rhetoric employed by yogis in Rishikesh reflects a form of internalized neo-orientalism. They adopt overly simplistic language, reducing diverse individuals to a set of archetypal traits so they can more easily position themselves in opposition to an outsider group. It’s textbook tribalism: a classic “us versus them” mindset.
I might have expected such reductive discourse to be peddled within Indian circles, for many Indians are (understandably) keen to scapegoat colonization and Western influence for modern India’s problems. Quite to the contrary, however, the audiences of these talks are more commonly seas of white: foreigners from Europe, Australia, and the United States who, disillusioned with the ways of life in their countries of origin, are desperate for someone to blame – and some way to escape. This manufactured East vs. West dichotomy is a marketing strategy. It targets the woes of wide-eyed ‘Westerners’ to sell yoga in a neat little package.
But, as we know, neat little packages rarely contain the whole story.
Outcomes of Chaos
The glaring flaw in this East vs. West framing is the implication that ‘Westerners’ are the only demographic that stands to benefit from yogic teachings. But yoga first emerged around 3,000 years ago, well before British colonization and certainly well before globalization. If India really is this serene, spiritual place, a moral utopia with none of those pesky ‘Western’ problems, then why did Indians develop yoga in the first place? Why would they need yoga at all?
Contrary to what some yogis in Rishikesh would have you believe, yoga is a product of its environment. It was conceived to address a series of widespread societal issues that lower the quality of life in India. Yoga is a counterculture response to a set of uniquely South Asian problems – not a contrived remedy for ‘Western’ ones. Let me give some examples:
Cleanliness
India, like other industrializing nations, has a massive problem with environmental pollution and poor hygiene standards. Of the world’s 30 cities with the worst air pollution, 21 are in India. The country also suffers from poor waste management infrastructure. Open defecation remains the standard in rural areas, and littering is common practice everywhere – in most regions, trash clutters every street and clogs every waterway. As a result, contaminated food and water pose a significant threat to public health in India, causing millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths every year.
Taken within this framework, the classical yogic precept of Śauca, or cleanliness, reads as a practical public health intervention. This philosophy dissuades people from polluting their environment and, by extension, their bodies. Likewise, the yogic texts are rife with practices that claim to aid digestion, from herbal treatments to twisting postures to Nauli Kriya. While these techniques may promote digestive function in healthy individuals, it’s likely that they were originally intended to address serious gastrointestinal issues that arose from unclean conditions.
Silence & Solitude
As of 2023, India is the most populous country in the world, with a population of over 1.4 billion. That’s about 492 people per square kilometer (or 1,275 people per mi²). Unsurprisingly, India is plagued by excessive noise. Anyone who has visited urban India can attest to the constant cacophony of car horns honking, but it’s not just traffic that punctuates the morning air – it’s also the yells of street vendors, the howls of stray dogs, the tinny blare of political adverts over loudspeaker, and more recently, the baffling phenomenon of people watching Instagram reels on full volume.
It’s no wonder, then, that some texts suggest Ekānta, solitude, and Mauna, silence, as modes of yoga practice. These teachings are straightforward strategies for quieting people’s minds… by literally lowering noise levels on the streets. Yogis have always retreated to forests and secluded hermitages to engage in spiritual practice, but perhaps they were not intensely devoted so much as they were incredibly overstimulated.
Celibacy
Sexual violence is so prevalent in India that the nation has earned the moniker “the rape capital of the world.” In 2022, over 30,000 cases of rape were reported, and nearly 200,000 more were awaiting trial. I’ve written at length about this unsettling trend (read my articles on Durga Puja and Guru-Śiṣya Paramparā), and it’s worth noting here again: individuals who harbor misogynistic attitudes and commit sex-based crimes are not “a few bad apples” – they are products of systemic injustice, enabled by Indic philosophies and political theories that date back millennia.
Given this long history of sexual violence, it is possible that the classical yoga texts prescribed Brahmacarya, or celibacy, to curb libido and prevent sexual misconduct.
Contentment
In India, Plan B is Plan A. Indian culture operates on polychronic time, so meetings and events seldom start at the established time. Government corruption is rampant – many bureaucrats and law enforcement officers demand bribes before agreeing to perform their duties. Prices for goods and services are often negotiated, rarely fixed. Broadly speaking, life in India is chaotic and unpredictable, even for lifelong residents.
I wholeheartedly believe that this lifestyle directly led to the formation of Saṃtoṣa, the yogic doctrine of contentment. Yoga teaches us to accept things as they come, to relinquish expectations, and to live in the moment. Personally, I’ve found that this mindset is crucial to enjoying life in India.
Cleaning Up the Mud
Yoga wasn’t meant to save ‘the West.’ It was forged in response to the same suffering that many South Asians struggle with today. Pollution, overpopulation, sexual violence, corruption – these are very real, endemic issues with tangible consequences for the people who live here. And unlike foreign tourists, who can temporarily cosplay as renunciates before returning to the comfort of their home countries, most Indians have no escape. This is their only bed, and they have to lie in it.
None of this is to say that yoga can’t serve people outside India. It certainly can, and it does. Perhaps neo-orientalist narratives encourage people worldwide to open their hearts and their wallets – which has undeniable benefits for India’s economic and cultural capital. But yoga didn’t emerge from a vacuum. In mistaking yoga as a cure-all for ‘the West,’ we risk erasing the contexts that gave rise to its wisdom. And by collapsing complex cultural systems into tidy binaries of East and West, we’re prone to forget whose problems we’re trying to solve.
When I first arrived in Rishikesh, I too wanted a simpler life — one closer to nature, further from the challenges of modern life. But yoga isn’t about escape. It’s about presence. Yoga asks us to embrace contradiction, complexity, chaos. It teaches us to stay with the uneven ground beneath our feet. If we want to engage deeply with yoga, we cannot abstract it from its messy roots. Instead, we must clean up the mud from which it grew.
Ways You Can Help:
- Advocate for policies and initiatives that aim to reduce particulate matter pollution, such as India’s National Clean Air Programme.
- Talk to your Indian friends and family members about the negative impacts of environmental pollution. Many Indians are flippant about littering, car idling, and buying single-use plastics – explain how these activities lower life expectancy and quality of life.
- Raise awareness about the adverse effects of noise pollution. In the meantime, carry headphones or ear plugs with you, and ask your cab drivers to lay off the horn.
- Donate to Parichiti or MAVA (Men Against Violence and Abuse), two outreach organizations dedicated to ending sexual violence by empowering women and educating men.
- Report all cases of corruption to the Central Vigilance Commission or to Lokpal India. If you are an Indian citizen, pressure the central government to enforce the Prevention of Corruption Act (POCA), 1988. Whenever possible, refuse to pay bribes and vote for representatives who support anti-corruption legislation.
- While in India, adopt a chalta hai (“things happen”) attitude. Change takes time! Model the changes you want to see, and accept that most things are out of your control. You’ll be happier, I promise 😊.
