Yoga as an Apocalyptic Movement

Jessica Voigt

“Tightly held by rocks

through winter, the ice today

begins to come undone:

A way-seeker also is the water,

melting, murmuring from the moss.”

-Saigyō

The apocalypse is often conceptualized as the coming apart, un-doing, and ultimate

destruction of existence. The eschatological thought that informs contemporary notions of

the apocalypse has often focused on the Manichean polarities of life/death, heaven/earth,

good/evil, divine/human, and creation/destruction. These dualities become the currents

that run throughout all of apocalyptic thought. Can yoga, which literally means to yoke, or

come together, be thought of as an apocalyptic movement? In analyzing closely the idea of

the apocalypse, might we come to see the collapse of these binaries and instead envision

both destruction and regeneration as one in the same?

To understand the ways in which humans have conceptualized the undoing of the

world, it is first necessary to look to the ways in which they have built it up. Karl Marx

famously said that “men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they

please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under

circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of

all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living” (5). Marx brings

into view what Peter Berger calls nomos, or the socially constructed models, rules, and

customs of everyday existence. The world into which we are born wears the guise of

natural order, but has actually been fashioned by our ancestors so convincingly that few

individuals ever question the foundation upon which our lives have been built.

If you conform to the world

it will bind you hand and foot.

If you do not, then

it will think you mad.

-Kamo no Chomei

Berger further complicates the idea of nomos by suggesting that its construction is a

“dialectic phenomenon” in which the world, a product of human creation, actually “acts

back upon its producer.” As a result, man is inherently dependent upon the society he has

created for the shaping of his own existence. “In other words, man not only produces a

world, but he also produces himself,” says Berger. The power of nomos to act upon and

shape its creator is, for Marx, a nightmare. Man has little power over his own reality and is

left to negotiate the instabilities of the world and his own existence based on the already

established nomic structure. This dialectical relationship which man cannot escape creates

a “balancing act between man and his body, man and his world” (3-6).

While the relationship between man and nomos appears tenuous at best, man goes

to great lengths to preserve the nomic structure upon which his own identity so delicately

rests. Separation from either society or nomos, says Berger, “exposes the individual to a

multiplicity of dangers…The ultimate danger of such separation, however, is the danger of

meaninglessness.” The destruction of nomos leads to the annihilation of one’s own identity,

a terror so unbearable that an “individual may seek death in preference to it” (22). It

follows that the greatest fear of man is that of nomic ruin. Apocalyptic moments, because of

their power to instantly collapse nomos, open up the possibility of glimpsing the

underlying structures upon which society is built. DJ Incarnación says: “The water washes

away some of our illusions, reveals the cracks in the system and infrastructure and shows

us some of what the house has been built on.” Through apocalypse, nomos is not only

shattered, but revealed.

“The Book of Revelation,” says Elaine Pagels, “reads as if John had wrapped up all

our worst fears- fears of violence, plague, wild animals, unimaginable horrors emerging

from the abyss below earth, lightning, thunder, hail, earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, and

the atrocities of torture and war- into one gigantic nightmare. Yet instead of ending in total

destruction, his visions finally open to the New Jerusalem- a glorious city filled with light.

John’s visions of dragons, monsters, mothers, and whores speak less to our head than to

our heart: like nightmares and dreams, they speak to what we fear, and what we hope”

(171). Apocalypse is the reversal of nomic order into a world of disorder and chaos.

Religion serves the purpose of protecting nomos by grounding nomic authority in the

cosmic realm. In this way, we might interpret John’s apocalyptic vision as an exposure of

the human fear of nomic collapse as much as a revelation of God’s word. The New

Jerusalem in John’s vision is the promise of nomic security for those who believe in and live

by the cosmic order in contrast to the chaos and ruin that await those who do not. In effect,

the strengthening of one nomos requires the demise of all the others. One society’s rebirth

is another society’s apocalypse. The Book of Revelation, then, exposes humanity’s

existential need for order and shows us a glimpse into a world stripped of its nomos.

Berger’s system of understanding human existence explains the need for Manichean

dualisms- the world is either securely with nomos or unstably without; there is little room

for an ambiguous middle-ground.

Nomos serves to fulfill the existential needs of humanity, but what happens when

one’s nomos no longer “represents the bright ‘dayside’ of life” (Berger 1971, 23)? Of this

existential dilemma, C.S. Lewis laments: “I find in myself a desire which no experience in

this world can satisfy; the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world”

(183). C.S. Lewis sees that nomos is a system of meaning carved out of a meaningless

world and bemoans not having been born into a world with a different nomic structure.

How do individuals negotiate detachment from or abandonment of the established social

order?

I have built for myself,

alone.

You may wonder why.

The world today has its ways

and I have mine.

-Kamo no Chomei

The nomic structuring of society requires constant cycles of destruction and

renewal to allow for the ushering in of change and the rebuilding of societies. How might

yoga allow for the dissolution of this cycle and bring about a new understanding of

existential reality? Mircea Eliade says that in Yoga, the “world is real. Nevertheless, if the

world exists and endures, it is only because of the ‘ignorance’ of spirit; the innumerable

forms of the cosmos, as well as their processes of manifestation and development, exist

only in the measure to which the Self is ignorant of itself and, by reason of this

metaphysical ignorance, suffers and is enslaved” (1969, 9). Much like Marx, Eliade views

nomos and the structuring of the world as the means by which man becomes enslaved to a

particular mode of being. The illusory construction of nomos is what prevents man from

seeing the actual nature of existence. Yoga, Eliade explains, is a means by which the

illusions of the world might be revealed and supreme knowledge attained.

The yogi, seeing the world as a man-made creation, uses that knowledge to free

himself from the cycle of nomic control. Eliade suggests that “such knowledge is impossible

in the present condition of humanity. It reveals itself only to him who, having broken his

fetters, has passed beyond the human condition; ‘intellect’ plays no part in this revelation,

which is, rather, knowledge of one’s Self, of the Self itself” (1969, 18). The ultimate

revelation in Yogic thought is far from the one described in John of Patmos’ vision. Where

John sought a strengthening of nomic order through the creation of a heaven-on-earth

through the rise of the New Jerusalem, the yogi sees the death of nomos as the ultimate

means by which humanity might achieve realization of the Self and break the cycle of death

and rebirth.

For the yogi to obtain self-realization, he must first become liberated from his

human condition. Ultimate freedom requires actions that are “antisocial” and “antihuman,”

says Eliade. Whereas the “worldly man lives in society, marries, and establishes a family,

Yoga prescribes absolute solitude and chastity. The worldly man is ‘possessed’ by his life;

the yogin refuses to let himself live” (1969, 95). The yogi’s withdrawal from the

phenomenal world requires actions and thoughts that are “the exact opposite of what

human nature forces one to do” (1969, 96). The yogi, then, transcends his existential need

for order and structure within society and instead focuses on spiritual obtainment. This

self-imposed exile from society is explained by Kamo no Chomei in the Hojoki. While he

admits that he “did not intend to stay this long,” after living five years in a ten-square-foot-

hut away from society, he nevertheless realizes that this detached existence affords greater

freedom and happiness than he could ever know living among others. Removed from the

nomic structure, the realities of existence come into clear view for Chomei who begins to

see that the suffering of humans is largely self-imposed. Throughout the Hojoki, Chomei

explains the cyclical nature of nomic rise and collapse paired with the feelings of either

happiness or despair that follow. Wondering how to live in this ambiguous world, Chomei

asks:

And so the question is,

where should we live?

And how?

Where to find

a place to rest a while?

And how bring

even short-lived peace

to our hearts?

To these questions, Chomei seeks answers through exile. Interestingly, and much unlike the

yogi’s who seek self-realization, Chomei’s only desire is for respite from the destructive

nomic cycle. Nevertheless, the Hojoki stands as evidence that through the total

abandonment of society, and therefore nomos, man might escape the impending doom of

the apocalypse and instead come to see his true Self and place within the natural world.

How can the yogi exist in a world devoid of structure? While Berger sees the

ordering of the world only in terms of nomos and social constructions, Eliade suggests that

humans also locate themselves in relation to God and the cosmos which he explains as the

Myth of the Eternal Return. Like Berger, Eliade says that the objects of the external world

have no intrinsic value or meaning, but that they “acquire a value, and in so doing become

real, because they participate, after one fashion or another, in a reality that transcends

them.” The value of objects and acts derive from their perceived relationship to the cosmos.

Human behavior, then, patterns itself after celestial archetypes. Behaviors, says Eliade, “are

repeated because they were consecrated in the beginning by gods, ancestors, or heroes”

(1971, 3-4). Meaning is achieved only through behaviors that repeat the primordial act.

Similarly, through this process of meaning-making, man both produces and maintains the

cosmos. In the opening pages of Eliade’s book, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, he explains

that Yogic philosophy differs from Western philosophy in its desire to realize and dissolve

the process of eternal return. “The road to freedom,” says Eliade, “necessarily leads to a

desolidarization from the cosmos” (1969, 10).

For the Yogi, the collapse of societal structures is necessary in order to achieve

salvation. The ordered worlds of structure and meaning that are described by both Berger

and Eliade simultaneously stand in the way of self-realization while acting as a vehicle for

its attainment. Eliade explains: “Yet the cosmos, life, have an ambivalent function. On the

one hand, they fling man into suffering and…enmesh him in the infinite cycle of

transmigrations; on the other hand, indirectly, they help him to seek and find ‘salvation’ for

his soul, autonomy, absolute freedom” (1969, 11). The greater the suffering of man, the

greater is his desire to achieve liberation. In this way, we might argue that apocalyptic

moments are the ones powerful enough to shake away man’s comfort and security within

the nomic system. The very things one most fears are at the same time the greatest tools

with which to strip away the illusions of nomic and cosmic order, thereby making visible

the supreme knowledge of reality. The apocalypse, in this sense, is the road to freedom.

Yoga, however, does not completely abolish the cosmicization of the world. The

archetypes that are found in all ordered societies can be located within yogic thought, as

well. In refusing to participate in the model of nomic construction, the yogi instead

“imitates a transcendent model” (Eliade1969, 96). It follows that “in withdrawing from the

profane human life, the yogin finds another that is deeper and truer- the very life of the

cosmos” (1969, 97). In effect, the yogi makes the decision to model his life not after the

ideals of society, but after the essence of Īśvara, or God. The bodily postures practiced in

hatha yoga imitate the divine archetype of God, whose mode of being consists of

“immobility” and “concentration on the self.” Eliade continues saying, “the yogin becomes a

living statue, thus imitating the iconic model (1969, 68). In other words, renouncing the

archetypes associated with society requires the adoption of other cosmic models. In the

case of yoga, the cosmic archetype is God.

While it may seem that the yogi simply replaces one manufactured system with

another, he is also acutely aware that these ordering structures are simply intermediary

tools to assist with the process of self-realization and that, eventually, even cosmic

structuring must be abolished. Eliade continues: “Final liberation cannot be obtained

without experience of a preliminary stage of ‘cosmicization’; one cannot pass directly from

chaos to freedom” (1969, 97). A famous Buddhist parable explains the way cosmicization

might be thought of a tool to help the yogi pass from chaos to freedom:

“I shall show you how the Dharma is similar to a raft, being for the purpose

of crossing over, not for the purpose of grasping. Listen and attend closely

to what I shall say:

…suppose a man in the course of a journey saw a great expanse of water,

whose near shore was dangerous and fearful and whose further shore was

safe and free from fear…then, when he had got across and had arrived at the

far shore, he might think thus: 'This raft has been very helpful to me, since

supported by it and making an effort with my hands and feet, I got safely

across to the far shore. Suppose I were to hoist it on my head or load it on

my shoulder, and then go wherever I want.' Now…what do you think? By

doing so, would that man be doing what should be done with that raft?"

‘…suppose I were to haul it onto dry land or set it adrift in the water, and

then go wherever I want.' Now…it is by so doing that that man would be

doing what should be done with that raft” (Bhikkhu 228-229)

The yogi, then, sees that it is possible to use the process of cosmicization to help him cross

the chasm from societal structures to self-realization. When he arrives, even cosmic

ordering must be abolished.

Eliade suggests that cosmicization occurs in the nomic world around the

construction of a sacred mountain, or axis-mundi. Churches, temples, royal residences, and

even literal mountains can play this role of cosmic center. Existing as the point of collision

between heaven, hell, and earth, these sacred axes serve as the gateway between the

celestial realms. It should come as little surprise that human systems of social construction

should place artificial edifices, like churches or ziggurats, at their sacred centers; the

cornerstones of societies and point from which creation springs forth, literally rise up from

a foundation of nomos. In contrast, yoga does not look to the material world to locate an

axis-mundi, or meeting point between the earthly and cosmic realms. Instead, each human

becomes his own axis-mundi with the capacity of “withdrawing to his own center and

completely dissociating himself from the cosmos…This final ‘withdrawal’ is equivalent to a

rupture of plane, to an act of real transcendence” (Eliade 1969, 98).

In this way, detachment from the cosmic world becomes necessary for self-

realization. What happens when man is freed of both nomos and cosmos? Only then, Eliade

suggests, can man be unbound from that the paradoxical relationships and Manichean

dualisms that are the by-product of world construction. Through yoga, distinction between

man and God is eliminated and the yogi becomes his own axis-mundi. As the “geometric

point where the divine and human coincide,” the yogi eliminates distinctions of “being and

nonbeing, eternity and death, the whole and the part” (95). In this way, yoga provides a

possible vehicle from which to escape the grip of the apocalypse. While yoga does not

destroy society, it does provide a means by which individuals might transcend its limits.

Yoga collapses the Manichean dualisms that divide society, thus making real the possibility

of true unification. By rejecting the systems of cosmic and social construction through yoga,

man might transcend possibilities of apocalypse.

A Divergent View

In the presence of one firmly established in non-violence,

all hostilities cease.

-Patanjali

Eliade says that yoga is the means by which humanity might come to know the

world as it really exists. The yogi is not troubled by the external world, because he has

acquired autonomy from all social structures; “the non-initiate is incapable of gaining this

freedom, because his mind, instead of being stable, is constantly violated by the activity of

the senses, by the subconscious, and by the thirst for life” (69). This thirst for life is

nowhere more evident than in the writing of Frantz Fanon. In his seminal text, The

Wretched of the Earth, Fanon not only speaks of his hunger for life, but also his willingness

to resort to any means necessary to achieve the freedom to live. Fanon calls for the

“veritable creation of new men” (36) through decolonization and a total reordering of the

world.

Fanon acknowledges that the colonial world is a Manichean world, but seeks to

embrace rather than abolish the dualisms that separate men. Fanon recognizes the

different nomic structures that characterize and divide the colonizer from the colonized

and seeks a reversal of these orders. Grounded in biblical thought, “so the last will be first,

and the first will be last” (NSRV, Matthew 20:16), Fanon calls for violent uprising to achieve

his vision. Through this insurrection, Fanon envisions “the whole world and moral

universe breaking up” (45). Through violence, Fanon sees the possibility of the colonizer’s

nomic collapse and the rise of a new nomic structuring. “The native discovers reality and

transforms it into the pattern of his customs, into the practice of violence and into his plan

for freedom” (58).

Yogic philosophy might challenge Fanon’s notion of freedom by insisting that his

goal is not self-realization, which is true freedom from suffering, but rather a societal

restructuring that simply favors one nomos over another. Where Fanon insists that the

“colonized man finds his freedom in and through violence,” (86) the yogi would instead

argue that violence binds man to the material world thus inhibiting his ultimate liberation.

The liberation that Fanon seeks is not liberation from all suffering, but only the

freedom to act in and on the world. Fanon’s freedom is one with limits. He seeks not the

unification of self with God, but the unification of an oppressed people. Firmly grounded in

the world, “the practice of violence binds them (the colonized) together as a whole, since

each individual forms a violent link in a great chain” (Fanon, 93). More than achieving

freedom, it seems that Fanon is engaged in an “enterprise of world-building” (Berger, 3).

Through violence, Fanon sees the colonized forcefully exerting his right to establish a

relationship with the world. Berger argues that world building is always a collective

enterprise, which explains why Fanon sees the necessity of “village assemblies, the

cohesion of people’s committees, and the extraordinary fruitfulness of local meetings and

groupments.” In Fanon’s view, the “interests of one will be the interests of all…everyone will

be massacred-or everyone will be saved” (47).

Considering his goal of world-construction, it should come as little surprise that

Fanon rejects the development of individual pursuits. He mocks those societies where

“each person shuts himself up in his own subjectivity and whose only wealth is individual

thought” (47). Fanon looks to the world for solutions to its own wretchedness without

seeing that the cause of suffering lies not in the world itself, but in man’s desire to control

it. Eliade says that “the wretchedness of human life” (1969, 14) lies in the ignorance of the

true nature of the spirit.

The Rise of an Apocalyptic Movement

If yoga seeks the destruction of nomos, might we come to view the contemporary

yoga craze in America as the rise of a new apocalyptic movement? From Nazism and radical

Islam to cargo cult groups and UFO-ology, every new apocalyptic movement requires a

charismatic leader to bring the vision to the people and ground it within a myth of new

creation. To radically alter existing nomic structure requires great strength and powers of

persuasion, making imperative the effectiveness of the leader’s charismatic authority. Max

Weber suggests that charismatic authority, while powerful enough to mobilize people and

produce radical change, is inherently short-lived. While individuals like Martin Luther King,

Jr., John F. Kennedy, and even Adolf Hitler have shown this to be true, I suggest that the

contemporary yoga movement in America might change our conceptions of charismatic

authority and open new possibilities for seeing stability within an apocalyptic movement.

The language of authority is embedded in the very fabric of yogic discourse: “Yoga is

perfect obedience to the teacher,” says Sri Dharma Mittra, a guru practicing in New York

City. Lola Williamson, in her book Transcendent in America, agrees. Self-realization can only

become possible through “spiritual transmission from the guru. This can be accomplished

only through complete faith in the guru” (15). This complete surrender is reminiscent of

the charismatic authority seen across all apocalyptic movements. What makes yoga unique

is its understanding of the succession of authority from guru to disciple, thus ensuring the

persistence of the movement.

Charismatic authority makes possible the enterprise of world construction. William

James nods to this phenomenon when he says “the community stagnates without the

impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.”

World building can come only from the collective, but requires the impulse of a charismatic

individual for its thrust into society. Burridge, in explaining the rise of cargo cults in

Melanesia says: “…from time to time a charismatic figure brings portions of the myth-

dream out of the area of day-dream, and, for a relatively short period of time, transforms-

and externalizes- these portions of the myth-dream into the word” (149). By bringing the

myth-dream- what Eliade refers to as cosmicization- to the surface of consciousness, the

charismatic leader has the ability to mobilize thoughts into “physical activity” (149). In this

way, charismatic leaders have the power to produce nomic restructuring through

apocalyptic change.

The ability of the charismatic leader to facilitate this shift inherently imbues him

with great power. It is the abuse of this power that ultimately leads to the ruin of most

figures of charismatic authority. David Redles, in his essay Nazi End Times: The Third Reich

as Millennial Reich, recounts a nazi party member’s first impressions of Adolf Hitler: “For

the first time I saw before my eyes the power of the movement…We were all intoxicated by

the powerful experience – 100,000 men all harnessed by one man” (182). Ultimately,

Hitler’s abuse of authority led to the apocalyptic ruin of the Third Reich rather than its

salvation.

The attractiveness of apocalyptic movements comes from their rejection of existing,

often broken, nomic systems while their demise comes from their inability to exist without

the creation of a new nomos. By replacing one nomos with another, they ensure the

continuation of the apocalyptic cycle of destruction and rebirth. Yoga differs is in its refusal

to build up solid social structures and also in its conception of charismatic authority.

Within yogic thought, the guru’s position of authority is not a permanent one as the

disciple is expected to one day achieve the same power as his teacher. Williamson says that

yoga “places the guru outside conventional norms (of authority). This hierarchical

relationship is not a permanent reality…disciples believe their spiritual journey will

culminate in the same pinnacle of development as the guru’s…At the deepest level, the guru

and disciple are considered equal and united” (136). Parallel to the necessity of

transcending nomos and cosmos, the yogi must also transcend the guru-disciple

relationship to experience self-realization and a unity of consciousness. Similar to the

yogi’s role as his own axis mundi, he must also become his own guru.

In conclusion, yoga provides a means by which we might expand our notions of the

apocalypse to include activities, thoughts, and awareness that not only create social change,

but also produce great mental and spiritual transformations. A shift of consciousness is an

apocalyptic movement, but one that reaches outside the bounds of existing social theories.

Through yoga, we can begin to see the ways in which apocalyptic shifts might occur on the

level of the individual and conceptualize apocalypse not only as a coming apart through

destruction, but also as the wholeness of self-realization through new creation.

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