Political Freedom and Spiritual Liberation

Essay by Georg Feuerstein (www.traditionalyogastudies.com)

Proposition 1: "Politics and spirituality don't mix."

Proposition 2: "Take care of your inner life and the rest will fall into place automatically."

Proposition 3: "An apolitical spirituality is short lived."

In my teens, when I first set foot on the self-transcending path, I wholeheartedly subscribed to Proposition 1, which I heard many times in so-called spiritual circles. I was optimistic about the possibility of attaining enlightenment in this life and regarded politics as one of the most noxious and obnoxious aspects of material existence, an untrammeled exercise of the ego and therefore as being by definition contradictory and inimical

In Feverish Quest for Leadership

Essay by Georg Feuerstein (www.traditionalyogastudies.com)

Every four years, Americans in large numbers contract a peculiar disease of the nervous system. After four years of political stupor, they suddenly become enormously excited, not to say flipped, over yet another presidential campaign, which determines who will be their next leader; who will convey them closer to the American Dream or take them farther down into collective misery.

This year's-2008-presidential (democratic) hopeful, who is the main focus of popular exhilaration and imagination, is Barrack Hussein Obama. He seems to have arrived on the political scene seemingly from nowhere. This is, however, a misleading impression, because for many

The New Inquisition

Essay by Georg Feuerstein (www.traditionalyogastudies.com)

On November 18, 1992, under the banner of the Union of Concerned Scientists (http://www.ucsusa.org/), 1700 senior scientists from around the world, including most Nobel laureates, issued a serious warning to humanity saying that human beings and the natural world are on a collision course.

They called for a new ethic that would convince reluctant governments and reluctant peoples to make a decisive step toward responsible and sustainable living.

When you look up the website of the Union of Concerned Scientists now, you will not find a glowing progress report. On the contrary, the gloomy news is continuing, and the outlook is even bleaker than it was in 1992.

Perhaps

"Its Most Unfortunate About the Environment"

Essay by Georg Feuerstein (www.traditionalyogastudies.com)

Over the past year or so, we've heard any number of times from good-hearted people that in order to make a living, they have no choice but to engage in environmentally highly unfriendly behavior, such as jet travel. Often this admission is followed by the incredible and by now platitudinous statement: "It's most unfortunate about the environment." In other words, the welfare of the environment comes after all other considerations.

The question is: are those other considerations more vitally important than the plight of the environment? Does one's personal convenience or spending power exceed in importance and urgency the survival of entire

Yoga Commercialism and the Environment

Essay by Georg Feuerstein (www.traditionalyogastudies.com)

Yoga started out as a purely spiritual, contemplative tradition aiming at personal transformation and liberation. It has its historical roots in the ancient Indian culture of 5,000 years ago. Even in its Hatha-Yoga branch, which emerged only a thousand or so years ago, it had no other purpose than to guide its practitioners to inner wholeness.

With the transplantation of Yoga to the Western world, which was launched by the well-known Swami Vivekananda in the late eighteenth century, an eventful development occurred: Yoga briskly encountered the particular cultural orientation/bias of the West. Today, over a century later, we know that if Yoga

American Imperialism and Canada

Essay by Georg Feuerstein (www.traditionalyogastudies.com)

I am always astonished when Americans pointblank reject, or even feel offended at, the suggestion that theirs is an aggressive nation, which for many decades has emphatically pursued imperialistic goals. The historical facts speak for themselves, but then, the American public's education is, to put it mildly, highly selective. People may indeed not know the facts or have been so strongly socialized in the "American way"-some refer to this as the "deliberate dumbing down" of Americans*1-that they profess not to understand them.

"Our country is the best in the world, and there must be a very good reason for the government's international actions in the

Speeding Toward Extinction

 Essay by Georg Feuerstein (www.traditionalyogastudies.com)

 What will it take for humanity to make the necessary turn-about to safeguard Nature's future? The environmental crisis continues unabated, and is now an emergency. There are no signs that global warming or the Sixth Mass Extinction associated with it are slowing down. On the contrary, scientists expect that the destructive trend to which humanity has subjected its home planet will accelerate as time goes by.

With a staggering extinction rate of 150 species per day, unchecked deforestation, and a rising mean global temperature, we must ask: Which species will be next? When will the light go out on humanity? Increasing droughts, which wreak havoc with

Our Planet's Health Crisis

Essay by Georg Feuerstein (www.traditionalyogastudies.com)

If a person's vitality is high, a health crisis is more likely to eventual improvement rather than collapse. I am personally uncertain about the outcome of our present-day environmental crisis. Earth runs a very high fever, and the symptoms that she manifests are severe. Some specialists think that it is already too late to prevent global warming from running its fateful course over the next 150 to 200 years.

What happens after that no one knows, because at the present moment we cannot tell whether humanity will opt for life or for suicide; in other words, whether people will take decisive action to reverse (and not merely reduce) carbon emissions and in

by Georg and Brenda Feuerstein

In our book Green Yoga, we make the point that traditional Yoga is inherently green, that is, environment friendly. Why, then, do we speak specifically of "Green Yoga"? The answer is obvious: because much of contemporary Yoga is anything but green. In fact, as part of our consumer society, it is thoroughly "commodified" and plays into the very mindset that Green Yoga criticizes and seeks to overcome. As we put it:

We realize that few adherents of contemporary Yoga have, as yet, discovered Yoga's spiritual and moral teachings beyond the allure of the bodily postures. (p. 12)

However, we qualified the preceding statement by saying:

But it would be too uncharitable to

The Kali-Yuga Is Here. What Now?

There is no doubt in my mind that we live in decisive times. Ever since the 1960s, I have been reading about how our era is crucial. I realized early on that all eras tend to consider themselves as such. Objectively speaking, however, there is to our era a quality that is unlike any other. Many people even think that we live in what they call "end time." With something like 135-150 plant and animal species becoming extinct every day, they could be right.

Nothing less than the survival of all sentient species on planet Earth is at stake today. When we recognize and also acknowledge this fact, it hits us at the gut level. I have had a philosophical bent