Bending our way to the truth

By Peter Townshend

The old adage about never discussing politics and religion in polite company, holds true. Running a yoga teacher training at a wellness centre, this is an adage I try my best to adhere to. Today, I failed. Thankfully, I suppressed my real passion for the issue, and I was in the company of intelligent, thoughtful, and moderate students, so things never escalated.

But, the experience got me thinking. How should we approach this conflict, and indeed the broadening war, from a yogic perspective? What could yoga offer? What would Patañjali say?

On the surface, the answer seems woefully obvious: do no harm (Ahiṃsā), don’t attach to land, narrative, identity, historical grievance (Aparigrahā), and understand the truth of both sides (Satya). But, this is surface-level thinking and life is more complex. This conflict is certainly more nuanced.

Which is why I quickly realised that the real question isn’t: “What does yoga say about the conflict”, but rather, “What does the conflict reveal about the limits and depths of yoga practice”?

Yoga was never intended to evolve into this flowery wellness practice where we gently retreat from hardship, and use words like Aparigrahā and Santosha as attempts to frame our discourse as a means to bypass suffering. It certainly was never intended to be used as a foil to the conflations of modern politics, or as a muffler to the bellowing screams of war. It certainly wasn’t ever a tool to be used to dismantle the dogmas of two groups of people whose ideologies are, according to both, both justifiable and unrelentingly opposed.

But, yoga (Karma, Yoga, certainly) was born out of war. Or the imagery of war. It came to life in a moment of unbearable moral conflict in the Bhagavad Gītā, when Arjuna simply couldn’t bear the torment that arose from the thought of killing members of his family in battle (This may just be the first ever recorded panic attack). And how did Krishna respond? Not by telling Arjuna, to do some pranayama, some Yin yoga and perhaps Nidra. No, Krishna asks Arjuna to look unflinchingly. To follow his dharma and to find the clarity that he had lost. Krishna tells Arjuna to fight. It is in this conflict that we find yoga. Despite Ahiṃsā, yoga thrives in conflict.

And this is because Ahiṃsā isn’t the simplistic aphorism that it gets reduced to: “Do no harm”. Ahiṃsā is not, for example, seeing Gandhi’s pacifism as passive. The closest to a living example of Ahiṃsā in the face of oppression that we have had, Gandhi still made it clear that however bad violence is, cowardice is worse, saying: “I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence”. What he is saying here is not necessarily that there are moments that violence is necessary, but rather that nonviolence only has value if there is a choice of violence; and passiveness from fear is worse. And Gandhi’s non-violence was an active choice, not moralistically, but practically. He understood that the colonial autocrats could be better dismantled, not in pools of blood, but in rivers of moral hypocrisy – as the world watched on.

And Gandhi was a yogi, considering the Gītā, his “spiritual dictionary”, which he, and most of us, read as an allegory for inner war. His marches were niṣkāma karma, action without attachment to outcome. As measured as his actions were politically, they were motivated less by politics and more, simply because it was the right way to act.

Gandhi is a powerful reference precisely because he demonstrates that ahiṃsā, at its most demanding, is not withdrawal – it is fierce, costly, and clear-eyed engagement. And something this conflict has indeed seen: the first intifada, as one example, contained significant nonviolent components, and organised nonviolent movements continue today, largely invisible in Western media. That ahiṃsā has been attempted, and has not, yet, ended the occupation, does not discredit it philosophically. Gandhi succeeded not because his actions were guaranteed to work, but because they were right. Ahiṃsā is not passive pacifism but the intention to cause no unnecessary harm.

So, how does this relate to the Israel/Palestine conflict? Well, we could certainly offer a historical interpretation, beginning with both sides’ periodic commitments to non-violence as a solution. But I think this approach misses the point. The need for violence is something we can look into here on numerous levels, but, ultimately, it comes down to both sides holding conflicting “truths”. And when there is more than one truth, conflict invariably arises.

Of course, this applies to all of us sitting behind our keyboards typing commentary, we all seem to have an opinion on which of these are the “real truths”. And this is where things get interesting. Especially in today’s world where trying to distinguish truth from fabrication is a constant challenge.

And here, Patañjali shines. Patañjali rejects this notion of multiple truths. Instead, he argues that it is our perception of truth that is the problem and this is distorted by the kleśas: avidyā (ignorance), rāga (attraction), dveṣa (aversion), asmitā (ego-identification), and abhiniveśa (fear). So, even in the Levant, there is only one truth and multiple perceptions of this truth. Each perceiver believes their perception to be true, while failing to actually see the truth.

Yoga doesn’t look at the conflict and do a deep historical dive into the “facts”, or lamely comes to the conclusion that: “everyone has their truth”. Rather, it says that none of us is really seeing clearly. This may not seem particularly swaying in the academia of conflict resolution, but it demands self-examination. It forces us to acknowledge that perception is not truth – that the truth cannot be experienced in Prakṛti. If truth cannot be fully experienced through any Prakṛtic instrument (including memory, narrative, cultural identity, emotional response, even moral reasoning) then every claim to possess the truth of this conflict is already compromised at the epistemological root.

This doesn’t mean the yogi should abandon discernment (I recently learned the value of this word), but rather (and this is where Aparigrahā comes in), that you loosen your grip on your conclusions. We too often find ourselves in blind dogma as we fiercely hold on to our own perceptions of the truth.

When we turn to the conflict from this point of view, we see only Prakṛti. We see only the non-eternal – that which is born from this blood-soaked land and which will die there. We see only memory, thoughts, and ideals. All of which are competing for attention in a realm unable to hold them.

Put more simply: Yoga doesn’t say all truths are equal. It says most of us are not yet seeing clearly enough to be certain we hold the truth. And this is an uncomfortable position to sit in. But it is not a lack of conviction, it’s just that your conviction has moved away from the idea of being right. And this is a beautiful place to be.

So, what do we do as yogis when faced with this conflict, how does all this ideology and philosophy manifest as our reality? It does this, not by ending wars, but by shaping the quality of consciousness that humans bring to conflict. And while I want to argue that it compels active compassionate witnessing. Honest self-inquiry. Refusal of dehumanisation on any side. I think it demands more than this. Yoga demands engagement and demands that the engagement be conducted from a purified instrument. And by engagement, I clearly mean activism. Which brings us back to Gandhi and Ahiṃsā. But it also makes us reflect on how we present this activism. Ideally, it should be free from opinion beyond the teachings. There are no sides. No allegiances. No favourites. Rage-driven activism, tribally motivated activism, activism that dehumanises one side to defend another, these are all Prakṛtic distortions that perpetuate the very saṃskāras driving the conflict. The activism we need is not “Free Palestine”, or to defend Israel’s “right to exist” (even when those positions feel morally obvious to us), but the kind of activism that highlights the senselessness of current actions. But don’t stop acting! Just ensure your actions are followed by close, thorough and clear understanding of the quality of consciousness in which they reside. In what they are.

And this is where the beauty and the demand of yoga truly reside, not in the elegant resolution of conflict, but in the quality of consciousness we bring to it.

No, this is not neutrality, or apathy, it’s upekṣā, the equanimity we get to, not by turning a blind eye, but by cleansing our eyes. We act, while examining the actor. No amount of sitting in meditation or detachment while our neighbour suffers will help anyone.

This is what yoga teaches us. That suffering is not something to be eradicated, but something we should fearlessly and completely enter into, openly, vulnerably and with no attachment. There is a beauty, an understanding, an exposing in the analysis of something like the violence, the horrors of humanity, the unthinkable selfishness, the desires, and the suffering of this conflict, that show us the truth. And it is a truth I want to see every day, in everything I open my imperfectly cleansed eyes to.