TYS -- Georg Feuerstein on the Big Questions: Interview by Brenda Feuerstein

GEORG FEUERSTEIN ON HIS WORK
AND ON YOGA IN THE WEST

Interview by Brenda Feuerstein

Brenda Feuerstein explores her husband’s ideas, especially his thoughts about his life’s work,
especially in light of his critical attitude toward today’s Western Yoga movement.

BRENDA: In a previous interview [Georg Feuerstein on the Big Questions], you mentioned how, at the age of fourteen, you discovered India and Yoga. Much of your life’s work has been to make the traditional teachings of Yoga available to Westerners. Why India? Why Yoga?

GEORG: I guess, you are fishing for something more specific. Well, actually, it was a someone rather than something that captivated my attention at the time and, in retrospect, shaped my interest and life path. In other words, I became fascinated not with Yoga in the first place but with a yogi in the broadest sense of the term. That yogi was the sage Ramana Maharshi of Tiruvannamalai in South India whom Agehananda Bharati disrespectfully labeled a “crushing bore,” which still irks me. . .

BRENDA: Who is Agehananda Bharati?

GEORG: Was; he died in the early 90s. He was born Leopold Fischer, an Austrian who taught at Syracuse University [in the state of New York], was a professor of anthropology and South-Asian studies, and apparently spoke fifteen languages, including of course Sanskrit. He had been inducted into Shankaracarya’s Bharati order and wore a swami’s ochre robes. I remember his rude remark about Ramana Maharshi, because it seemed totally out of sync with what I imagined a swami to be and to say. Also, it was completely out of sync with my own take on Ramana Maharshi.

I “met” Bhagavan Ramana through Paul Brunton’s first book, A Search in Secret India, which I had requested as a gift for my fourteenth birthday. My parents obligingly presented me with this book, not suspecting that it would set the tone for the rest of my life. I was deeply moved by Brunton’s description of the sage and read it over and over again. I sensed there was a profound truth here that I needed to understand. I experienced a strange yearning to be in Ramana’s presence, or the presence of someone like him. Ramana’s spontaneous enlightenment at the age of sixteen became an archetypal symbol for me, and I dreamed of abandoning school, which I found utterly boring, to follow in the footsteps of the great saints and Self-realizers of India.

I have to say that I don’t pretend to understand Agehananda Bharati’s odd remark. It is not unlike one made by Gustav Jung, whose work I otherwise find a source of intellectual stimulation. The German Indologist Heinrich Zimmer, who had published a biography of Ramana Maharshi, wanted Jung, with whom he was friendly, to pay Ramana Maharshi a visit during his India tour [in 1938]. Jung failed to do so. He felt that Ramana was not unique but a spiritual type—the kind of saintly individual of whom India had produced many. He felt that a visit to the sage would not contribute anything significant to his understanding or life. This comment is, for me, below Jung’s intellectual niveau. I greatly value his contribution to our psychological knowledge, but I think that his critique of the Eastern wisdom traditions is biased and unsound.

Be that as it may, I was devastated when in my youth I discovered that Ramana had died in 1950, three years after I was born. Even though I never adopted his well-known method of self-inquiry, over the years I have come to consider him as an invisible presence in the background of my life and inner unfolding.

BRENDA: Readers may be curious about Ramana Maharshi’s method. Could you say something about it?

GEORG: Self-inquiry consists in asking oneself “Who am I?” and then meditatively waiting for an answer from deep within, over and over. This really calls for a fair measure of inner quiet and also the ability to stay focused, which many people find difficult. It’s a kind of inward listening or waiting, a rather unique method of practicing Jnana-Yoga, the traditional nondualist Yoga of discerning the Real from the unreal, the Eternal from the finite, and so on.

BRENDA: What about Paul Brunton? His book played such an important role in your life. I know you’ve written an article about him.

GEORG: Paul Brunton was a British journalist, who was deeply interested in the arcane arts and had gone to India in search of true knowledge. He is credited with having discovered Ramana Maharshi for the West. Although that sage didn’t have any disciples in the strict sense, he clearly had a spiritual relationship with Brunton. I have since come to regard Brunton—or “PB” as his students used to call him—as one of the finest but little known Western mystics of the twentieth century. He certainly ranks among the pioneers of the East-West dialogue, and his writings have been widely influential. I can say that I’ve read all his books, some more than once. I’ve even ploughed through the sixteen volumes of his Notebooks, and not only in order to be able to review them. Today scarcely anyone reads his books, which is a shame. Brunton still has much to teach those who are walking on the razor-edged path of spiritual life. Apart from his books, the posthumously published volumes of his Notebooks are a veritable treasure chest for spiritual seekers, as long as one doesn’t get tripped up by Brunton’s sometimes stilted style.

I never met Brunton. He stopped publishing in the early 50s, and by the time I started to be interested in Yoga, I didn’t even know whether he was still alive or had already joined his beloved Ramana in the ever-present Reality. [Brunton died in 1981.] I made no effort to find out more about him, or to look him up. I have never made a habit of bothering other writers with requests for personal meetings. For the most part, I don’t appreciate them myself.

BRENDA: Do you regard yourself as something like a successor to Brunton?

GEORG: That’s one I’ve never heard before! [Laughter] Not particularly. Although Brunton, like me, wrote a couple of fairly abstruse books in addition to highly readable stuff, I can’t claim to have consciously followed in his footsteps. Perhaps, we are part of a spiritual writers guild that has had the task of introducing ancient Eastern teachings to the West. [Chuckles] Although I’ve read more or less thoroughly all of Brunton’s writings, I can’t claim to have been particularly influenced by them. It’s like reading a letter from a good friend. You feel vaguely endorsed and certainly encouraged, but the letter sounds like your own letters back to your friend.

BRENDA: Would you have gone to visit Brunton had you known he was still alive?

GEORG: I think we might have had a good conversation. Certainly, if he had been open to it, I would have quizzed him about Ramana Maharshi. But then, I really don’t know whether such a meeting would have served me at the time. Besides, I’ve been told that meeting a writer or other public figure in person can be a drag. [Laughs.] Whom I would really have loved to meet was Ramana Maharshi himself, not so much his messenger, even though I’ve always had a great respect for Brunton.

BRENDA: Since the 60s, you’ve written over forty books and I-don’t-know-how-many articles in magazines. How do you view yourself as a writer?

GEORG: That’s one of those weird generic questions. [Smiles] Let me answer it this way: Writing has always been a tool for me to give expression to the things that move me deeply. My books reflect in a certain sense the course of my own intellectual and spiritual voyage. I wrote them because I was thinking through certain issues that had become important to me, and writing happens to be my preferred way of formulating my thoughts. Other thinkers pace up and down and talk to themselves. I have to sit still and let my consciousness run nervous energy into my brain and down my fingers, so that they can catch my thoughts on paper as they pop into my head. A childhood memory just flashed through my mind. I recall watching with amusement a neighborhood parson. Every week, in summer, he would pace up and down on his large balcony and rehearse his Sunday sermon. I would try to catch his words. I remember thinking that this must be a painful task for him. I would never find pacing up and down conducive to creative thinking.

I had to teach myself to relax and drop my self-consciousness as a writer. This was a challenging and long process. For years, writing was hard labor, especially because I had to learn to express myself in English rather than in my native German. I don’t even know why I persisted in the face of so few material rewards. Unless they hit the jackpot, writers are seldom blessed with material abundance. I hope that my readers will take note of this! Sometimes I get the impression that people think that with thirty books under my belt, I must be wealthy. Or they would not have the kind of expectations from me that at least some readers seem to have. The truth is that writing nonfiction works doesn’t make one rich, and books weigh one down karmically.

BRENDA: What sort of expectations are you referring to? I think I know the answer to this question, but I thought you might like the opportunity to air your feelings to readers of this interview. And what do you mean by your books weighing you down karmically?

GEORG: [Laughter] Nothing like show and tell! I find it vexing when readers demand that I promptly respond to their letters, emails, and requests—all at my expense: my time, energy, and dollar. Several years ago, when taking stock of my various activities, I realized that every day I was spending two, three, and more hours on other people’s business. While I like to be as helpful as I can in a direct way, this sort of investment seemed exorbitant and unreasonable. I resolved to adopt a new approach. For a while I felt quite guilty about not responding to people’s requests or even point-blank demands for attention. But I’ve gotten over this particular hang-up. There is only so much one can do, and people ought to appreciate this.

There is a slightly amusing side to all this. People who want something from me, frequently announce themselves to be old or good “friends,” who met me in person on such-and-such an occasion. Often, I have never even been to the supposed venue or event, and also have absolutely no recollection of having met or talked to them. It is amazing how many “friends” I have. Sometimes, actual former friends resume a long-lost connection only because they want me to do something for them and get upset when I tell them that I stopped doing this or that years ago, even for friends. They obviously weren’t trying to live up to their alleged friendship with me but were treating me like a jumper cable to start their stalled engine. Benjamin Franklin got it right when he likened false friends to your shadow. Both are around only during sunshine. I came to think that my obligation to my readers consists in simply producing useful, honest writings. As for actual or putative friends, it’s best to cultivate self-reliance and not have undue expectations of others.

BRENDA: You once mentioned to me that the process of writing is more like playing for you. What did you mean by this?

GEORG: I guess, over the years, writing has become enjoyable because it has stopped being torturous. Ideas and words come easily to me. I am a one-draft kind of writer. On reading through what I’ve written, I might find a better word or expression here and there, but 99 percent is what the reader will read. I feel for those authors who are tormented by writer’s block—sometimes for years on end. I can’t help feeling, though, that if this problem is long-term or the rule, they might be in the wrong profession. Most importantly, writing has stopped being an obsession with me. As you know, sometimes I go for weeks or even months doing other things. Believe it or not, there is life beyond authoring! I am sure that Isaac Asimov can finally bear witness to this. [Laughter] [Asimov worked almost day and night and produced literally hundreds of books. He died in 1992.]

BRENDA: How do you explain this change in you?

GEORG: I somehow outgrew the intellectual question-and-answer game. Perhaps, along the way, I discovered enough answers to stop feeling so compelled in plying my trade as a word smith. Also, I trust and rely on my intuition more. If I have the information at my finger tips, I am able to write rather swiftly. The intellect is a limited instrument. It is important, of course, and intellectual work can be an exciting adventure. But there is so much else in life, and we have other faculties by which to engage or apprehend reality that are even more “exciting.” Think of smelling a pine tree after a rain; tasting chocolate ice cream; letting soft, warm sand run through your fingers; having your grateful dog take you for a walk under a blue sky.

BRENDA: Do you ever picture a time in your life when you won’t pursue writing as your vocation?

GEORG: Oftentimes. I frequently think about abandoning my writing career altogether and doing wood working instead. But wood working won’t pay the bills. [Laughter] Also, what the public doesn’t know is that authoring books involves a good many tasks that are not so enjoyable, such as editing, proofreading, marketing, and dealing with agents and publishers, at least some agents and some publishers. Anyone contemplating a writing career should find out what is involved. From hindsight, I’d say: First learn a trade to finance and ground your authoring later. I should have listened to my parents! [Laughs] Luckily, I don’t have to change my job at this late hour. I now tell people that I’m semi-retired, because I basically only work during normal business hours and take time off when the sun shines or when I feel like meditating, gardening, hiking, or tinkering in the garage. In any case, I feel very fortunate and am thankful that I persisted through all those years of struggle.

BRENDA: You have written both scholarly and more popular books. They all deal with spirituality in one way or another. It seems you are wearing two hats: that of the scholar and that of the spiritual practitioner.

GEORG: Well, I’ve worn a few more hats than that in my time, like book and magazine editor, publisher, web designer, printer, binder, Girl Friday, and so on. I just never excelled in those trades. [Chuckles] But you’re quite correct about my life as a writer. In Goethe’s phrase, there are two souls in my chest. One side of me tends to be ponderously Teutonic; I have used it to write monographs like The Philosophy of Classical Yoga. The other side is a bit more playful. It’s this part of me, my homo ludens nature, my “inner child” if you like, which steps forward in my more popular writings. Here I speak primarily as a spiritual practitioner, not as a scholar, addressing other spiritual practitioners. But always my purpose has been to communicate something worthwhile, something that’s more than information, that hopefully has the power to affect and change the reader. All my work is a variation on the same theme: that of spirituality, which comes in so many colors and touches—or could touch—our lives in so many ways.

BRENDA: It strikes me that the monographs are becoming rarer. . .[Laughs]

GEORG: They are an extinct breed in my case. Monographic dinosaurs. [Laughter] Even though I find it very much easier to produce scholarly stuff than popular writings, I really don’t think that’s too useful or even my function in this phase in my life. There was a time when I strove for my work to become acceptable to the scholarly establishment. I stopped being concerned about this a good many years ago. There is definitely a place for scholarly work and monographs, providing they are printed on recycled paper! It’s just that I have lost interest in being part of that particular intellectual game or clique. Mind you, I do appreciate good scholarly toil and also make use of it in my research and writing. But I am not drawn to producing more of it myself. Of course, some of my readers think that even my more popular books are scholarly, but this seems to suggest a lack of acquaintance with scholarly work.

I should say something here about the distinction I’m inclined to make between scholarship and academia. I view academia as scholarship without humor. It’s the sort of pedantic orientation that gets you a doctorate or the approval of fellow academics. Real scholarship is well proportioned and appropriate. By contrast, academic productivity often consists in a morass of often irrelevant details. You can recognize an academic book by its overwhelming so-called critical apparatus and its massive bibliography. The author could never have read, let alone assimilate, the contents of all those books. It’s really quite forbidding and deadly. Sometimes you see titles in other languages, which (as I have discovered) the author doesn’t know and can’t read. Very strange all.

I ask you: Have you ever met a happy academic? [Laughter] I’ve talked or corresponded with a few good scholars, but you really can’t communicate with an academic in the sense I have in mind. [Laughs] When I was still living in England, I was once invited into the home of a noted philosopher, whose even more noted partner was present at brunch. He only briefly glanced up from the newspaper he was reading to check on the annoying interruption—me. There was a total disconnect. Needless to say, brunch was exceedingly bizarre. I’d say, academics are always having brunch by themselves.

BRENDA: Did you use the playful side of your brain to work on Yoga For Dummies?

GEORG: Oh! Nice that you should ask! [Smiles] On one level, I’d prefer to leave that book unmentioned, because it was not a good writing experience for me. On another, the story behind its creation should be told. I think it was in 1998 when IDG, the publisher, approached me inviting me to write this book. I had benefited from various technical books in the same well-known series but couldn’t imagine that the subject of Yoga could be streamlined to fit into it. I said No. A week or so later, the acquisition editor knocked on my door a second time. Again I said No, without hesitation and giving an evasive reason. When she inquired a third time, I hesitated and asked for a couple of days to think about it. I did a fair amount of thinking in those two days. I ended up saying Yes. Why did I say Yes? I did so, not for the money but because it struck me that if I didn’t work on the book, someone else might not do proper justice to the spiritual values and ideas of Yoga—in other words, botch the job. As part of the agreement, I asked for a co-author to take care of the physical exercises, which they wanted to make a prominent part of the book. My agent found Larry Payne for my co-author. He contributed his “user-friendly” approach to postural practice, which made sense to me. Playing safe, I insisted on all sorts of contractual conditions, which guaranteed that the spiritual and philosophical side of Yoga would be properly represented and not be buried under postures. I’m glad I did this, because later on, I had to invoke just those contractual arrangements. I think, given the limitations of the Dummies format, the book turned out reasonably well.

Authoring for the Dummies series was a bit of a nightmare because of the number of editors involved (each of whom insisted on their own color ink) and the required writing according to formula. Even with the noblest of intentions, I would not repeat the experience. I am, however, glad that I worked on this book, which has brought the message of Yoga to a very large readership. Those who are disgruntled about the book are likely to never have read it.

I feel I ought to mention another fiasco with this publishing project, which caused me some embarrassment. Out of the blue one day, I received a rather unpleasant email from a reader, who complained that the book wasn’t worth the money he had spent. Something about the complaint made me check into it further. I was horrified to discover that IDG, without informing me, had published a “mini-version” of the book, which was stripped of everything but the exercises. This was exactly the kind of book I had hoped to prevent by agreeing to author the original book! Unfortunately, I had failed to read the fine print carefully enough, and inadvertently had given IDG the right to publish such a meaningless condensation.

BRENDA: How do you explain that you have worn, or can wear, two hats—the scholarly one and the popular one?

GEORG: My scholarly work has been a necessary stage in my personal development. I started out as a spiritual practitioner, a sorcerer’s apprentice if you will, when I was in my teens. An Indological acquaintance of mine at the time told me that, given my fascination with Yoga and things Indian, I could either become a yogi or a Yoga scholar. In those days, I felt I could develop into a world-renouncing yogi. I apprenticed with a Hindu swami, but life, after all, had a different plan for me. Well, more precisely, I chose to become a householder: to have a wife, children, and struggle making a career for myself, while keeping my spiritual impulse alive. I knew early on that I wanted to be a writer and write about spiritual matters. And in those days spiritual matters meant Yoga for me. I was preoccupied, if not obsessed, with Yoga. I wrote and, as best I could, I also practiced Yoga.

BRENDA: So you decided to become a Yoga scholar and yogi at the same time. . .

GEORG: I kind of slipped into this dual role. It took me a while to discover that the Hindu tradition also acknowledges so-called householder yogis, that is, spiritual practitioners who don’t withdraw into the forest or a mountain cave. I wrote my first book, a mini-introduction to Yoga, at the age of nineteen. It was published in Germany a couple of years later, along with my translation of one of the didactic Vedanta poems attributed to Shankara—a short tract entitled Nirvana-Shatka. I dedicated it to my father on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday. He was pleased about it but really didn’t know what to make of its contents.Shankara’s poem talked about not being identical with one’s body, mind, family, and so on. Each verse ended in the refrain shivo’ham, “I am Shiva.” My father had a very conventional outlook, and the ideas of Vedanta would have been completely alien to him. He might even have found them disturbing on some level. But he never let on and would often proudly show my writings to relatives and friends.

My first book in English was A Reappraisal of Yoga, which I coauthored with Vedic scholar Jeanine Miller. It was published in 1971, which was five years after my emigration to England. This book consisted of scholarly essays on Classical and Vedic Yoga. It set the stage for more of the same. In the mid-1970s, I did postgraduate research in Indian philosophy and, concurrently, in social anthropology, also in England. This came after I had already published several books. Friends had been urging me to acquire official credentials to back up my work. I knew I didn’t want to teach, but I had a voracious appetite for research. For a few years, I ran a center for Yoga research, a shoestring operation, which won the support of many eminent scholars around the world but which made me no income whatsoever. I supplemented my meager royalties with fees for translations, editorial jobs, and some private tuition. It was a constant trapeze act for me. Prospective authors, listen attentively! [Chuckles]

By 1979, I had come to the conclusion that, as a “foreigner” and independent scholar, I couldn’t possibly survive in the chilly economic and cultural climate of England. So, I started looking around for new possibilities. In fact, I had grown tired of academia, which from the beginning I had found disappointing. Even in respected seats of so-called higher learning, the Big Questions were barely breathing, if at all. Maybe I never met those who were really in pursuit of philosophical understanding. [Grins] I even attended a couple of seminars in so-called Western philosophy, hoping that at least in philosophy departments the love of wisdom would still be alive and kicking. I was gravely disabused of this romantic notion. The discussion snobbishly revolved around some minutiae of the favorite system of the day. As far as I could tell, no one really cared; no one really took any of it seriously. It was an intellectual game, after all.

For a short while it looked as if my research center would become formally affiliated to a major university. A whopping dose of administrative incompetence brought those plans to a grinding halt after the affiliation had already been formally passed by the regents. For me it was the proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back, after what had been fourteen very difficult but formative years in England.

BRENDA: That’s when you came to the United States?

GEORG : Yes, toward the end of 1981. This was a big turning-point in my life. Not only did I once again uproot myself geographically and culturally, I also once and for all bade goodbye to a possible university career. This was all for the best, because I could never see myself grading papers and struggling up any academic ladder.

With the move to America, I was in fact dropping scholarly work itself. I was experiencing a serious spiritual crisis. I had to remember how my career had begun as a spiritual seeker rather than a scholar. So, when I came to the United States I came as a spiritual seeker first and foremost.

BRENDA: You mentioned leaving your Yoga research center behind when you emigrated from England. But then you revived it in California. Why?

GEORG: Why did I leave it behind? Or why did I revive it?

BRENDA: Why did you revive it?

GEORG: I started to feel that my work would benefit by creating some sort of public face.

BRENDA: That’s it? You don’t want to say more? Your research center was quite successful, wasn’t it?

GEORG: That all depends on how you define success. A substantial amount of money had been donated, but the public’s response to the programs offered by the Yoga Research and Education Center [YREC] was pitiful. No one seemed too interested in the spiritual side of Yoga. Only a handful of volunteers ever found their way to us, and in the end I aborted the idea to develop YREC into the first Western Yoga university. Also, I badly overextended myself in terms of my health in order to realize a vision whose time had not yet come. So, the plane crashed on takeoff. The contemporary Yoga scene is about physical practices for health and fitness. Relatively few people involved in the Yoga movement seem to have an interest in exploring Yoga as a spiritual discipline, which is really what it is.

I became quite disillusioned. On one level, I couldn’t and still can’t understand why people would settle for so little. Yoga is an amazingly potent tradition, which can give us true happiness and inner freedom. On another level, of course, I know why real self-transformation, never mind enlightenment, is not a popular ideal. It’s darn hard work to transform oneself. So, with few exceptions, we go for the glitter and the easy stuff. The difficulties with YREC coincided with significant changes in my personal life, which at the end of 2003 caused me to resign from the nonprofit organization I had created and also had run since 1996. All programs came to a sudden halt, and YREC’s remaining board reconfigured the organization into a mere fund-granting body and renamed it slightly. I have had no involvement with the organization since leaving.

Those eventful days proved an opportune time for a more general inner stocktaking and house cleaning. I concluded that the time had come for a drastic change of scenery, work, and approach to life. I left California in the summer of 2004 to go on a sabbatical for an indefinite length of time. I had absolutely no idea what I might be doing afterward or what I would do for a living. I deliberately kept my options open. The rest, they say, is history. I am now a permanent resident of Canada, and you and I have been living happily ever after here in this beautiful country. [Chuckling]

BRENDA: That was the Reader’s Digest version of what happened, right?

GEORG: Right! And I’ll leave it at that. Of course, the experience was painful but also uncommonly rewarding. It forced me to look into just about every aspect of my life and work, and a great deal of reevaluating happened. An important part of this process was to examine my life in the United States, where I had been a resident for twenty-three years. Ever since the 9/11 tragedy, I had felt increasingly uneasy about America’s war-mongering and the progressive erosion of the constitutional rights of Americans. I concluded that I was finding myself in a situation not unlike the early days of Hitler’s Third Reich, and this made me feel extremely uneasy. I allowed myself to fully articulate those feelings only after settling in Canada. But this is something we should explore some other time.

BRENDA: Sounds good to me. Let’s pick up a different thread. You mentioned enlightenment earlier. Enlightenment seems to be at the heart of the Eastern spiritual traditions. Right?

GEORG: Right.

BRENDA: Then why aren’t there more discussions about enlightenment found in books or on the Internet?

GEORG: A very good question. I don’t have a good answer other than that there probably aren’t too many people qualified to write about it. Apart from this, I think that it is more important to explain the path itself. It’s a bit like knowing that Alpha Centauri exists. You even know where it’s located if only you could get there. But since you haven’t been there, you don’t know what that particular star holds in store for you. Is there life on any of its planets? Is there intelligent life? Still, you can describe the pathway there in case anyone wants to go.

BRENDA: So, would you say you’ve been trying to describe the path rather than the destination in all those books of yours?

GEORG: Of course. In particular, I’ve been trying to translate the journey into terms that a fellow Westerner can understand and hopefully appreciate. Unlike so many others, some of whom should know better, I have never regarded myself as being enlightened. So, my descriptions of this sublime condition are necessarily makeshift. I can, however, write about the path—or aspects of it.

BRENDA: A description of a description?

GEORG: I’m afraid so. Still, I’m hoping that what I’ve written or spoken can help others to find their own way to spiritual practice and self-transformation. If I didn’t have such hope, I’d be forced to stop writing and speaking. Sometimes, I admit, I am wondering about the possible benefit of my work to others. Then comes a letter, an email, or a personal word from someone who feels he or she has benefited from my work. Believe it or not, I’ve even had a woman tell me that her Yoga practice benefited from my academic monograph on Patanjali’s philosophy! Bless her!

BRENDA: You have invested a great deal of time and energy in helping Westerners to better understand the Yoga tradition. After all those years, do you think you have succeeded in doing so?

GEORG: Oh! You’ve pierced my Achilles heel! My first reaction would be to say: I’m not sure. I see so much nonsense out there, so much confusion, distortion, and pretense. Sometimes it feels as though my work has made little difference to the contemporary Yoga movement. Of course, I would like to think that this is not so. People have told me that they have personally benefited. But, I guess, those people aren’t the ones who commodify Yoga. It’s hard to believe, but spiritual traditions have become a marketable commodity. Just wait! Soon they’ll be listed on the New York stock exchange. In 2006, I briefly reviewed a fine book by Jeremy Carrette and Richard King, two British scholars, Selling Spirituality. The book shows how the corporate world “hijacks” spiritual teachings and packages them for mass consumption. The term “spirituality” itself has been usurped by business.

Just think of Yoga mats, Yoga props, Yoga cruises, Yoga clothing, Yoga drinks, Yoga jewelry, and so forth. They have nothing to do with Yoga. Think also of “Tao of Politics,” “Tao of Money,” “Tao of Poker,” and so on. They have absolutely nothing to do with the Tao, as envisioned by Lao Tzu! Then there are thousands of books and seminars that popularize spiritual teachings for easy consumption. They make me shudder.

As you know, I used to review a good many books in the course of a year. I am currently taking a break from all of this. Maybe for good. Anyway, books by certain authors or from certain publishers would end up unopened in a donation box. I even felt awkward about donating them to a library, because they were trash. But I don’t believe in making a bonfire of trash. I am a recycler. [Chuckles]. When oversimplifications and clichés obscure an originally sound teaching, no one is truly helped. Then, in my opinion, it’s time to pack it in as a writer or lecturer. But this stuff makes hacks plenty of money.

BRENDA: Do you see the commercialization of spiritual teachings as one of the aspects of the New Age movement?

GEORG: I do. I also see it as an integral part of Western capitalism, which will exploit anything that can make a profit. To a capitalist, the Yoga movement with its literally millions of eager consumers must seem eminently exploitable. And it is. Yoga has become a billion dollar market. Sad but true. In the olden days, all you needed was a loincloth and a tree to sit under. There was no need for a “Yoga” mat, a “Yoga” tote bag, or a “Yoga” anything. If you are serious about self-transformation and enlightenment, you simply let go off all inessential things. You behave as if you were about to die. As the saying goes, you can’t take anything with you. Especially not your precious ego. But this kind of thinking is absent in today’s Yoga circles. This seems to be true even in Western Buddhist circles. What a shame!

Today the ego is king, and the ego needs a good many accoutrements to feel appreciated and viable. So, we can read in ads addressed to the “Yoga” market: “Pamper yourself with such-and-such” or “Have fun learning Yoga from so-and-so.” There’s no mention of inner or outer renunciation, and enlightenment comes in focus only when it is “instant” or to be gotten in a weekend seminar for an appropriately hefty fee.

BRENDA: How does the Hindu concept of the kali-yuga, or dark age, relate to all of this?

GEORG: In Hinduism, a yuga represents either a period of five years or an entire world age. There are thought to be four such world ages comprising a total of 12,000 so-called divine years. The kali-yuga extends over 1200 divine years, which are the equivalent of 360,000 human years. As you can see, Hinduism enjoys working with large numbers and large cycles. Now, since the kali-yuga is reckoned from the day that the avatara Krishna died, which was supposedly in 3002 B.C., this dark world age is really just starting for us. So, what we are witnessing in the world today, including the sorry state of the Yoga movement, fits the traditional descriptions of the kali-yuga quite well. But it’s only the beginning!

BRENDA: Where does that leave all the talk about a new age?

GEORG: Where indeed? I don’t believe for one moment that we are on the brink of a new golden age. This is sheer wishful thinking on the part of people who don’t want to acknowledge the present tragic state of the world. Scrap the popularidea that 2012 A.D. will be a great breakthrough. People haven't learned a darn thing from 2000 A.D. The proper label for what’s happening around us is global catastrophe. I know you share this somber diagnosis. We’re not alone either! In fact, scientists—notably biologists—have been ringing the alarm bell for many decades now. No one is listening. No one wants to believe them. Consumers are deaf, and so are their elected governments. In the meantime, species after species are becoming extinct. Most biologists nowadays speak of a Sixth Mass Extinction, which they fear will prove even more devastating than the Fifth Mass Extinction. That catastrophe happened 65 million years ago, which wiped out the dinosaurs and numerous other species. This time, however, the cause is not extraterrestrial. No meteorite smacking into the ground. Rather, humanity itself is primarily responsible for the crisis. Every year, tens of thousands of species vanish because of our doing, our rampant consumerism. Frankly, time is running out on us. We have years, perhaps a couple of decades, but certainly not centuries left before the curtain closes on us.

New Agers are largely out of touch with what is really going on in the world. They look to the future rather than the present. They often believe in a surprise solution, some deus ex machina that will intervene and fix everything. The whole hogwash over Y2K, the year 2000, should have wisened them up, but this didn’t happen. Nothing miraculous occurred, which was predictable, because after all 2000 is just a chronological marker, like 1999 or 2001, that has no intrinsic meaning. People were hypnotized by the three zeros. They had succumbed to the same delusion a millennium earlier. The year 1000 A.D. also fizzled out as a nonevent. The Christ did not appear and save all believers. Nothing happened other than a pile-up of folly. Many people, who had given away their earthly belongings, ended up poverty stricken, sick, or dead. Those waiting for a celestial savior from the Pleiades this time round are equally foolhardy and will inevitably be disillusioned. More likely, they are on the way to extinction without knowing it.

The New Age movement lacks philosophical acumen and historical perspective and a lot else besides. That’s why people can run to mediums who chatter to them about teachers from thousands of years ago. Sometimes even intelligent folk get caught up in this sort of humbug. Recently, I watched the movie What the Bleep!?, which had been strongly recommended by a friend. I found the interviews with scientists like William Tiller, Fred Alan Wolf, and Candace Pert interesting enough, though most of the presented ideas were familiar to me. Wolf, whom I met in the 70s, is a particularly entertaining lecturer. His “Dr. Quantum,” a cartoon character, is a brilliant creation, which helps bring avant-garde scientific ideas to the lay public, particularly the youth.

I was flabbergasted, though, by the inclusion of an interview with J. Z. Knight, the medium “channeling” Ramtha, an allegedly 35,000-year-old entity. Wearing pants and holding a pipe, Knight posed superconfidently as the enigmatic Ramtha and responded to interview questions with the usual New Age generalities and obfuscations. All very silly and very sad. Subsequently, I read that the three directors of the movie were students of Knight/Ramtha and that most contributors had taught at the Ramtha organization. Prof. David Albert of Columbia University seems to have been the only one not previously involved with the Ramtha people, and he apparently was quite upset about the handling of his interview. In other words, we can identify the film as a clever propaganda piece both for Knight/Ramtha and New Ageism.

BRENDA: Are you saying, then, that New Ageism is all bad?

GEORG: It’s alphabet soup, and without seasoning at that. [Laughter.]

BRENDA: What do you mean?

GEORG: Well, New Ageism indulges in ready-made sound bytes, bits and pieces taken from here and there without genuine understanding of them or their contexts. It’s bland, because it lacks the spice of authenticity. But it certainly makes for easy consumption, and that’s what a lot of people seem to care for. They want to slurp down the soup—all those tiny carbohydrate letters of the alphabet—without thinking about it. Now they have imbibed true knowledge and didn’t even have to make an effort to obtain it. Just swallow a couple of antiacids to prevent indigestion.

BRENDA: New Age sells, right?

GEORG: It’s a multibillion dollar business. I think this is a travesty, especially because there are in fact many authentic spiritual teachings available today. No one has to settle for inferior substitutes. It’s like being offered a genuine Rembrandt and choosing a glossy poster duplicate instead. The difference is that in the realm of spirituality, it matters whether we are choosing authentic teachings or counterfeits.

BRENDA: Why do you think people go for bogus substitutes, even when they turn out to be more costly?

GEORG: Why indeed? I think that it’s a combination of lethargy and insufficient information, as well as lack of critical thinking. People don’t want to make the effort to educate themselves about a service, a product, or a set of ideas. It’s too bothersome, too time consuming. When they see that a whole bunch of other people has chosen something, or a famous individual—ideally from Hollywood—has given an endorsement, they automatically assume it must be good. They should be gifted with a t-shirt that says “Question Authority” and another one that says “Question the Majority.” To learn to think independently is a very good thing, but don’t just take it on my authority. [Laughter.] And, maybe, the t-shirt idea wasn’t too environment friendly.

BRENDA: Very funny. But you’ve touched on an important topic here, namely the role played by authority. I am thinking particularly of religious or spiritual authority.

GEORG: We humans have lived with authority, or authority figures, since our days in the African savannahs, and before then. Even in so-called egalitarian tribal societies, you’ll find individuals who have more authority than others because of what they know. The medicine man has more authority than the tribesman who goes out hunting with bow and arrows. A good hunter has more authority than a bad one. Some New Agers strike me as being far more naïve, far more gullible, and certainly far lazier than a tribesman under comparable circumstances.

Our sociocultural environment is replete with authority figures. There is more authority going around than at any other time in history. Just think of all the so-called experts who tell us what’s good and right for us, or our fearless government leaders to whom we give almost god-like authority. We grant them authority mostly by default, because we are too lazy to vote or too lazy to inform ourselves about those whom we vote into power.

The one area in which we have questioned, even rebelled against authority is religion. Even then, how many millions of Catholics accept the dicta of the Vatican or disobey them and then feel burdened with guilt? I’m thinking of the use of contraception, which Pope Paul VI condemned. In case you were wondering, I consider this to be one of the great crimes against humanity—as if we had not enough unwanted children in the world, never mind AIDS sufferers. I am thinking especially of the tremendous tragedy that is engulfing the African continent. It is dying of AIDS.

Authority plays a central role within the spiritual traditions. They all respect the voice of experience, the qualified teacher, the guru, lama, shaykh, zaddik, or spiritual director. He or she passes on the teachings and assumes responsibility for the disciple’s spiritual welfare. In turn, the disciple is expected to approach the teacher with a measure of respect and a healthy sense of obedience. That’s where the problem starts for contemporary seekers. Respect and obedience are a rare trait in people. We hardly respect our own parents and elders anymore, and in our brain the word “obedience” seems to be crosswired with “subservience” or “slavery.” But there is such a thing as mature obedience, and in fact it is crucial to the spiritual process. Obedience means seeing the wisdom of a teacher’s counsel and, for our own benefit, adopting it into our life.

BRENDA: Could you also think of this in terms of commitment to the path?

GEORG: Sure. “Assuming responsibility” for what we have received from our teacher or from the tradition to which we belong is another way of putting it. Remember, Jesus of Nazareth said “Follow me!” and similarly, Krishna exhorted Prince Arjuna to follow his divine example. Neither of them said “I command you to follow me unthinkingly!” Only fools, or true believers, would listen to this. True enough, some religious leaders or cults require blind faith or, more correctly, blind belief. My advice is to steer clear of them.

Authentic spiritual traditions always acknowledge that people have the ability to think for themselves. They allow people to choose consciously and freely. Krishna really wanted Arjuna to appreciate that there was only one logical course open to him, namely to fight. But, after counseling the prince, Krishna said “You choose!” and stood back waiting for his disciple’s considered response.

Assuming responsibility on the path means practicing the teachings honestly and to the best of one’s abilities. This, in turn, means voluntarily adopting self-discipline. And that’s precisely what so many people nowadays are lacking. They line up for free handouts of grace but make themselves scarce when they are told they have to commit themselves to a regular discipline.

BRENDA: Given this obstacle—and wouldn’t you say this is an obstacle?—what hope is there for modern seekers to really benefit from traditional teachings?

GEORG: A very good question! I’ve been wondering about this myself, on and off, usually after having seen the obstacle at work in someone. My answer would be that it all depends on the individual seeker. If he or she doesn’t have a strong desire to grow, discipline will seem like a horrible chore to be avoided. The Yoga tradition speaks of mumukshutva, which is the desire for liberation. If that impulse is not in place, a seeker won’t grow and Yoga won’t flourish.

BRENDA: But how many people are there who genuinely want to attain liberation? How many are serious about their personal growth?

GEORG: I don’t think there are any statistics on this, but my guess is that they are few and far between. The Bhagavad-Gita [7.3] contains a stanza that goes something like this: “Among thousands of men scarcely one strives for perfection.” I think that’s possibly an overestimate. Even many, if not most, dedicated spiritual practitioners would have to admit that their hunger for enlightenment is not always equally strong. It’s easy enough to settle for a routine. Spiritual life is no exception. With a well-qualified teacher present, the fire of practice keeps being stoked perhaps more continuously. But, in the final analysis, each practitioner must assume responsibility for generating the deep desire for inner growth himself or herself. And this is an ongoing effort.

BRENDA: You mention in your book on Tantra that during the kali-yuga, humanity is less and less capable physically, morally, and intellectually. Is the absence of a strong spiritual desire in people also a sign of the kali-yuga?

GEORG: From a traditional Hindu perspective, yes. The descriptions of the kali-yuga, as given in the Tantras and Puranas, fit our modern conditions very well. That’s one reason why I’d argue that the Gita, for instance, which is a scripture for the kali-yuga, has a lot to offer us. But in saying this, I’m wearing my traditionalist hat. Regardless of whether or not we consider the Indian theory of world ages as meaningful, we happen to be alive in troubled times. Our troubles are somewhat different from those experienced in Prince Arjuna’s time. He didn’t have to worry yet about global environmental collapse, though deforestation and more local climate change was a problem then already. But, as is clear from the Mahabharata epic, there was no lack of political, social, and psychological problems. That’s exactly why Krishna could speak of the decline of the eternal moral law, or dharma, and why he was able to persuade Arjuna to fight.

BRENDA: In the Gita [8.7], Krishna instructs Arjuna “Remember me and fight!” One of your teachers once told you something similar: “Remember me and write!” Do you see yourself as a warrior fighting the good fight?

GEORG: Ah! That was quite a message. . .

BRENDA: Krishna’s or your teacher’s?

GEORG: Both, I’d say. Both messages are full of challenge: to do one’s work from a spiritual perspective, which is the perspective of Karma-Yoga. . .

BRENDA: Your readers might not be familiar with Karma-Yoga. Would you mind saying something about it?

GEORG: Right. Karma-Yoga is the path of doing the right thing while letting go of all egoic attachment to the fruit of one’s actions. It doesn’t mean not caring about the outcome, but not hankering after any personal benefit. In other words, one mustn’t expect any personal gain, not even praise or recognition. If that’s being a spiritual warrior, then I’ve mostly endeavored to live my life as a latter-day kshattriya like Arjuna. But I haven’t thought of myself in those terms. I abhor and oppose war and strongly dislike anything to do with the military. I was born and for the first part of my life have lived in a country that had just fought and luckily lost World War II. I was brought up in the aftermath of this collective insanity.

I fail to comprehend why the United States, the richest nation on Earth, would spend every year c. 500 billion dollars on its military. I can’t understand why human beings would want to wage war. There are never any winners. War is a lose-lose situation. I just see a perpetuation of suffering. Whatever gain a country might have from fighting another is only short term.

BRENDA: But the instruction “Remember me and fight!” involves more than just doing the right thing and remaining unattached. . .

GEORG: Right again. I was coming to that. Instead of focusing on one’s narrow self and its narrow little expectations, the disciple is asked to focus on the larger reality, in fact the transcendental Reality. As a fully realized master, Krishna was that transcendental Reality, and so he could tell Arjuna to “remember” him. Tuning into the ultimate Reality is a form of remembering, or re-cognition. In the Hindu tradition, that supreme Reality is often called the transcendental Self, or parama-atman, as opposed to the embodied self, or ego-personality, which is known as jiva-atman. In Buddhist terms, we are asked to always remember the great principle of emptiness, of interconnectedness without an abiding central self, which extends also to what some call the transcendental Reality, or the great Emptiness.

BRENDA: So, when you are doing your work, when you are sitting at your computer to produce articles and books, are you remembering the transcendental Reality? [Chuckling.]

GEORG: This embodied self is genuinely trying to be mindful of that ever-present Reality. Of course, trying is not necessarily always succeeding. This is an ongoing challenge. I see it as an integral part of my spiritual practice. As you know, this mindfulness must be carried on in regard to every aspect of our life, not just our work. When there is continuous remembrance of the transcendental Reality, then there is enlightenment. So, you can safely assume that I’m not enlightened, as I said before! [Laughter]

BRENDA: I’m almost relieved to hear that! There are already way too many writers who think they’re enlightened.

GEORG: Yes, I agree. I’ll stick my neck out here and say that their claim to enlightenment is a bit premature and also misleading. Retractions would be in order, but I doubt we’ll see that happen. It’s always a bit suspicious when someone has to advertise that they’re enlightened and get as many endorsements from others as possible. If someone were to become actually and not merely nominally enlightened, he or she would, in my opinion, be so radiant that the FBI and the CIA would come with Geiger counters to make sure the awakened one is not a nuclear terrorist. That’s all I want to say about this subject for the time being.

BRENDA: That’s priceless! [Laughter]

GEORG: It’s free.It really rubs me the wrong way when I hear teachers and writers claim to be enlightened but show none of the signs of that extraordinary realization. Unless they are totally self-deluded, they are simply ignorant about what enlightenment means. But let’s get back to more productive themes.

BRENDA: How about considering a bit more what you call “traditional Yoga”? What do you mean by it?

GEORG: By “traditional Yoga” I mean Yoga as it has been taught in India for many centuries and even millennia as a spiritual path. It has little to do with the watered-down version of the contemporary Yoga movement. As a friend of mine once said to me: Yoga has been reduced to physical exercises, which have been further reduced to stretching the hamstrings. While this is a caricature of what’s happening, it unfortunately has a lot of truth to it. Yoga has become virtually equated with posture practice for flexibility, fitness, and health. There’s no doubt that regular practice of yogic asanas can restore or maintain the body’s flexibility and well-being.

Given the declining state of health in Western countries, this is a good thing, even a very good thing. I’d argue that asanas along with conscious relaxation should be made part of the school curriculum. But, please, don’t call this approach “Yoga.” It is not. It has nothing to do with spiritual practice, which is what Yoga traditionally has been. Call it “posture practice” or whatever.

BRENDA: If you had your way, ninety percent of so-called Yoga studios would have to drop the word “Yoga” from their company names.

GEORG: That’s right, and they should start doing so right away! Immediately! Without fail! [Laughs] Seriously, something has to be done about the distortion of Yoga in the West. I’ve tried for decades to present authentic Yoga, and it frankly pains me when I see yet another book published that shows absolutely no regard for the traditional teachings. It’s gross distortion. People ransack the yogic heritage and turn it into mere baubles.

BRENDA: Strong words.

GEORG: Yes, sure. I feel passionate about this. I remember giving a lecture on Yoga philosophy and history at a well-known school in California. While I was doing my best to explain the yogic teachings of Patanjali, I noticed several individuals doing a headstand against the back wall. They obviously found the talk irrelevant or boring. After a while, I asked them to rejoin the class, and I could tell that none of them thought their behavior odd or disrespectful. After all, they were practicing “Yoga,” while I was merely talking about it. It was my last visit to that particular school. Since entering into semiretirement, I’ve stopped lecturing altogether. So, I no longer have to watch upside-down gymnasts.

BRENDA: You anyway gave public lectures and seminars only infrequently. . .

GEORG: That’s correct. It was mainly part of my effort to help establish YREC. Before then, I would teach in public only very occasionally.

BRENDA: You are not saying that asana practice is inauthentic, are you?

GEORG: Not when it is part of an integrated yogic discipline and also conducted as a spiritual practice. Then it’s Yoga. When you subtract the spiritual dimension from asana practice, it’s just posturing. I’m not saying you have to convert to Hinduism to qualify as an asana practitioner. Not at all. Besides, Buddhism has its own form of Hatha-Yoga. What many people, even Buddhists themselves, don’t realize is that Buddhism is a form of Yoga. But, again, you don’t have to convert to Buddhism to practice postures.

However, I would definitely argue that authentic asana practice requires mindfulness in the context of a comprehensive spiritual approach—an approach of intentional self-transcendence.

BRENDA: You often mention “self-transcendence” in your writings. How would you explain it?

GEORG: Quite simply, it is the voluntary endeavor to go beyond the ego contraction, beyond our typically self-centered ways. That’s the essence of any spiritual path. Some people don’t like the word “spiritual.” They can use “self-transcending” instead. This doesn’t just refer to some extraordinary state of mind, say, the condition of ecstasy. Ecstatic states temporarily transcend the conventional mind, maybe even temporarily eclipse the ego, but they don’t necessarily dismantle the ego contraction. When you come out of those states and you look in the mirror, and so closely enough, you very likely will recognize the same shmo that you were before. Perhaps you are a bit shaken up and stirred. But this will pass, and then your ecstatic experience will be reduced to a pleasant memory. Maybe, if the state was quite significant, it will have a longer lasting effect on your psyche. Still, sooner or later, your ego falls back into place. So it’s best not to make too much of such occurrences. It would certainly be foolish to think that you’ve become superior to others and even more foolish to assume that you’ve become enlightened. But people do commit this sort of blunder, and that’s when inner growth comes to an abrupt halt.

BRENDA: So, it’s good to be humble.

GEORG: Very good indeed! When humility is absent, so is inner growth. Recently, I discovered the Christian saint Joseph of Copertino. You could say, he was unfit for most things except his fervent love of God. But he would levitate, really levitate, whenever his devotion to the Divine would become overwhelmingly intense. He wasn’t just jumping a few feet in the air, as some TM practitioners are trained to do. To everyone’s astonishment, he flew! St. Joseph was a bit embarrassed by these moments of involuntary flight. When he was dying, he modestly wanted to be buried in anonymity. In my eyes, his great modesty and his love made him a saint. This seems like a good way to end the interview, don’t you think?