Should we start a revolution or do yoga?

"I don't want to do yoga, I want to start a revolution!" "I don't want to calm down, I want to change everything!"

If you don't know her... she's an icon

I completely understand the sentiment. The powers that be want us to calm down, to be docile, to accept things as they are, and to let them get on with their dodgy dealings on their own. If we do yoga, aren't we playing right into their hands, really?

And why should it be our responsibility to calm ourselves down, when we'd be much calmer if the world were more just?

Shouldn't we rather cultivate our anger to push ourselves into action? To give ourselves the energy we need to overthrow those in power, to change things?

It's an argument that holds water.

Except...

Except that we can do yoga and be angry.

Yoga doesn't make us docile, it makes us more conscious of how we use our energy. The introspection encouraged and nurtured by yoga helps us uncover our values, our beliefs. We know ourselves better, we recognise what's important to us, what we want, what we no longer want to accept. It allows us to better identify our emotions (is this anger I'm feeling? Or fear? Disgust? Inspiration?) and thus to act more precisely and relevantly.

Yoga helps us manage our energy better. We learn to use it more wisely, not to waste it on futile causes. We can therefore use it to nurture what aligns with our values, and so I would say, to be more effective in our activism.

This way we feel more aligned. When we live in accordance with our values and use our energy correctly, we feel better in ourselves. We have more to give, and that radiates out into our immediate environment. Which is, in my eyes, a form of activism that shouldn't be ignored.

Because we might think that changing the world happens with a bang, in major events (like the French Revolution), but this belief can lead to despair if we don't have the means to do so (because we have a family, because we're not necessarily ready to die for the cause, because everything is designed to prevent us from overthrowing those in power).

Yet change can also happen on a smaller scale. By embodying the change ourselves. By helping our neighbours whenever we can, by eating less meat, by instilling our values in our children, by being active in our community, by refusing to give in to despair and learnt helplessness...

And all of this is made easier by yoga. By the philosophy promoted by yoga (the yamas and niyamas, I did a whole podcast series on this, starting with the one I just linked above) and by the calm it brings us: it's much easier to get people to join our cause when we present it in a calm and reasoned way... I'm vegetarian, and when I see other vegetarians trying to guilt-trip omnivores, it saddens me because it completely undermines our cause.

So I think that yoga shouldn't be opposed to revolution, but that it can on the contrary be a major asset. What do you think?

Om, peace 🧡

Clem