Dr. Shyam Ranganathan holds an MA in South Asian Studies and an MA and PhD in Philosophy. He’s a strong voice on social media, and his is one of the few yoga handles that actually stops my scroll. That's for the same reason he kept me pretty rapt in our conversation. Here we talked about his research on understanding how Non-Western traditions such as yoga are marginalized in a Western world and how BIPOC traditions of philosophy can help understand colonialism and inform our way forward and away from it.

We discussed how he approaches the practice of yoga, which he basically equates with the word 'Bhakti' since both words point to devotional practices; he describes yoga as being about devotion to individual and personal autonomy or sovereignty. Since so many of us don’t speak or study Sanskrit as a language or study yoga the way Dr. Ranganathan has–it strikes me that there is a lot to learn here. He offers a fresh perspective on pre-colonial yoga and how we can reclaim threads of it into our modern understanding of what we’re doing and how we’re practicing. I absolutely loved this conversation and hope you do too.

____

Terms:

1. Logos: an appeal to the audience's sense of reason or logic

2. Religio: A Greek term originally meaning an obligation to the Gods

3. Dharma: duty

4. Churning of the Milk Ocean: an event in Hindu mythology when the gods obtain immortality by consuming the elixir of immortality

5. Ishvara: in Hinduism, God understood as a person

6. Tapas: spiritual austerity

7. Svadhyaya: spiritual study

8. Samskara: mental impression

9. Puja: worship service

10. Virtue ethics: a philosophical approach that urges people to live a moral life by cultivating virtuous habits

11. Consequentialism: a theory that says whether something is good or bad depends on its outcomes

12. Deontology: the study of nature of duty and obligation

13. Bhakti: devotional worship directed to one supreme deity

14. Kaivalya: experience of absoluteness

15. Dharmamegha samadhi: cloud of virtue samadhi (contemplation); when you have lost even the desire for enlightenment

16. Brahmans: members of the highest Hindu caste

17. Asmita: ego sense

18. Vyasa: a revered sage in most Hindu traditions

19. Samkhyakarika: the earliest surviving text of the Samkhya school of Indian philosophy

20. Vrtti: modification

____

References:

1. Dr. Shyam Ranganathan's Yoga Philosophy website

2. Dr. Shyam Ranganathan's Instagram account

3. Hatha Yoga Pradipika, by Swami Muktibodhananda

4. The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition, by Thenmozhi Soundararajan

5. Anjali Rao's episode on The Weeks Well

6. Shannon Crow's episode on The Weeks Well

____

Episode credits:

Original music by Kim's band Governess.

Produced by Alyssa Yeroshefsky and Kim Weeks.

____

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the Weeks Well newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and to our latest regular content community, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For more info on Kim Weeks, visit www.weekswell.com.

Follow Kim on Instagram (@weeks.well), Facebook (@weeks.well), Twitter (@weeks_well), YouTube (@weekswell), Patreon (Weeks Well), and TikTok (@weekswell).

Copyright © 2023 Weeks Well®.

Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-weeks-well/support