SPIRITUAL BYPASS AND ENTANGLEMENT IN YOGALAND (योगस्तान): HOW NEOLIBERALISM, SOFT HINDUTVA AND BANAL NATIONALISM FACILITATE YOGA FUNDAMENTALISM

Abstract

Global yoga has become exceptionally popular. The emic description of this global yoga network is often called Yogaland. This paper maps out some of the key topographical features of this metaphysical, social imaginary –scape, and situates the physical body of the global yoga practitioner within a complex entanglement of intersecting social, political, economic and theological ‘worlds’. This paper first explores how the concept of spiritual bypass effects a particular averted gaze towards problematic issues within Yogaland. This leads to the second part of the paper that discusses the fundamental nature of entanglement, which often involves being entangled in worlds the individual would not want, mean to be, or perhaps even be aware, exist. Therefore, this paper identifies ways in which global yoga participants are socialised through their neo-liberal subjectivities to unwittingly support, in an often banal way, a Hindu supremacist ideology; which, in turn, can lead to a type of ‘yoga fundamentalism’.