Yoga Taught with Ethics, Philosophy, and Wisdom

Our systems are broken and yoga's ethics are needed now more than ever.

We need ethics to maintain integrity, and frankly, we’ve seen over and over what happens when spiritual leaders, lacking an ethical and moral code, abuse their power and cause harm that is a horror to witness.

In the last few days, the Epstein Files and what they contain have been all over my feed. It’s as horrible and consciousness-destroying as we’ve been led to believe. I am sickened, and not entirely shocked.

There are 4,104 mentions of “Deepak” in the Epstein Files, revealing extensive texts and emails between Deepak Chopra and Jeffrey Epstein. Deepak Chopra, the self-proclaimed spiritual guru, has always given me the ICK. In one email, he writes, “Cute girls are aware when they make noises”, “God is a construct. Cute girls are real.” And Epstein emails him in another email with “I liked watching you zero in on your prey. Made me smile.” 🤢

Disgusting and revolting.

As a result of how I was raised with a father who declared himself a Godly man and then took actions to hurt my mom, my siblings, and me, it left an imprint of not believing someone at face value. My body knows. I have learned not to give my power away just because someone claims to be a “Guru” or leader.

My body shakes with rage and horror for all of the victims. Many who were just babies and children. Who deserved to be protected and cared for.

We need a real and embodied commitment to nonviolence, truthfulness, non-hoarding, non-stealing, and non-coveting, and it’s clear what happens when these are violated.

On another news front, CorePower management ordered the removal of “Anti-ICE” signs at one of their studios in Minneapolis. A video shows corporate representatives confronting students and staff at the Northeast studio, leading to a standoff, and the CorePower headquarters responded by temporarily closing the studio and indiscriminately suspending the memberships of everyone present. This incident serves as another example of how corporate “wellness” brands often prioritize brand consistency and profit over the ethical imperatives of Ahimsa (non-harming) and Satya (truth), illustrating the deep disconnect that occurs when yoga is treated as a commodity rather than a practice of community protection and social liberation.

I have written at length my problems with CorePower, how they extract and commodify, the low pay they have for their teachers, how they churn out hundreds of yoga teachers a year who have been taught to learn and memorize a script for their version of an asana (primarily Vinyasa) class, in which the spiritual and historical aspects are stripped out. These hopeful, aspiring yoga teachers come in with good intentions, but due to the negligence of companies that commodify yoga for profit, people lose out on all that is available to them through the holistic understanding of yoga.

Here is an excerpt from my book Liberating Yoga: From Appropriation to Yoga:

“In popular or modern yoga, it is too often the case that a selective portion of the teachings, the physical practices—the asana or poses— are extracted and then made to be the whole of what yoga is. What we really need is for these physical practices to be shared in harmony with the larger yogic teachings of ethics, philosophy, and wisdom. Otherwise, we do a disservice to the entire methodology. Even Buddhism gets reduced to mindfulness meditation when it is a whole tradition with many different schools and lineages, such as Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana.

As Dr. Miles Neale, Buddhist psychotherapist, shares in his piece, “On McMindfulness & Frozen Yoga: Rediscovering the Essential Teachings of Ethics and Wisdom,” if we continue emphasizing the physical practice without the understanding of philosophical and psychological wisdom and ethics, we will get only temporary states of peace. These temporary states of peace, which we might experience at the conclusion of an asana class during savasana or while chanting “om,” might feel nice in that moment but are not enough to reach the everlasting moksha (liberation) or dukha-nivritti (elimination of suffering) that traditional yoga alludes to.

True freedom and liberation mean observing and eliminating any misperceptions that trigger reactive habits and cause harmful actions. This means to self-inquire and self-reflect on what types of habits you hold, how you conduct yourself with yourself and others, and if your beliefs and actions are causing harm. Yoga is not meant to be a self-serving path of spirituality where we don’t think about our interconnectedness to everything and all beings. Yoga is an inner science (adhyātmavidyā) that dives deep to transform your entire being, aiming to reshape your daily life, your perspective, and your very approach to the world.

In Dr. Shyam Ranganathan’s commentary and translation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, he speaks to these reactive habits and patterning (samskaras) that we hold in Sutra 2.12:

kleśa-mūlaḥ karma-āśayaḥ dṛṣṭa-adṛṣṭa-janma-vedanīyaḥ

The root of affliction is past action. It is latent, seen or unseen, and stays with us through births in the form of experiences that produce further karma. If we wish to be rid of our present afflictions, we must find a way to sever the root that nourishes such affliction and yoga is the means.

If we practice yoga asana to experience only temporary states of peace, we never get to the roots of our patterning or seek to change them.

We have to allow yoga asana (as one means) to look deeply at ourselves and see where we have habits, patterning, and reactions (whether conscious or unconscious) that not only cause harm to ourselves but also to those around us. This is where we have to bring our negative samskaras into the light and investigate them—not as a way to punish or judge ourselves but as a way to acknowledge we are all imperfect beings with need of skillful refinement. As a way to admit that some patterning has come from previous lifetimes, from modeling from your parents, and from societal conditioning. Instead of pursuing yoga as solely a feel-good modality, we have to turn to its ethical and wisdom underpinnings as a vehicle for our own growth and transformation, which then transcends out all around us. This means to take yoga off the mat into every aspect of our life. This looks like deep study and contemplation on topics like selflessness, karma, seva, and consciousness.

I worry, similarly to others in this space, such as my teacher Dr. Miles Neales, that we are losing the deeper spiritual and philosophical aspects that underlie the practice of yoga and are watering down the essential ingredients of this liberation tradition. It is imperative that we reunite these practices with their original intents and goals so that yoga doesn’t become something completely unrecognizable. And I think that is a role and responsibility for all people who call themselves students and teachers of yoga!

This requires deep study and integration of the philosophy of yoga, over many years, with no rush, and with a good teacher who can serve as a guide and mirror. It requires a commitment to studentship throughout life, to self-inquiry and refinement, and to being a student practitioner before you are a teacher. It requires self-awareness and the willingness to look at oneself honestly to make changes to become a more conscious, compassionate, and ethical being.

To understand the ethics of yoga, we can turn to Patanjali’s yamas and niyamas (as one example) here:

Ahimsa satya-asteya brahmacharya-aparigraha yamah (2.30)

Yoga Sutra 2.30 says that the rules of moral conduct (yamas) are nonviolence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), not stealing (asteya), celibacy or “right use of energy” (brahmacharya), and non-attachment or non-greed (aparigraha). Ethical guidelines assist in cultivating mental integrity, curbing primal instincts, and providing a framework for the mind’s operations. An ethically attuned mind is a regulated mind.

Becoming mindful of your beliefs and actions, having brave contemplative spaces to self-inquire, and knowing how interconnected we all are: I think this will move us in the direction of true happiness and freedom.

These ethics and morals are the foundation for these teachings and provide guidance on how we can all live an honest life, making the world better for all beings. It is needed now more than ever.”

For more, I recommend reading my book, Liberating Yoga: From Appropriation to Yoga.