by recognizing the mutual influence of physical and mental factors in
health and illness. Apart from the metaphysical problems inherent in
Yoga’s dualism, Yoga’s distinguishing mind/body from consciousness
also yields an important understanding of the relation of health and reli-
giousness: Similar to the way that mental factors have physiological con-
sequences, and physical factors have mental consequences for health,
Yoga shows that the wellness of the mind/body can assist the attainment
of spiritual well-being. Conversely, the recovery of spiritual Self-nature
and well-being helps to heal and vitalize the body/mind.
Because Yoga practices have health benefits, there is a misconcep-
tion, particularly in the West, that health is Yoga’s goal. Indian views of
Yoga on the other hand, in recognizing Yoga as a religious system em-
phasizing the cultivation of Self-nature as consciousness, sometimes
minimize the importance of body and health in Yoga. In chapter 3, I lo-
cate the soteriological role of human physicality within the context of
Yoga’s ultimate aim: attainment of liberation from the nature and con-
straints of prakÓrti, and transcendence of the ignorance and suffering
that attend material existence. Both psychophysical and spiritual mean-
ings of health are instrumental in classical Yoga. As regards psycho-
physical health, the refined awareness, discipline, and cultivation of the
body/mind are integral to yogic religious life, and prepare one for the
higher stages of cultivation of consciousness leading to liberation.
Chapter 3 presents classical Yoga as a paradigm of religious therapeu-
tics, addressing both somatic and spiritual experience, and revealing
two main principles:
- Although body and psychophysical health are of instrumental and
not ultimate value in classical Yoga, body and health have significant
soteriological functions. - Liberation in Yoga is healing in an ultimate sense. It concerns attain-
ment of well-being with respect to the human being’s most funda-
mental nature and highest soteriological potential.
Tantra’s Enlightenable Body
The Vedic tradition and the T ̄antric tradition are distinct but inter-
related currents of Indian religious culture, and they share as well as di-
verge in their constitutions of religious meaning. A major feature of Tan-
tra is its ontological presupposition that the universe, and everything in
it, is a manifestation of the one Brahman. Emergent from this principle is
body and philosophies of healing 29