No authentic state of ‘spiritual freedom’ (‘Moksha’) can
be attained without the recognition of this, most
fundamental economic form of spiritual ‘bondage’ – the
economic yoke imposed on human labour. The idea of
attaining such spiritual freedom merely through ‘yoga’ – a
word whose root meaning is ‘yoke’, seems indeed, from
this point of view, a mere cynical joke, compounded in our
current era by the global commodification of yogic
philosophies and practices themselves, which are marketed
as a palliative for ‘stress’ – the individual’s sense of
alienation – whilst denying its foundation in economic
exploitation. Such a commodified ‘yoga’ may serve to
ameliorate, but thereby also serves to shore up the
continuing yoke of alienated labour imposed by global
capitalism, a yoke imposed not just on the free spiritual life
of the individual but on their free bodily activity – the latter
finding expression only through the compensatory
euphoria of drunkenness or violence. This yoke can only be
overcome through a communist social revolution.
- Moksha/Mukti: the central spiritual aim of traditional,
communalistic ethnic-Hindu religious philosophies rooted
in India, yet conceived of, in contrast to Marxism, as an
ultimate state of individual ‘liberation’ (Moksha) or ‘release’
(Mukti) from the entirety of worldly existence and the
trans-historical cycle of death and rebirth. Moksha or
liberation in this spiritual rather than social sense is seen as
rooted in a recognition of the fundamental unreality (Maya)