Post #89: Enter the Yogi-Bhogi…

9 Feb. 2024

     A yogi in the original sense is not a human pretzel but a spiritual aspirant, a seeker of higher communion (derived from the Sanskrit “yuj,” meaning to join together, as in the English yoke). A bhogi, on the other hand, is a an everyman, a worldly fellow, a pleasure-seeker and avoider of discomfort who would like to have fun in his life along the usual human, all-too human lines. Hence the two may look like obvious opposites, and they are usually presented by way of contrast. So what room can there be for the yogi-bhogi, a seemingly chimerical creature composed in some mysterious manner of both elements, however contradictory?

     Yogi-bhogidom is so odd not because it is uncommon (far from it) but because it looks, at bottom, so incoherent. Yet can there be any doubt that it is in fact very widespread? Few of us, after all, are altogether unreceptive to spiritual messages; fewer still completely committed to them; which leaves the rest, perhaps the great majority, somewhere in the middle, not so much in a compromise position (to which incompatible principles do not easily lend themselves) as in the no-man’s land of gross inconsistency. Either high spiritual truths have a claim on us or they do not; the difference cannot be easily split, and it makes little sense to think that such majestic verities would apply sometimes, and other times not, existing as it were at our convenience, whenever it suits us. Surely not.

     Yogi-bhogidom amounts, one might be tempted to say, to a kind of fuzzy logic in matters spiritual—now you see it, now you don’t, or maybe better, now you see the two incompatible visions at the same time, overlaid as it were, so that the picture gets hopelessly blurred and confused. It’s a very human pseudo-solution to a complicated problem—what is verily true and right?—and has the charm of moderation, neither turning a blind eye to the higher dimensions nor lapsing into undue zeal or fanaticism about them. How much sense it really makes is another matter, since it holds the higher counsels to be both true and false, at least in practice, heeding them only sometimes, and other times blithely disregarding them. They may have the ring of truth, the yogi-bhogi admits, but they also sound a little too demanding and “extreme”; so they get treated, more often than not, as if they were not effectively true after all, meaning practically false, or at least unacceptable.

     Should yogi-bhogidom perhaps be considered a case of arrested spiritual development plain and simple? Having touched higher plains, or been touched by them, why would anyone fall back voluntarily or turn away from them again? How could one see the majestic peaks clearly before one’s mental eye and not keep striving ever-upward? That said, it is not clear that yogi-bhogis are always spiritual slackers or quitters. Some have done a fair share of determined mountain climbing, and they have come back down not because they fail to appreciate the beauties to be found at the heights, nor because the upward journey is too arduous, but because the lofty altitudes are somehow a little too arid for them. The air may be bracing and pure, but it is a little thin also; the lush fields and fertile valleys, the pride of human culture and civilization, are to be found in the lowlands, and it implies no disrespect to the highland heroes if one does not feel called to join their ranks, or if, having completed basic training, one declines the commission into their noble company with gratitude and thanks. One may sincerely admire the uniforms, or the robes, or the halos, yet prefer to stay as one is, unadorned and undistinguished, even unredeemed, contenting oneself with consolations.

     But why? Why should anyone remain satisfied with the consolation prize, the accommodation to worldly ways, when there are so much greater glories on offer, by the yogi-bhogi’s own admission? Why not go for the gold, or even the silver, but resign oneself instead to the dull bronze or the lowly iron, even while granting that these are far less precious metals? Is it complacency, comfort, cowardice, a lack of the right stuff? A sense of one’s own limitations? Or merely an excuse? The yogi-bhogi is an easygoing fellow not inclined to get too exercised over such questions. “Now you see it, now you don’t,” he repeats, and laughs. “It is what it is. If in the morning I feel it, then I may get to the end of my prescribed hour on my mat; if at night I don’t, then ten minutes will also do. Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow; and as for a year from now, I couldn’t possibly see that far ahead. Six months are already a stretch for me.”

     It seems the yogi-bhogi may have given up on that perennial human preoccupation, the quest for the holy grail of locating one’s abiding, true, higher self somewhere. Know thyself, the entrance to Apollo’s temple in Delphi famously demanded. “All I know about myself,” the yogi-bhogi answers with another insouciant laugh, “is that I am not the same guy at night that I was in the morning, or even before having coffee and after. My head reaches a little closer to the clouds than my feet do, perhaps, but I couldn’t even tell you exactly where that leaves my little brother, who is very dear to me. So don’t ask me, please, about higher and lower selves. What do I know? I am what I am, right now, for better or for worse; you would probably still recognize me in ten minutes, I reckon, but will I really be the same, even if I avoid walking in front of a truck in the meantime? I have no idea. All I know is that doing my sittings helps, and that most of the time I like the direction the Path is taking me, however slowly.”

     And with that he walks off, cheerfully on to the business of the day, grand or petty, lofty or mundane.  Perhaps he has a retreat coming up; if so, very well. Perhaps he doesn’t, and hasn’t for a while; not quite so good, but still all right. Of going on retreats there is no end. Is his mind ever-joyful and serene, the way the Buddhist picture books promise, a world of smiles along the respectable stretches of the Path? Not quite so jolly, no, at least not reliably. It comes and goes, and often doesn’t come for a deplorably long time. But that’s okay too, for the yogi-bhogi, or okayish anyway. Why should he expect his mind to be markedly more pacific, purified, or well-ordered than that of anyone else, the yogi-bhogi shrugs good-naturedly. It would be nice, of course; but he’s no Buddha, after all, nor a bodhisattva, and he has no pretentions or ambitions that would reach to such heights of accomplishment and nobility, though he is glad to acknowledge their validity. As long as the practice brings him just a little more peace and calm, wonderful; he doesn’t ask much more. There is probably such a yogi-bhogi in all of us, and isn’t that something to be grateful for? Certainly one can rise to higher and finer things, but also descend to much baser. And sometimes the best has been known to become the enemy of the good.

     What connection would there be between yogi-bhogis and Beggar’s Buddhists? Are the two more or less the same thing? Oh dear, I am not good at the arcana of such membership rules. Let it be noted that the yogi-bhogi need not be a self-professed Buddhist at all, though that may not be saying very much, considering that one can well be a follower of the Dhamma, and an excellent one at that, without calling oneself a Buddhist—and whether all Beggar’s Buddhists are really so comfortable with the label remains anyway an open question, as I have been saying from the beginning (see #1). What the yogi-bhogi and the Beggar’s Buddhist have in common is that they practice, for the most part, at relatively low altitudes, that their spiritual ambitions tend to be limited, and that they wish to preserve a certain easy-going quality in their practice, not carrying things too much to the sweating point, while still taking their commitments seriously. They remain creatures of pleasure, and they would like to have fun in the familiar ways of worldlings, while also keeping their spiritual doors open in various directions.

There is surely no need for elaborate doctrinal acrobatics here; the membership rules for this club, such as it is, couldn’t be more loose or relaxed. Barring Groucho Marxism in your part, you may join if you feel you belong. Yogi-bhogis and other casual wanderers on the Path, or the Way, or whatever you would like to call it, are very welcome…