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This was a live recording of an extract from an online seminar via zoom on 28th September 2020 for the SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies.

The paper is based on a contribution to the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies. Concerning the application of philosophy as a disciplinary approach to the study of yoga, it discusses three main themes: ‘Yoga and ontology’, ‘Yoga and epistemology’ and ‘Yoga and ethics’. In the case of ontology (the study of being or of what exists), questions may be raised about how best to interpret the ontological systems articulated in classical sources such as the Pātañjalayogaśāstra (i.e. Yogasūtra plus Yogabhāṣya) and Sāṃkhyakārikā. Addressing these questions may involve comparisons with aspects of Western philosophy, provided care is taken not to shoehorn the original material into Western categories. In the case of epistemology (the study of knowledge and of what can be known), we may ask not only what yoga and meditative traditions consider knowledge to consist in but also whether the ways of knowing could intelligibly include a state of ‘pure consciousness’, as is suggested by certain traditional sources. And in connection with ethics (broadly construed as the study of how best to live one’s life), issues include the extent to which systems of meditative practice incorporate moral principles or, alternatively, seek to transcend morality altogether. The paper concludes by summarizing prospects for further philosophical inquiry into yoga and meditation.

Speaker biography: Mikel (Mik) Burley is Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Leeds. His publications include A Radical Pluralist Philosophy of Religion: Cross-Cultural, Multireligious, Interdisciplinary (Bloomsbury, 2020), Rebirth and the Stream of Life: A Philosophical Study of Reincarnation, Karma and Ethics (Bloomsbury, 2016) and Classical Sāṃkhya and Yoga: An Indian Metaphysics of Experience (Routledge, 2007).

Reading: Burley, Mikel. 2020 forthcoming. Yoga and Philosophy: Ontology, epistemology, ethics. Routledge Handbook on Yoga and Meditation.

Image credit: From page 2 of Losty, Jeremiah P. 2016. A Picture Book of the Devi Mahatmya. Simon Ray.

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