Yoga’s Secret ‘Objective Function’
by Scott Meredith
[Video: Me doing Ashtanga Yoga’s challenging seated vinyasas. Try it yourself at home!]
You might think that ‘objective function’ in the title means I’m asking how yoga can be practical in real life. Nope! Not at all. Objective function is a term of art in AI and machine learning.
Here, just read this explanation from Claude:
Got that? It’s just an objective numerical way to steer an AI during training to verify whether on each iteration in the process, the nascent model is getting closer to, or further from, a pre-established quality goal.
But how does that apply to Yoga of all things? Yoga is, after all, far from being any sort of quant discipline! And there’s tons of variation, depending on style, lineage, teacher, school affiliation, personal predilection, random variation, religious commitments, physical attributes/limitations, and many other factors.
It’s been said that: two of a trade never agree. That’s for sure true of yoga teachers and styles. From those who are strictly focused on absolute perfection of physical alignment, to those who prioritize feeling and organic movement uber alles, it’s quite a wide range — including teachers who bring in mental, psychological and even moral and spiritual factors… Now, there are organizations and programs such as Yoga Alliance 200 Hours and its cousins that try to standardize quality checklists and certs:
- 500-hour RYT (Registered Yoga Teacher)
- 1000-hour RYT
- E-RYT (Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher) — requires teaching hours
- YACEP (Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider)
… but there are dozens of others, competing. There are even those who dare to challenge the Adi Yogi himself (Mahadev Shivaraj!) by setting themselves up as Olympic yoga judges, handing out gold medals! Anyway it’s dueling experts all the way down.
Maybe it’s best to give up the game and conclude that everybody should just do their own thing. Hang loose and simply treat yoga as dancing in the moonlight:
You can’t [do yoga] and stay uptight! Best leave it at that, bro.
But … is that really doing justice to the august antecedents and lofty aspirations of classical yoga, as recorded in spiritual writings down through the ages? Isn’t there anywhere we could turn to for an objective guidance on findg our way through the jungle of (often competing) assessment criteria listed above?
Wait — I believe there does exist such an ‘objective function’ to guide us and allow us to apply rigorous self-assessment in yoga! The criteria are clearly stated in the OG Bible of Yoga, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. If there’s any single authority that nobody dares piss on, it’s Patanjali. But you’ll notice that when it comes to Patanjali, everybody grinds their face in the dust at his Lotus Feet for his Chapters 1 and 2, yet for some reason Chapter 3 is always on the down low.
In his Chapter 3, he lists out what develops in the correctly evolving yoga practitioner — supernatural powers such as these (hang in with me here for a minute, those of you who are screaming at me that Patanjali actually had no use for the siddhi powers lol)
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Here are just a few supernatural siddhi powers that this Ultimate OG Guru cited as the inevitable results of correct yogic discipline.
- By perfectly concentrated Meditation on mind-images is gained the understanding of the thoughts of others. (Telepathy)
- By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the form of the body, by arresting the body’s perceptibility, and by inhibiting the eye’s power of sight, there comes the power to make the body invisible. (Invisibility)
- The works which fill out the life-span may be either immediately or gradually operative. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on these comes a knowledge of the time of the end, as also through signs. (Precognition)
- By perfectly concentrated Meditation on power, even such power as that of the elephant may be gained. (Super strength)
- By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the sun comes a knowledge of the worlds. (Omniscience)
- By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the moon comes a knowledge of the lunar mansions. (Remote Viewing)
- Perfectly concentrated Meditation on the centre of force in the lower trunk brings an understanding of the order of the bodily powers. (Sumo rooting power)
- By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the centre of force in the well of the throat, there comes the cessation of hunger and thirst. (Infinite endurance)
- By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the centre of force in the channel called the “tortoise-formed,” comes steadfastness. (question, called 刀槍不入 in Chinese)
- By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the correlation of the body with the ether, and by thinking of it as light as thistle-down, will come the power to traverse the ether. (Levitation)
- Thereupon will come the manifestation of the atomic and other powers, which are the endowment of the body, together with its unassailable force. (Atomic blast force)
- Thence comes the power swift as thought, independent of instruments, and the mastery over matter. (Omnipotence)
Talk about ‘supernatural delights’! And there’s actually quite a menu of siddhi powers, dig if you will the picture:
And yet (yep, I told you to wait for it), in practically the same breath (well, chapter), Patanjali downplays all that, in no uncertain terms:
These powers stand in contradistinction to the highest spiritual vision. In manifestation they are called magical powers.
Huh? He’s saying that like it’s a bad thing. I mean, I get it. Yoga as a discipline seems torn between those who practice it as the royal road to divine illumination vs. those who just want to tone their butt. That’s fine. I actually have no dog in the fight.
My purpose here is simply to ask and answer the question: whatever your goal, how can you be sure you’re practicing yoga correctly — regardless of teacher, school, style, lineage, organization or anything else? Even regardless of your ultimate goal!
Well, even though people (especially yoga teachers) love to piss on the siddhis, I’m asserting that on the contrary they are a pearl of great price! Of course they aren’t the ultimate final goal, not the highest loka (heaven) — perish the thought. But what everybody is missing is that the siddhis are the perfect tool of assessment of progress.Handed to us by Patanjali in plain sight on a silver plate!
I’m going to totally sidestep the question of whether siddhis are good or bad. According to no less an authority than Patanjali himself,
If you are doing yoga correctly, the siddhis will manifest.
And conversely, by the property of the logical contrapositive,
If you aren’t getting the siddhis, your practice isn’t correct.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum!
And when I talk about doing the siddhis, let’s not have any metaphorical revisionism please. None of that stuff like in the old Harry Chapin song “Me, I’m flying in my taxi…”. Just because you’re feeling airy and spacy after your workout. Nope I’m hardcore. Fly!
Regardless of your ultimate goal, use your level of attainment in the above siddhi list to gauge your fidelity to correct practice. Later, once you get them all, you can of course jettison them as trivial trash and enjoy your highest loka however defined.
