SPIRITUAL BUT NOT RELIGIOUS [?]

In this podcast, I reflect on the currently prominent self-description of "spiritual but not religious".  Underpinning the possibility of such a notion, I argue, is a crucial difference between two ways of encountering our interiority. The first does so from a perspective that espouses this or that set of dogmas belonging to this or that institutional religion. The practices associated with this orientation are likely to entail moral cultivation and to proscibe certain lines of enquiry. The second does so from a perspective that takes it that everything whatsoever is up for questioning, including the dogmas of religion. I argue that Patanjali's Yoga belongs in the second category and is cosmopolitan in character, and that equations of Yoga with nationalism, such as that made by Baba Ramdev, are nonsensical. [Patrons only. 33 minutes.]