As far as I can tell, nothing. It’s just another tangent.

For the purpose of yoga, it is important to understand the myth of Judgment Day. Judgment Day is a concept that is found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It was also found in ancient Egyptian, Persian, Mesopotamian, and Greek mythologies. The idea is that when you die, you are judged on your actions and sent to heaven or hell accordingly. In the case of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, God is the judge. And therefore, God creates the rules one must follow. If one follows the rules, one goes to heaven or hell. Secular nation-states also follow the framework underlying Judgment Day, though they exclude the idea of God. Instead of God, they speak of citizens as a collective, and commandments take the form of a constitution. The citizens are expected to live by the nation’s law; those who don’t are judged and penalized. Structurally, then, the notion of Judgment Day is implicit even in the secular idea of social justice and corporate social responsibility.

The concept of a judge, Judgment Day, and the binary between heaven and hell are not dominant motifs in Hinduism, Buddhism, or Jainism. In Buddhism, the Buddha is not a judge. The idea of heaven and hell exists, but it’s not quite based on judgment or commandments. Buddhism speaks of the concept of karma and the belief in rebirth based on your actions in this life. The rules of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism are restricted to religious ascetic orders and communities, more for functional than metaphysical reasons. You go to heaven not by following rules, but by restraining senses and seeking wisdom. Thus, the Buddhist concept of heaven and hell is not based on following or breaking rules, but on psychological transformation and accumulating karma that either raises us or casts us down in the many-tiered cosmos.

The concept of judgment comes in a society that believes in equality, and therefore strives toward homogeneity, shunning heterogeneity. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism are based on diversity, which is often misread as inequality. Every human being is different, because we all carry different karmic burdens from our previous lives. Each one has different strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. So, one rule cannot apply to all. Likewise, different people need different forms of yoga and different kinds of teachers. There is no one yoga for all, no one guru for all. The yoga that works for our particular context and our body is best for us, but it might not work for others. Yoga cannot be benchmarked or indexed or standardized. Nor can gurus, yogis, or yoginis.

Like, this might be the worst book I’ve ever read.

You could’ve just begun with “different people need different forms of yoga…” You don’t need to fucking discuss the difference between Abrahamic and Indic religions for three paragraphs, preceded by four paragraphs of “high school tier” philosophy about money being an illusion and other “myths”

I just wanna read about Yoga.