Yoga practice sells clarity like it’s a coupon. See things as they are. Feel better. Walk into the light. The fine print: once you can see what’s actually happening, you can’t unsee it.
The texts love viveka. Discrimination. Clear seeing. It’s treated as obviously good, like brushing your teeth. But there’s a tax the tradition doesn’t always spell out in plain language: early clarity hurts. Not because you’re “negative.” Because the world is often actually awful.
Michael’s May 4 reads like that tax bill. Food trucks that also bring rats and corrode whatever “community” is supposed to mean. Amazon workers peeing in bottles while Jeff Bezos chairs the Met Gala. A cousin’s second stroke and a neurosurgeon who basically says, go to the ER. And then, because life is funny that way, open the shala at 6:30 AM.
He said, “I get really frustrated when I feel like very real issues can’t be advocated to or have something done in any sort of meaningful way.” That’s the gap. You can perceive clearly, and still have zero leverage. Clarity without capacity becomes rumination with better vocabulary.
Wellness culture tries to patch this with forced sunshine. Be positive. Protect your energy. Which often just means: look away politely. Yoga isn’t supposed to make you numb. It’s supposed to make you steadier. Not blind to suffering, but less possessed by it.
The long game matters here. Vivekakhyāti—the kind of discrimination that stops causing suffering—takes time. Decades, sometimes. Until then, practice is learning to stay human while seeing the truth. To keep your eyes open, and your heart unarmored.