A yoga expert in USA recently tried to get a patent on certain Yoga techniques. The desperation to own and market Yoga is not new. The business potential of Yoga in the West is huge, for they have no comparable discipline. And yet, in the home of the Yoga, its reach is extremely limited.

I think India, West and spirituality put together, represent an interesting phenomenon. Yoga is the path to spiritual fulfilment. The quest for spiritual fulfilment arises when people graduate from the struggle for a comfortable existence. Once people have attained a certain amount of material satisfaction, in tune with the standards of the day, they want to move the next level- the level of self-actuation, fulfilment, giving a greater meaning to life – whatever you call it.  Hence the beeline for yoga classes and Gurus abroad, for spiritual centres in India, and getting involved in the causes of the underprivileged people, who are more in India and similarly impoverished countries.

Indians on the other hand are struggling with material problems, even the rich ones are dissatisfied with their lot. The reason is the material well being is not just the private good you have but also the public goods- the civic life, water, electricity, education, law and order, environment, political and social stability, a certain definiteness about the future- indeed so many and vast areas which no amount of private wealth can buy.

Since the public goods are so pathetic, the race never ceases for an Indian. He tries to get over his poor quality of life by earning more and more, but he never reaches the mirage, and hence he never graduates to the level above physical satisfaction.

It was not always so. There was a time when the Indians, as a community, were materially well off. With no pressing concerns of life and survival, they pursued spirituality; they found ways to harness the spiritual power, to look deep into the mind and the universe. It is they who handed us the legacy of spiritual disciplines. The Indians of today have absolutely no motivation to develop something like that, nor do they need it that urgently, and yet they are in possession of it.

The West needs it and they don’t have it.

Can they develop something like it? It is very doubtful. The Yogic philosophies were developed at a time when people had an immense faith in the supreme power, when the world around held for them wonder and mystery, when they were devoted to a religious way of life. Out of that faith emerged the philosophy of Yoga and reaching the divine through it. In today’s questioning, reasoning world, it is not possible to generate that kind of faith. One must look at things already available in the world. One of the major possessions that mankind has is India’s legacy of Yoga.

The people from the developed countries would love to come to India, the conventional land of spirituality. And doubtless, many of them would be very rich. If we were looking to generate billions from tourism, this is the opportunity. But what puts the tourists off is a land of spirituality completely different from they dream of. The India that they come across has long since left behind its spiritual way of life, but is muddied in poverty and hyper-competition for resources. The conditions are not right for a spiritual quest. So while they come here to move a notch ahead in life, they actually fall a notch below.

That is the spiritual conundrum between India and the West.

Yoga is getting popular in India. But largely it is because the rich and the corporate folks in India follow the West in all their fads and ways of life.

Again, it is not a case of two extremes. My point is not that India does not have any spiritual movement; it’s just that the spiritual side is functioning well below its potential. Similarly, not everyone in the West is looking for fulfilment, but that the number is still considerable, and it must be tempered against the fact that because of their lack of such a spiritual past, they may not even begin to think in that direction.