By Bernie Clark
January 18, 2023
There is a science of yoga, but yoga is not a science. This may sound like a contradiction at best or a piece of hyperbolic, attention-grabbing click-bait at worst. The confusion lies in the fact that there are two very distinct meanings of the word “science”. Unfortunately, some marketing savvy teachers over the last two hundred years have played games with these meanings to make yoga sound more special than it needs to be.
Is there a science of yoga?
Let’s define the word: Science is from the Latin scientia or scire, which means to know. Scire is found in the word incise, and means to cut, split, cleave, rend, divide or separate. By the 14th century, in English, science meant the state or fact of knowing. In short, we could say science means knowledge, but this knowledge had to be obtained through study or an effort that would indicate the knowledge gained is quite certain. In general, the term applied to knowledge obtained in philosophy or theology but it was sometimes used to describe experiential knowledge gained through plying a trade or handicraft.1 It is possible to say that there is a science of some topic, which indicates that it is possible to acquire a body of knowledge about that topic. Thus, it can be quite correct to say that there is a science of yoga. In this usage of the word, it simply means that it is possible to gain knowledge about yoga.
If this was the only possible definition of science, it would make no sense to say that yoga is a science. Yoga is not a body of knowledge. Yoga is a practice or a state of being, not a collection of information.2 One may use information and understanding to further the practice of yoga, but reading a book about yoga is not yoga. To say that “yoga is a science” requires a second definition of the word science.
The second meaning of science
Around the middle of the 19th century, the term science began to be applied more to natural philosophy than to theology. Of interest was the observation of the material world and the laws of nature that it followed. The process of science rested on two great pillars: diligent observations and creative hypotheses. The hypothesis here is not just any pontification or supposition; it is a testable proposition which explains how something happens. Testable is a key term here. To be truly scientific, a hypothesis must be testable in such a way that, depending upon the outcome of the test or experiment, the hypothesis runs the risk of being proven wrong. Ideally, these tests can be done over and over again and always yield similar results, and the results do not depend upon who is doing the testing. Anyone, with sufficient understanding of the field of enquiry, can do the test and see for himself that the results meet the predictions of the hypothesis. In other words, the results must be objectively verifiable.
To do science, then, means to look keenly at the world, observe and collect facts about it, develop a theory which would explain these facts, then based on this theory propose testable predictions, and finally, develop experiments or propose observations to verify these predictions.
In 1934, Karl Popper proposed the idea that a scientific theory must be falsifiable. Different than a mathematical proof, Popper’s view was that no scientific theory is ever taken as proven (although, human nature being what it is, scientists may gloss over this fact for theories that are so strong that it is considered extremely unlikely for the theory to ever be proven wrong.) With each new test that a theory passes, the theory is considered to be stronger and stronger, but never completely proven. Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity was considered to be a very strong theory as its predictions were confirmed over and over again. But, it was not a complete theory. There were still a few anomalous observations, such as the orbit of Mercury, that did not fit its predictions.3 Along came Albert Einstein with his revised theory of gravitation which not only fit all the observations that Newton’s theory predicted but also explained the observations that Newton’s theory could not explain. Einstein’s theory is even stronger than Newton’s, but this still does not mean Einstein’s theory has been proven. It just has not been disproven yet. Einstein’s theory of gravity is a very strong, scientific theory.
Can yoga be a science?
In order for yoga to be a science, it too must explain how some facet of reality works and based on this understanding make some predictions that can be tested. These tests must allow for the possibility that the predictions could be false. This falsifiability is what separates religious dogma from science: ask any religious teacher how they could prove their beliefs to be wrong and you will receive silence. They will default to the importance of faith: religions require not proof that their claims about reality are correct, but faith that their views are correct in spite of a lack of proof, or even in spite of proof that they are indeed incorrect. Science does not take things on faith.
Consider people who believes the earth is flat or that God created the universe 6,000 years ago. They will often state that their beliefs are scientific and have been proven true. The fact they claim proof that their theories are true should be a warning sign. No scientific theory has been proven true; they just have not yet been proven false despite many attempts to disprove them.
After listening politely to such people, you could mention that, in order to really consider their beliefs to be scientific, their hypothesis have to make predictions that could be proven wrong. Ask them, “What tests would you suggest that could prove your theory wrong?” For example, for a flat earth enthusiast, would he consider flying an airplane over the supposed edge of the earth, but not seeing an edge as his theory predicts, be proof that his theory is wrong? Surely, if the world is flat and we fly in one direction long enough, or sail a ship far enough, we will come to the edge of the earth. He might say, “No, there could be many reasons why there would seem to be no edge to the earth even though there still is.” Or he may protest, “It is not possible to fly over the edge of the earth (for various conspiracy theory reasons such as airplanes can’t actually fly that far or pilots are simply lying).” If so, then ask him to come up with the test. If he really considers his view to be scientific, he must offer tests that could prove his theory wrong. Similarly for a creationist, how could he disprove a theory that posits God created the whole universe 6,000 years ago, complete with dinosaur bones already in the ground and photons from stars billions of lightyears away placed conveniently close to us and ready to strike the earth? If you can’t disprove this theory, it is not science.
How can you prove yoga to be wrong?
Yoga is a vast philosophy with many branches and many ways to practice it. In the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, the ultimate goal of yoga is to use the tools described to reach a state of highest samadhi and then die, allowing your purusha (or “soul,” for lack of a better term) to exit the body and forever escape the cycles of death and rebirth. It is not clear how to test this idea. What experiment could we propose first to prove the existence of a purusha and second to prove that it will never be re-incarnated? In Tantra and many styles of Hatha yoga, the ultimate intention is to awaken the kundalini energy and have it rise up the spine to join with Shiva, transforming the body and creating a jivan mukti, a living liberated being who will never again be reincarnated. I can conceive of no way to prove this either. Without an ability to falsify these claims, these forms of yoga cannot be considered a science.
There are certainly lesser claims of yogis which may be amenable to scientific testing. For example, in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (circa 1450 C.E.) it is written that Lotus Pose will cure all disease. I don’t believe any serious yoga practitioner today would give Lotus Pose that much credit and it would be easy to show this statement to be simply a marketing line with no scientific credibility, but at least it is testable! B.K.S. Iyengar often made therapeutic claims for the postures described in his book Light On Yoga. For example, he wrote that Baddha Konasana (Butterfly) will keep the bladder, kidneys and prostate healthy, relieve sciatic pain and prevent hernias.4 These predictions are ones that could be verified, but to my knowledge there have been no studies which have shown Baddha Konasana to be linked to the prevention of hernias. Mr. Iyengar was not a scientist and he offered no references to studies which would verify his many medical claims. Despite the fact that his claims could be tested, he never actually tested them. He simply collected anecdotes, which are far from proving a hypothesis.
This does not mean that there are not physical and psychological benefits from the practice of yoga. There are and these have been tested. The practice of yoga therapy does have some solid scientific credentials. But, if there do exist some subsets of yoga that are scientific, they are very scaled-down version of the yogas practiced in South Asia for millennia.
Swami Vivekananda’s Science of Yoga
Swami Vivekananda was one of several notable Indian teachers who brought awareness of yoga to the West. To make the practice more palatable to Western tastes, he cast yoga into terms that would resonate with his Western audience. He used references to both Jesus and science. These references would have sounded quite strange to a 19th century Indian audience, but they went over well in the United States and Europe in the late 1890s and early 1900s. The more Vivekananda could equate yoga to science, the more respectable it and he became. Unfortunately, Vivekananda would slide seamlessly between the archaic use of the word science and the modern. He would talk about the science of yoga as easily as yoga as a science. A case could be made for the former, as there definitely is a body of knowledge concerning yoga which Vivekananda was adept at relating. But there was very little yoga as a science forthcoming in his teachings and writings. There was no systematic theory that could be used to create predictions which could be tested objectively and falsified.5
One of the tricks used by many teachers, gurus and frankly charlatans who inappropriately use science as a badge of authenticity is framing any failure to prove their claims to be a failure by the scientist carrying out the experiment. This is an age-old dodge. Shamans often justified their failures by claiming “too many demons”. Their astral battle was real, they would state, and the spirit world is real, but in this case, their failure to cure an illness or bring the rain was due to the overwhelming opposition they faced. It was never due to their explanations (hypotheses) being bogus. So too with something as subjective as yoga’s many states of mind and ultimate liberation. Failure to achieve these states and goals is often laid at the feet of the student rather than any failure of the practice or worldview. With this attitude, yoga’s claims to spiritual enlightenment or liberation will always be unfalsifiable. If it were otherwise, you could properly ask the master to proffer some experiments whose failure would disprove his thesis. Like the flat earther or creationist, there will likely be no experiment proposed, or if one is proposed, it will be one that is so esoteric that no independent person will be qualified or able to conduct it. This is a clear sign that you are not dealing with a science.
None of this negates the value we can obtain from practicing yoga! I don’t need golf to be considered a science. There is a science to golf but golf is not a science, and that’s okay. Similarly, I don’t need yoga to be considered a science to also gain its many benefits. I can enjoy it notwithstanding. When I hear someone say, “the science of yoga”, I smile inwardly and think, “well, that is certainly true.” I have used this phrase myself. But, early in my yoga teaching career I would sometimes imply that yoga was a science.6 Today, I wish I had paused and considered what I was about to say before making that implication. Yoga is not a science, we don’t need yoga to be considered a science, and that is okay.
If we like, we can parse yoga down into a subset of the historical practices and cast parts of yoga into scientific terms. It is okay to study yoga therapy scientifically, for example. I personally love to relate scientific findings to the practice of yoga to help explain how or why certain benefits of yoga arise. But, once we look at the overarching goals of traditional yoga practices, of seeking spiritual liberation, that is beyond the realm of science because it is not testable or falsifiable. There we are in the realm of faith and belief, not proof and certainty. For a yogi, this can be a fascinating and rewarding realm to explore, but please don’t confuse this journey with that of a scientist. There can be a science of yoga, but yoga is not a science.
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[1] See Etymology Online: https://www.etymonline.com/word/science
[2] Yoga is unique in the way that it is both a practice and the goal of that practice. Yoga can be defined as the state of a yoked mind, the mind’s thoughts being stilled, of being in a merger of subject and object, of being in samadhi. Thus yoga is a state. But, yoga can also be defined as a practice that leads to achieving that state. We can “do” yoga. Confusingly, we could say that yoga is the technology used to achieve the state of yoga.
[3] “At the end of the 19th century, astronomers discovered that the perihelion of Mercury (its closest point to the sun during its orbit) was slowly advancing in a way that could not be explained by Newtonian physics.” See The Puzzle of Astronomy’s Unexplained Anomalies at MIT Technology Review
[4] See Light on Yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar, Schocken Books, New York, 1979 edition, page 128.
[5] Jean McPhail is a Vedantic nun trained in Western medical science. She would disagree with my assertions. She wrote an article describing how Vivekananda indeed showed that yoga was a science. Unfortunately, while she does list some attributes of science in the article, she does not explain how Vivekananda’s teachings fit those attributes. Instead she gives a fairly good overview of what he taught, but not how it met the conditions of being a science. See “Swami Vivekananda’s Teaching in the West: Yoga as a Science”. New York: American Vedantist, 2001-2002. Vol.7, no.3, p.23 and no. 4, p.15. https://www.academia.edu/35336250/YOGA_AS_SCIENCE_doc
[6] To be precise, I used to call ayurveda “the sister science of yoga” which implied yoga too was a science. While I do believe modern ayurveda can be considered a science, or at least there are versions of the practice that are scientific, this does not mean that yoga is a science.