My problem, if I could be said to have any at all, is that I’m simply too humble to do yoga. I’m too selfless for meditation; too modest for any kind of spiritual practice. I suppose if I was absolutely pushed – and, really, who would try to push anyone as evidently grounded as me – I would say that I am too self-effacing to try any kind of regular “practice” at all.
In news that will shake goat shacks, hatha studios and rush matting salespeople across the land, a study published by the University of Southampton has found that neither yoga nor meditation “quiet” the ego; but instead boost self-enhancement. By “self-enhancement” they mean a self-centrality that encourages you to rate yourself highly in comparison to others.
Sure, it’s just one study, following around 250 people, but hey, this is science. Science says yoga makes you smug. So put that up your kundalini and see how it transcends.
In truth, the reasons I don’t do yoga are manifold: my living space is so small that any attempt at a pose more ambitious than the tree will inevitably end with me crashing into my child’s toys; I have all the self-discipline of a labrador and am therefore unlikely to ever achieve much at home under my own bending steam; when given the choice between spending £14 on a post-natal yoga class in London or spending £14 on the ability to actually travel around London on public transport, I will always choose the latter.
Isn’t that just a peach for lazy cynics like myself? Isn’t it just glorious to be told that all that slow-smiling, soft-voiced, slightly bended-knee, chiming, chanting, sesame-oiled and gently lit activity really is the stuff of self-indulgence and big-headedness? Doesn’t it just take the pressure off for a moment to be told that self-improvement and spiritual hunger makes you an insufferable arse?
Of course what we’re talking about here are western yoga courses undertaken by western students. If practised daily, under the supervision of a dedicated and enlightened teacher, with corresponding and concurrent study, and a genuine desire to relinquish human conceit, I have no doubt that yoga and meditation can “quiet” the ego. Sadly, in Britain, examples of that kind of practice number relatively few compared with the heaving ranks of wellness-touting narcissists keen to use a bit of cod-spirituality as yet another excuse for rank self-indulgence. You know who I mean: the image-obsessed neo-hippies keen to purchase, pose and Instagram their way to paper-thin self-esteem, shored up on all sides by the kind of cynical marketing that somehow turns neurosis into commodity.
I don’t really believe that yoga or meditation make you an arrogant, self-congratulatory twat – quite the opposite, in fact. But I would venture to say that when an arrogant, self-congratulatory twat is given a full-length mirror, a language of “self care”, and a questionnaire about their own apparent superiority, unpleasant things may start to occur. Not least in their choice of Lycra.