Dharma, yoga, tantra

In the mid-20th century, Selvararajan Yesudian (1916-1998), who was born in India to a Christian father, a physician, and spent most of his life in Switzerland, coauthored (with Elisabeth Haich) a book entitled Yoga and Health; since then, the coupling of these two words has largely defined the meaning of yoga in the West, especially in promotional literature for urban yoga schools and health-club programs. Authentic Indian traditions have indeed affirmed the therapeutic benefit of yoga, but they have consistently seen yoga as a "therapy of the soul," a way of "quieting the agitations of the heart," to the end of perceiving the Ultimate within the soul and, in religious terms, of realizing union with God. This paper will examine some classical yoga texts in relation to spiritual remedies for substance misuse and other forms of addiction and chemical dependency.