Meditation matters: The politics and networks of yoga and spiritual reform between Indonesia, India and the West, 1900s–1970s
Marieke Bloembergen
History and Anthropology September 12, 2023 DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2023.2249474 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Citations | 3 |
| Key points | The article argues that the intertwined histories of Yogamurti and Ashin Jinarakkhita show how yogic and Buddhist knowledge circulated between India and Indonesia across colonialism, decolonization, and violent regime change, and that these spiritual entrepreneurs' alternative trajectories challenge grand narratives of political history, yoga, Indian religion, and Greater India. |
Abstract
Starting from sites of yogic and Buddhist learning connecting Indonesia and India this article explores the politics, practices, transformation, dissemination and uses of knowledge on yoga and meditation in late colonial and postcolonial Indonesia, and their relation to moral geographies of Greater India.It follows, across (violent) regime changes, the trajectories of learning of a number of self-made experts and entrepreneurs in this field who were also involved in the postcolonial Buddhist reform movement in Indonesia: the Chinese Indonesians Souw Tjiang Poh (b.1929), better known, also as yoga guru, under his Buddhist name Yogamurti; and his meditation teacher, Tee Boan An (1923-2002), who, as Ashin Jinarakkhita, is more famous as motor behind the Buddhist reform movement in Indonesia from the 1950s onwards.Yogamurti's and Tee Boan An's histories of 'yogic' transformation reach back to 'alternative' spiritual reform trajectories of the Theosophical Society of late colonial times, and continue, across decolonization and the violent regime change of 1965, to those of the hippie trail of the 1970s.These spiritual and 'Indic' religious revivalist entrepreneurs provide alternative perspectives to the grand narratives of political history, yoga, 'Indian religion' or 'Greater India'.Across regime changes, their paths crossed and they exchanged knowledge, thereby changing and reshaping social hierarchies as they moved within an 'alternative present' in which spirituality seemed a way to move forward to 'alternative futures'.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |