Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

I used to think yoga meant urban yuppie-hippies in the US doing stretching and breathing exercises on purple mats, but after I spent a day in Coimbatore India, I discovered that yoga actually means worshiping a gigantic snake statue coiled around a black penis-like structure, then hugging an underwater ball made of lead in a subterranean pool.

After a business meeting, we had some time to kill so my distributor took me to the Isha Yoga Center near Coimbatore. Driving toward the mountains, the paved road ended and our Ambassador (Indian car) bounced along a winding dirt road -- red dust coating everything -- nearly giving me motion sickness. Along the way were billboards of a man with a long white beard, referred to as “the mystic and visionary Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.” He looked like a cliché version of a cult leader and I started to wonder what the fuck we were about to do.

I knew we were headed for some “yoga center” and figured I’d humor my hosts by doing stretching and ohming for half an hour. But as we pulled into the dirt parking lot alongside a tour bus, I saw a sprawling complex of oddly shaped buildings scattered throughout the woods at the foot of the nearby green mountains, and I knew things were gonna get weird when I saw people dressed in white cult-style robes.

Wait, yoga is some kind of primordial religious cult??

We checked our shoes and socks and started the tour. The guide explained in a soft sincere and serious voice what we were about to see, and made sure we knew not to speak while viewing the statues -- very important.

The bottoms of my feet burned as we walked on sun-scorched stones toward the first building. It was a subterranean swimming pool, reached by descending brown stone steps underground where half-naked men were swimming in murky water and hugging a submerged lead sphere. No one was speaking -- just the sound of water. Soon, I felt the urgent need to leave so I climbed back up the wet stone steps with my bare feet and pant legs rolled up to my knees.

Next, we approached a brick dome structure. I entered, and was directed by a bare-footed man in a white robe to place a flower in the shallow water surrounding an eight-foot tall coiled snake statue. The snake was protecting a big black monolith. All along the circular wall were square cutouts set back three feet and people were sitting in them cross-legged, silent. If someone had proceeded to sacrifice a goat at that moment, it would not have seemed out of place.

I am not religious or even a “spiritual” person. I have a high level of difficulty believing in anything beyond the natural world. I sat there in the lotus position facing this giant snake and phallic statue and felt increasing uncomfortable -- but mostly, just silly. It was like I’d stepped back 4,000 years to worship idols; something in my Christian upbringing was telling me to run. After four minutes, I couldn’t take it any longer. These silent ohmers and their false idols were giving me the creeps. I headed to the outdoor cafeteria to get my free food eaten without silverware.

I’m glad I got to witness all this. It’s like seeing how religions were before monotheism. But I suppose praying toward a snake statue isn’t so different from rubbing beads together and praying toward a statue of a woman who supposedly was the only person in history to have a virgin birth.