The $27 Billion Industry That
Reinvented American Spirituality
BY CAROLYN GREGOIRE
PREVIOUS PAGE: COURTESY OFJIVAMUKTI YOGA
>> In 1971, Sat Jivan Singh Khalsa moved to New York to open a yoga
studio. A lawyer moonlighting as a Kundalini yoga teacher, he set up
shop in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, opening a school to share the teachings of the spiritual leader Yogi Bhajan. At that time, there were only
two other yoga studios in the city. ¶ It was a time, as Khalsa told The
Huffington Post, when “people confused yoga and yogurt. They were
both brand new and nobody knew what either of them were.”
In the more than 40 years since
Khalsa opened his school, he has
watched as yoga in America has
evolved from a niche activity of
devout New Agers to part of the
cultural mainstream. Dozens of
yoga variations can be found within a 1-mile radius of his studio
in Manhattan’s Flatiron district,
from Equinox power yoga to yogalates to “zen bootcamp.” Across
America, students, stressed-out
young professionals, CEOs and
retirees are among those who have
embraced yoga, fueling a $27 billion industry with more than 20
million practitioners — 83 percent
of them women. As Khalsa says,
“The love of yoga is out there and
the time is right for yoga.”
Perhaps inevitably, yoga’s journey from ancient spiritual practice to big business and premium
lifestyle — complete with designer
yogawear, mats, towels, luxury retreats and $100-a-day juice cleanses — has some devotees worrying
that something has been lost along
the way. The growing perception
of yoga as a leisure activity catering to a high-end clientele doesn’t
help. “The number of practitioners
and the amount they spend has increased dramatically in the last four
years,” Bill Harper, vice president
of Active Interest Media’s Healthy
Living Group, told Yoga Journal.
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page:
Students
practice yoga
at Jivamukti
Yoga, a
studio that
is embracing
the spiritual
elements of
the practice.