DESPERATELY
SEEKING SERENITY
More than 30 percent of
Yoga Journal’s readership has a
household income of more than
$100,000. As American yoga master Rodney Yee remarked at a 2011
Omega Institute conference, compromising the authenticity of the
practice and ignoring its traditions
is “ass-backwards.” “It dumbs
down the whole art form,” he said.
Others are more optimistic about
the evolution of yoga in America,
welcoming the conversations and
occasional yoga-world infighting
that have accompanied its rise.
“If you value yoga and the traditions it comes from, it’s a good
problem to have,” Philip Goldberg,
a spiritual teacher and author of
American Veda, tells The Huffington Post. “Ever since the ideas of
yoga came here in book form and
then the gurus started to arrive,
it’s all been a question of how do
you adapt these ancient teachings
and practices, modernize them
and bring them to a new culture,
without distorting or corrupting them, or diluting their effect?
That’s really the key issue here.”
Of course, much of yoga’s appeal is the fact that it can be
traced back roughly 5,000 years
— in a world of exercise trends
and diet fads, it’s a tradition that
HUFFINGTON
12.22.13
has stood the test of time. Traditionally, Yoga (Sanskrit for “divine union”) has one single aim:
stilling the thoughts of the mind
in order to experience one’s true
self, and ultimately, to achieve
Yoga’s journey from ancient
spiritual practice to big
business and premium
lifestyle... has some devotees
worrying that something has
been lost along the way.
liberation (moksha) from the cycle of birth and death (samsara),
or enlightenment.
The Westernized, modernized
form of the ancient practice expresses just one component of
what was originally considered
yoga. The physical practice of postures, or asana, is one of eight
traditional limbs of yoga, as outlined in the foundational text of
yoga philosophy, The Yoga Sutras
of Patanjali, thought to be more
than 2,000 years old. These limbs
present a sort of eightfold path
to enlightenment, which includes
turning inward, meditation, concentration and mindful breathing. The Sutras make no mention
of any specific postures, but the
original 15 yoga poses were later
outlined in the Hatha Yoga Pra-