What is Yoga?: A Feast of Many Flavors
[“What is Yoga?” is an ongoing series looking at the elements that make up the yoga that we know today, painting a picture of the culture of yoga and the different schools and styles that make up the modern yoga community.]
If you take a variety of classes from different schools of yoga, you might begin to notice a number of components to a yoga class, some of which might be more heavily featured by one school than by another. A class might begin with three chanted “OMs” or with fifteen minutes of devotional chanting. Another class might not feature any chanting at all. You might then be treated to a short talk where the teacher expounds upon a particular idea in yoga philosophy, or anatomy or meditative practice. You might do some breathing practices, perhaps accompanied by a visualization or guided meditation. You might then move on to a physical practice involving Surya Namaskar (sun salutations) and other demanding postures, or you might not get up off the floor at all, focusing instead on seated meditation.
Each of these different components represents a different body of yoga practices that have built up over time across many regions of India and the West into discrete collections of techniques. Each of these have the potential to send the practitioner deeper along the path to realization of the true nature of the self and its place in the natural world. Many of these names apply to entire schools of yoga with sophisticated philosophies and practice systems that date back several hundred years. In the context of modern yoga as it is practiced in the West, their meaning has become diluted as teachers mix and match styles according to their own preferences and areas of interest. Let’s look at some of the more prominent categories of yoga techniques and see where they come from.
What is Yoga?: A 5,000 Year-Old Tradition
[“What is Yoga?” is an ongoing series looking at the elements that make up the yoga that we know today, painting a picture of the culture of yoga and the different schools and styles that make up the modern yoga community.]
Soft lighting, soothing music, perhaps the gentle fragrance of incense or lavender oil in the air. A few inspiring words from an attractive and well-toned instructor. Easy stretches and calisthenics that build up in intensity until you are drenched in sweat. Increasingly difficult contortions and inversions around which to wrap your limbs and mind. Then a few minutes of complete rest, perhaps a short meditation and back to daily life. This is, for many, the definition of yoga. For others, yoga is a flaky new-age philosophy, or even a dangerous eastern religion. The clustering of images and associations surrounding yoga have become a cultural force used to promote health and fitness, spiritual well-being, lifestyle products, or even just notions of a better, simpler life. And somewhere in there, we are told that this yoga is 5000 years old. It sounds good. It feels right, giving weight and importance to what can be, undoubtably, an enriching and uplifting experience.
5000 years is a very, very long time for something to remain completely unchanged. Can we really make this claim? Were men and women of the Indian subcontinent 3000 years before the Christian Era gathering together to be led through the rituals of mental and physical conditioning that we put ourselves through today? (more…)
© 2010 Witold Fitz-Simon.
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