Fake, Evil, Spiritual, Commodified; What’s the Truth About Popular Yoga?
What inspired you to write Selling Yoga? Near the beginning of my graduate school career, I…
Read More
10 Noteworthy Yoga Developments to Recall in 2015
From the passing of Iyengar to homophobic yoga to the Super Bowl, yoga made headlines and continued to evolve in 2014.
Read More
Claiming Yoga for India
Modi’s recent efforts are mired in inaccurate myths of yoga’s static essence and Indian origin.
Read More
Pop Culture Yogi B. K. S. Iyengar Dead at 95
Yoga popularizer, entrepreneur, and guru B. K. S. Iyengar died on Wednesday in the Indian…
Read More
Yoga Guru or CEO? Saving the Brand When Scandal Strikes
The accusations facing Anusara yoga founder John Friend include suggestions that he heads a Wiccan coven in which he has sex with female members; that he’s had several sexual relationships with married Anusara employees and teachers; that he violated federal regulations regarding employee benefits by suddenly freezing Anusara, Inc.’s pension fund; and finally, that Friend put his employees at legal risk by arranging for them to accept packages of marijuana for his personal use.
Read More
No, I Don’t Owe My Yoga Mat to Vivekananda
A recent NYT op-ed insists that it was Vivekananda who introduced yoga into the American “national conversation.” But that claim is flat-out wrong. I’m not suggesting that we ignore Vivekananda’s proven significance in the history and development of modern yoga, but the story is much more complex than what Bardach implies. She seems to suggest, after all, that it’s as simple as: Vivekananda introduced yoga to the West, “great minds” loved him, yoga was eventually co-opted by New Age baby-boomers, and it all went downhill from there.
Read More
‘Soul of Yoga’ at Stake in Texas Regulation Push
Attempts to legally define yoga would amount to identifying a bounded tradition of symbols, practices, and ideas, which in reality vary across yoga studios and ashrams within the United States alone.
Read More
Death of a Self-Proclaimed God-Man: Sai Baba’s Controversial Career
Reflecting on Sai Baba’s life, one encounters moments of divine transformation, devotion, and public service as well as pain, death, and heinous accusations. Millions of devotees believed in and worshiped Sai Baba as a god-man, an avatar of God. Many also despised him as a charlatan, a sexual abuser, and even an accessory to murder.
Read More
Mormon-Born Daya Mata Typifies American Yoga
Daya Mata’s death reminds us that American yoga has no single essence or form. Indeed, it’s in and through its countless varieties that yoga has become as American as Elvis himself.
Read More
Is Downward Dog the Path to Hell?
Evangelicals and fundamentalist Hindus come together in their denunciation of yoga.
Read More