Mystical Paths: Hindu’s Take Back Yoga.

From a Jewish website, another take on the *Take Back Yoga* effort.

Dr. Shukla is especially interesting. He says that American yoga has been engaged in *overt intellectual property theft* for purposes of *crass materialism.* But the yoga movement in America is double-edged, for its commercial success has enabled it to thrive in this strange money-worshipping nation. Perhaps this is the only means through which we could be persuaded to take up the practice?

Deepak Chopra: Who Owns Yoga?.

Deepak’s take on yoga in the HuffPost is commendable. However, he certainly is bound to get some serious flak about identifying yogic and vedic culture, and for his de facto decoupling of yoga and hinduism. Many thinkers, Feuerstein and Swami Satyananda foremost among them, have set up a model of yoga as quintessentially non-vedic, traceable to the Indus valley seals and the *hidden,* female- and sexuality-friendly tantric tradition. However interesting this view may be, there is no hard historical evidence to back it up. Have to go with Deepak on this one. And for a superb perspective, check out my Indian yogi friends’ Shailendra and Kireet’s comments on this issue on my FB page (Jeff Durham). Never heard anything wiser on the issue.

‘Take Back Yoga’ campaign: Back where? – Faith & Reason.

The capitalist Hindus are as silly as the capitalist Americans. They are afraid yoga has been co-opted – not even as some sort of colonial enterprise, but as a BRAND!

Please someone help me figure this one out.

Yoga linked to increased levels of a critical brain chemical

The relationship between yoga and positive emotion is phenomenologically clear; now, there is a proven parallelism between yoga practice and increased levels of GABA, typically lowered in anxiety and depression. Here we again see the great mystery of the direction of causality with respect to mind and matter. The answer, of course, is that the distinction is heuristic rather than substantial – they are, as Alan Watts said, the head and the tail of the same cat.

Rajiv Malhotra: A Hindu View of Christian Yoga.

This excellent article by a yoga practitioner and scholar takes the point of view that yoga is in fact incompatible with certain key characteristics of the Christian mindset, especially its tendency towards historicism and body-denial.

13 yoga bosses snared in long arm of law – The Standard.

There are obvious dangers to mixing money and yoga. Slimy gurus, get-a-job-quick schemes, *learn yoga online,* and other such abominations breed like cockroaches when the two come together. So is it any surprise that Hong Kong seems to have its own yoga Sopranos? Not to me, especially after the hilarious Yoga Money Order Scam – but that’s another blog post…

Lauding few Arizona schools for introducing yoga, Hindus urge all USA schools to launch yoga.

Brought to you by the same state that will want to see your papers if you ain’t quite white enough: yoga for high schoolers. I suppose anything is possible now. But YOW – advanced yoga philosophy and the Ashtanga intermediate series? These are going to be some seriously sore, thoroughly chilled Vedantin Arizonan teenagers. (that sounds like putting ketchup on angel food cake).

The Collegian » Yoga classes on campus help students relax.

While otherwise a fairly standard presentation of yoga benefits and practice, it is intriguing that increasing numbers of men – especially in college – are beginning to take yoga. Football players, who require a good deal of focus as well as injury prevention, are beginning the practice. Perhaps this will go some way towards addressing the peculiar gender imbalance that characterizes modern American yoga.

Noticed – Yoga Mats Falling Out of Favor – NYTimes.com.

The yoga mat is both a functional and a symbolic component of modern yoga practice. Symbolically, the mat constitutes a microcosm, a space sealed off from everyday life where concentration becomes possible. It also contains within it, virtually speaking, every asana session, every meditation performed on it. For this reason, you might think of it as a kind of talisman, which can remind you instantly of all your accumulated efforts.

Practically, the mat’s function is very simple: prevention of slippage. Even many sticky mats do not perform this function properly if you sweat heavily, as do I. Hence, at Bikram studios, you’ll always cover your mat in a towel. For this same reason, Ashtanga practitioners will often use the cotton mysore mat.

The bottom line, though, may be our Western obsession with *gear.* From walking sticks for hikers to spandex suits for bikers, we consumers like to mark our cultural territory with affectations of various types. To the extent that the mat functions neither symbolically nor practically, it is precisely such an affectation, and should by all means be jettisoned at your earliest opportunity.

Yoga may help mood, decrease anxiety — You Web News youwb.com.

The precise mechanisms through which yoga exercises its beneficial effects on such psychological illnesses as anxiety and depression remain difficult to map in scientific terms. This article represents an interesting step forward. Yet even by identifying GABA levels as paralleling changes in mood apparently induced by yoga, we identify not cause but concomitant. The brain-mind-body problem, wherein lies the crux of the matter, remains completely unsolved through any identification of neurological correlates with experiential states.