Modern Yoga: from Counterculture to Consumer Culture
The Global Popularization of Yoga
HISTORY
Fakirs, Yogins & Europeans (from: Mark Singleton, Yoga Body, Joseph Alter, Yoga in Modern India, Marcea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom)
---early representations of yogins by European visitors to India & their status in European scholarship (Orientalism of the late 19th century)
- Most likely to be defined by Indian and European critics with black magic, perverse sexuality, alimentary impurity.
- Admired rational, philosophical & contemplative aspects of yoga while condemning the obnoxious behavior to and queer ascetic practices.
- Exclusion of hatha yoga in the initial stages of the popular yoga revival
- Early European Encounters
- Ancient Greeks ; gymnosophists
- European Colonists: conflate the hatha yogin with Mohammedan Fakir (Sufi) 17th century-on (enticing ethnographic accounts of weird and painful austerities)
- Social group of itinerant renouncers known for disreputable behavior, mendicancy and outlandish austerities. (SANNYASI)- regarded with hostility and suspicion
- Compared to occultists in Europe (Bernier-France)
- "Naked, covered in ashes with long matted hair, long twisted nails, sitting under trees engaging in painful austerities “vegetative rather than rational beings…who are seduced by a life of lazy vagrancy by their own vanity” (318)
- John Ovington: possessed by the delusions of Satan. Compares them to the Bohemians of France
- John fryer: “Vagabonds and pests of the nation they live in”
- Dissolute, licentious, profane
- Fighting Yogis & Bhakti Ascendency
- Yogis were difficult people for colonial powers to control
- 15-19th centuries there were organized bands of militarized yogis controlling trade routes across northern India.- challenged political hegemony of the east India Trading Company.
- Threat to British economic interests
- Saiva (Shavist) vs Vaisnava (Vaishavist) Yoga practice
- British favored Vaisnava who as mercantile & commercial elites preferred a more devotional (denominational) practice. Against wandering Saiva yogis.
- Offense to be naked or carry a weapon
- Large numbers forced into yoga showmanship (not traders anymore)
- Despised rather than honored by orthodox Hindus: casteless Yogin was the embodiment of ritual impurity, as well as an emblem of savagery and backwardness from which colonial Hindus sought to dissociate themselves.- pariah of colonial India.
- Akharas (militant yogis) had a physical regiment which prepared them for their labor which included postures along with combat techniques.—why modern postures are different than the ones identified in traditional hatha yoga texts (warrior postures, etc.???)
- 19th century Scholarship
- During the decade of Vivekananda, it is not uncommon to see European scholarship characterizing yogis as dangerous, tricksters vagabonds in contrast to “true” practitioners of yoga (devotional).
- Neither legitimate representatives of Hinduism or having a serious worldview or philosophy. Nor were their practices valid in themselves.
- Hatha yoga practice holds little interest for these scholars
- Max Mueller “ degeneration from an earlier time when contemplative traditions dominated-historical process or corruption"
- Admiration of Samkhya & Vedanta
- Narratives of practical yoga as symptoms of religious degeneration (Hopkins)
- Max Webber: “irrational mortification, the hatha yoga of pure magical asceticism” is superseded by Brahmanical (vaisnava) classical holy technique which he compares to contemplative Christianity.
- Will eventually be restored to its pristine glory (protestant narrative)
- Sacred Book of the Hinus (9 volumes): Hinduism by & for Hindus.(Basu)
- Published in English
- Reiterated European views
- Defined modern “Hindusim”
- Vasu’s translations of texts into English determined which would be included in the hatha yoga cannon and mediated the discussion of these texts with European scholars and modern Hindusim of Basu.
- Vasu & the Hatha Yogin
- 1895 edition identifies himself as a “humble servant:” of his guru who under scientific supervision from the maharaja buried himself alive for 40 days (and other feats)
- By 1915 editions of GHS & SS, Vasu condemns “those hideous specimens of humanity who parade through our streets bedaubed with dirt and ash-frightening the children and extorting money from timid and good natured folk.”…”In India, this grotesque beggar-figure is what many may understand by the word Yoga in spite of the apparent fact that all true yogis renounce any fraternity with these”
- Changes yoga/yogi from what it does mean in popular parlance, to what it should mean.
- The modern yogi must be scientific, whereas the hatha yogi is not.
- These practices fall outside the boundaries of wholesome practice or “sattvic sadhana”.
- Omits some practices deemed grotesque from his translations.
- Appropriated from yogin and given to modern scientists and medical doctors. Yogis are rational & scientific.
- Basu, Dayananda, Paul: the Roots of Medical Hatha Yoga
- Dissection by these writers of hatha yoga as scientific and medical phenomenon. Although Tantrics did not see these things as “real” and visible. So much as products of our imagination which are born in sadhana.
Popular Portrayals of the Yogin
The Performing Yogi
· Nagas-ascetics as both sacred, mystical & ecstatic dimensions of experience. Fulfilled image that the British had of them during the 19th century. At the same time. Backward, uncivilized & dangerous.
· Yogi Bava Lachman Dass
o 1897: Performed 48 postures as part of a sideshow at the London Aquarium.
o Called “contortions for cash” (The Strand)
o Abound in India, a ruse that fools Indians, but not Savvy Londoners
o Postural contortion for entertainment-not unknown in Europe an Americas. Part of the larger culture which made freak shows popular and later circus & other travelling sideshows.
· “Posture Master” traditionally found in the royal courts.
o Similarities with advanced postures in yoga…coincidence or based on the limitations of the human body?
o India’s addition to the menagerie of European sideshows.-VULGAR
o See photos comparing “anatomy of a contortionist” to Iyengar photos in LOY
· Yogi-Fakir as Magician
o Emphasize the wondrous powers which can be acquired through yoga.
o Fortune teller, sorcerers, miracle workers…attached to the occult
o Popular British cultural icons like Aleister Crowley in his “Eight Lectures on Yoga” marries the occult to yoga in the popular imagination
§ Merged tantric yoga with western esoteric sexual practices based on speculation and Orientalist biases.
§ Hatha Yoga practice leads to the acquisition of Siddhis. & is therefore NOT referenced when physical practice of asana becomes popular.
o Well into the 20th century popular literature supports this association of the yogi/fakir with the magician & occultist.
o VICTOR DANE (the only white yogi 1933): The Naked Ascetic, documents great feats of magic (bullet proof yogis, poison drinking, mesmeric powers. Also an ardent physical culturalist. Authored Modern Fitness (1934) and published a monthly, Sporting Arena magazine. Also show great concern for the physical perfection of the body.
o EDMOND DEMAITRE: (1936-semischolarly ethnography) Berates the unseemly behavior and backward religious rites of Saiva yogis he documents while contrasting them to one favorable example of a Vivekananda quoting Bhakti yogi in a temple in Benares.
§ Indians distanced themselves from these practices for which Europeans had such a lurid fascination in order to be taken seriously by the colonial powers.
§ Yoga has been trying to uncouple itself from these negative associations ever since Vivekananda
· Vivekananda & Anti-Hatha Sentiment
o Raja Yoga (1896) Vivekananda became the public face of the Yoga renaissance, and became instrumental in defining MODERN YOGA.
o Rejects in total physical practice of hatha yoga (practices are too difficult to learn and do not lead to much spiritual growth)
o Makes men live longer and gives them superior health. Only tangential to spiritual growth-spiritual attainment is superior.
o Raja yoga vs hatha yoga…impediment and distraction to the real work of mind and spirit
o (Bharati) argues that only since the turn of the century has there been a clear distinction between meditative & physical practice (pejorated)
o Try to reverse the image of yoga and its associations with magic & occultism-also helped to define yoga s RELIGION…since some things “count” as religion in the western mind and others (magic) do not.
o Used Matthew’s Gospel AGAINST hatha yoga practice
· Vivekananda & Max Muller
o Biography of Ramakrishna
§ Argues that hatha yoga has tarnished the West’s idea about Indian religion and should be dispelled.
§ “…[certain type of Indian ascetic and the] tortures which some of them, who hardly deserve to be called Samnyasins, for they are not much better that jugglers or hatha yogins, inflict on themselves, the ascetic methods by which they try to subdue and annihilate their passions, and bring themselves to a state of extreme nervous exhaltation accompanied by trances or fainting fits of long duration.” (Muller 1898)
§ Insisted on the philosophical sophistication of Indian thought and therefore acted as Vivekananda’s ally. Uncompromising rejection of the “sin & darkness” of hatha yogis as well.
§ He felt yoga had degenerated in modern times into its most practical and degenerate forms. (didn’t like Vivekanada either and was a critic of the Chicago Parliament of Religions in 1898)
· Fakirs Avenue: Blavatsky & Hatha Yoga
o Theosophical constructions of yoga were extremely influential in shaping attitudes about modern yoga.
o Distain & distrust of hatha yoga is frequent in her writings & function as foils for theosophical renditions of yoga
o “common ignorant sorcerer, the embodiment of a triply distilled selfishness, who converses with the devil, and in whom ascetic practices are “une maladie hereditaire”…are strongly urged to avoid attempting any of these hatha yoga practices lest they succumb to the inevitable demise that had already befallen foolhardy disciples of her acquaintance.
· Anti-Hatha Yoga Propaganda in Early Yoga primers
o Associated with mercenary yogi terror & fakirs
o Stories abound of hatha yogis who dupe the female European & American public and return home to their “natural state” with stories about the weakness of the American female.
o Later became sanitized as a health tool and methodological precursor to the real work of the mind.
India & the International Physical Culture Movement
· Encyclopedia of Indian Physical Culture 1950: “You are meant to have a fine looking, strong and super healthy body. God cannot be pleased with the ugly, unhealthy, weak and flabby bodies. It is a sacrilege not to possess a fine, shapely, healthy body. It is a crime against oneself and against our country to be weak and ailing. Our own future and that of our nation depend on good health and enough strength”. (ii)
· Monier Williams: 1897- “We should strive to develop our youthful Indians physically as well as mentally, morally & religiously. We should endeavor to introduce something of our public school manliness of tone into Indian Seminaries”
· First half of the 20th century is to a great extent a dialogue between colonial India & the physical culture movement. Looking for a suitable regimen for Indian bodies and minds.
· Modern Olympics, Raja Yoga (1896) & launching of physical culture self instruction guides coincide temporally. Worldwide unprecedented enthusiasm for physical culture.
· 1893 first ever modern body building display
· Dawn of physical culture in Britain & Europe
o European interest in the body as a way to regenerate the moral and physical mettle of a nation (19th century)
o Gymnastics became a way to build manliness in German & then spread most notable to Britain, France, Prussia & Scandanavia
§ “their gymnastic exercises were not only meant to form healthy, beautiful bodies, that would express a proper morality, but were designed to create New Germans” (nationalism at its finest).-Mosse 1996
§ Donald Walker’s British Manly Exercises (1834)
o Economically as well as patriotically motivated. One could not afford a weak constitution in the industrial world. Man against machine.
o Close of the 19th century, these became known as PHYSICAL CULTURE.
o 1896 –first modern Olympics in Athens
o “Manliness, morality, patriotism, fair play and faith is found through physical culture along with a “means for molding the perfect Englishman” (Collingham)
o “Muscular Christianity” (Charles Kingsley 1857)
§ Found in public schools, YMCA movement, & salvation army
o Eugenics Movement: improve their own bodies and the collective national body
§ Anti-intellectual…revalorized the body of the body/mind/spirit triad which was perceived to be neglected. Restore wholeness to individual and collective life.
§ New forms of yoga were developed in the Indian diaspora as an alternative, but in response to the same desires a European physical culture.
· Scandinavian Gymnastics:
o Pioneering work of Ling (1766-1839) Ling’s Method
§ Concerned with the development of the whole person.
§ Free form standing work without apparatus-saved money-accessible
§ Similar system later developed in Denmark.
§ Danish system was incorporated by the British as the official training method of the royal army and navy (replaced Maclaren Method) & became the basis for physical education in schools.
§ Moved from Britain to Indian system under colonialism
§ 19th century America adopted the Swedish system in the YMCA & the “harmonial gymnastics” of Genevieve Stebbins
o Movement Cure: pioneered by C.J. Tissot & others sought to conquest disease through movement, often called “medical gymnastics”
· Ling & Yoga
o
Yoga As Physical Culture: Strength & Vigor
---beginning in the 1920’s Yoga & gymnastics begin to assert themselves as a contemporary expression of the hatha tradition. We see this expressed initially in a plethora of self-help books aimed at the new “physical culture” audience.
- Foundations of postural practice were laid principally during the first four decades of the 20th century.
- Contexts of Physical Culture as Yoga
- Swami Kuvalayananda
- Became one of the most important figures in the renaissance of yoga as therapeutics and physical culture
- Trained in combat techniques and gymnastics under nationalist physical culturalist (Manik Rao), he also studied yoga for two years under the Vaisnava sage Paramahamsa
- Established a teaching & research institute (Kaivalyadhama) in Lonvala (near Bombay) in 1921.
- Used paraphernalaia of modern science to measure the physiological effects of asana, pranayama, kriya & bandha & used their findings to develop therapeutic approaches to disease.
- Developed a physical cultural regimen based on yoga that was eventually adopted across the nation in schools in India.
- Prodigious literary output.
- Yoga Mimamsa (journal): manual & journal taken up as a popular guide to yoga practice by many. Seen as the most authoritative work publication on practical yoga
- Popular Yoga Asana (manual 1931)
- Yogendra & the Domstication of hatha Yoga
- Entered yoga after many years of study in physical culture.
- Also a student of the Vaisnava sage Paramahamsa
- Passions were gymnastics, wrestling, physical culture
- Gym rat: known by the nickname “Mr. Muscle Man”
- Yoga Institute of Santa Cruz (Bombay 1918) was set up for research into health giving aspects of yoga
- 1919: Yoga Institute of America (Bear Mtn. NY) working with avant guarde doctors & naturaopaths & may have given the first asana demonstration in America. Was prevented from returning in 1924 because of the Asian Exclusion Act. Focused then on India.
- The victim of racist Eugenic policy, he became interested in the potential yoga had for creating permanent Eugenic changes on the Indian “race”.
- Provided scientific corroboration for the effects of yoga
- Creating simplified & accessible asana courses for the public
- Self-styled yogi householder. Indirect opposition to the secretive mystical hatha yogi
- Life episodes:
- Almost kidnapped by kanphatas- developed a stromng fear & mistrust of false prophets of yoga
- 3 naked yogis showed up at his institute offering to teach him their secrets-shooed them away and vowed to save yoga from the confines of of self-mortifying cults and other charlatans. –revolt against old traditions.
- The face of modern yoga would be benevolent, accessible,scientific, and safe and its domesticated, democratic practice would be defined in contradistinction to the shameful, secret powers of the wandering hatha yogis.
- Inherits late 19th century Protestant discourses on yoga, as well as Max Muller’s reformist vision of Indian religious history.
- Vivekananda’s anti-mysticism…weakens the brain.
- Democratic mission: “Yoga ought to be taught in the public streets in broad daylight” refashioning hatha yoga as medicine and modern physical culture, where as Vivekananda had dismissed it as mystical (sucked the mystical out of it & gave it to everyman).-RATIONAL, UTILITARIAN, SCIENTIFIC
- Postures borrowed from, Ling, Muller, Sandow, Delsarte & MacFadden-although he dismisses all of them as “fads”
- Publications (many)
- Hatha yoga simplified
- “yoga is a comprehensive practical system of self-culture…which through interchangeable harmonious development of one’s body, mind & psychic potencies ultimately leads to physical well-being, mental harmony, moral elevation and habituation to spiritual consciousness” (1928)---matches the ethos of physical culture at the time. (YMCA as well) & harmonial gymnastics.
- Uniquely indigenous Indian movement cure superior to European styles that had imposed as the standard form of exercise in India during the 19th century.
- EUGENTICS: saw the concept of evolution and later social Darwinism as originating with Samkhya Philosophy. Fascinated with the prospect of human GENETIC MODIFICATION THROUGH YOGA. (LAMARKIAN)
- Such change” affects not only the yoga practitioner himself, but by inheritance also becomes transmitted as the germinal instinct of the progeny” “This transformative technology is the crux of the entire metaphysical perspective in ancient India”
- Iyer,Sundaram, Balsker: Yoga Body beautiful
- KV Iyer:
- set up his first gymnasium at the Tippu Sultan’s Palace (Bangalore) in 1922. After aseries of gyms, opened the famous Vyayamsala in 1940.
- Throughout the 1930’s posed for international physical culture & body building magazines
- Great admirer of Sandow, MacFadden & Maxick (muscle control)
- Held ongoing correspondence with Charles Atlas
- Declared himself “possessed with a body that the gods covet” & claimed to be”india’s most perfectly developed man” (1927)
- Known as a body builder internationally, but a great proponent of hatha yoga as part of a larger, highly aestheticized physical culture regimen based on western models.
- “hatha yoga had more to do with making me what I am than all the bells, bars, steel springs and strands I have used” (Muscle Cult 1930)
- Epitomizes the way that hatha yoga was “appended” to physical culture as the shift from “perfection of the body” (conceived as the conquest of the five material elements) to a modern cosmetic or fitness model (Alter 2005)
- Self-conscious marriage of body building & yoga
- Indian yogic synthesis was viewed as a hybrid alternative (Indian) to the predominant but ineffectual Ling system and aimed at a national revolution in physical culture.
- EUGENICS: “will our women bring forth only healthful, useful children to save our motherland from degeneration, from this slavery? (1927) “Physically deficient mothers and devitalized fathers are producing helpless derelicts and weaklings…take up physical culture to forestall all this” (1930)
- Offered Suryanamaskar, yoga & weight training as hybrid activities. Sun salutations were not yet part of yoga.
- Creator of the suryanamaskarsystem (1897), PRATINIDHI PANT was himself a devoted body builder and practitioner of the Sandow method.
- Widespread reputation for curing disease with his yoga & special abdominal massage of his own invention.
- Patron, who he cured of the effects of a stroke was the Maharaja of Mysore, who later became patron to Krishnamacharya & the founders of modern asana practice. YOGASALA WAS ONLY METERS AWAY FROM A MODERN GYMNASIUM ALSO ON THE PROERTY.
- Yogacarya Sundaram: student, friend & collaborator of Iyer who ran the Yogis School of Physical Culture.
- Conducted lectures & demonstrations around the country with Iyer.
- Yogic Physical culture (The Secret of Happines) 1928 was published…photographic very successful do it yourself yoga book, reconceptualized as gymnastics, hygiene & body building.
- Physical culturaists in the West aregreat, but “ in spite of their great advances, however, such innovators are deemed to lag far behind the ancient sages who have handed down a system perfected thousands of years ago” (NICE!!!).1928.
- Reenacts the reversal of Orientalists fulfillment narratives, such that the ne plus ultra of modern “scientific” physical culture is only an inferior imitation of the wholly perfected system of the ancient Hindu yogins”.
- “men & women in sedinatary occupations who were not born for saintliness, might ultilize it as a system of physical culture (1928) the sociopolitical situation moreover aclls for a new synthesis of asana with muscle building, in order that the sons of India might obtain super-strength to make their Mother an equal sister among Nations!...In the present situation, giants of muscles-even devoid of brain power, arean inevitable necessity” (ANTI-COLONIALISM).
- Aesthetics: “a human body is not worth looking at without properly developed superficial muscles” Emphasis on BUILDING A BEAUTIFUL PHYSIQUE
- Religious wholeness through aesthetic perfection of the body: a physical Culture Religion. (1928) “Religion for the highest perfection of the body to attain the greatest realization of Self” (looks to Hindu renaissance & Sandow.
- Religion separates the material West from the Spiritual East….YOGA HAS RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL SUPERIORITY.
- Ramesh Balekar: experiments in physical culture many years before he became a guru of Advaita Vedanta.
- Known from photographs as the Indian example of physical perfection in body building (all India body beautiful (1938), England’s ten most perfectly developed men (1940).
- Through yoga, one can get a body like this! (His books & photo essays).
Yogasana journals of the 1930s are PREOCCUPIED with the aesthetics of the body.
- New Thought Yogis: para-religious movement permeated yoga in India, Americaand Europe from the end of the 19th century . New thought remained when the emphasis shifted to asana.
- Originally a breakaway movement of Mary baker Eddy’s Christian Science, new thought began in New England in the 1880s preaching the innate divinity of the self and the power of positive thinking to actuate that divinity in the world, usually to the ends of personal affluence and wealth (scientology???).
- Yoga became a repository of these NEW REDISCOVERED TRUTHS (the secret)
- William Walker Atkinson (Ramacharaka???) authored a steady avalanche of esoteric yoga manuals and new thought self-help books between 1903 and 1917 (like NEW AGE now). Hatha Yoga envisioned as NATURE CURE and NEW THOUGHT…borrows heavily fron VIVEKANANDA’s Raja Yoga (1896)
- Relies on the practitioners ability to “throw the mind out into the body”. Then positive messages can be sent into the physical frame to cure disease.
- AUTO-SUGGESTIONS & AFFIRMATIONS (mantram): reconstrues the traditional meaning of mantra as mystical sound of ritual observance and meditation (Eliade 1969)
- Paramahamsa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi) (1946): taught muscle control heavily influenced by new thought and European body building in the United States.
- Muscle recharging through will power (1946) “efficient merger of cosmic & cosmetic”
- Displays of muscle mastery through will power. (Maxick rippling muscle technique)
- BC Ghosh (Yogananda’s younger brother and internationally famous body builder): Introduced a Htaha yoga that was a fusion of asana, physical culture and muscle manipulation techniques that Ghosh had learned from his brother…referred to as YOGA exercises.
- 1930: Muscle Control (photographic book): weights free & apparatus free gymnastics & physical training through will power (Maxick’s identically titled manual).
- Feats of abdominal muscle isolation Nauli, appear in both books.
- 1923: opens college of physical education in Calcutta, India.where he trained Bikram Choudhoury
- Tony Sanchez says that Ghosh worked to develop a system with Sivananda based on the original 84 postures.
- Celebrity, physical culturalist, brother of yogi, nationalist
- New Thought & The Body
- Jules Payot (1893) The Education of Will (New Thought manifesto)
- The body holds the secret of spiritual advancement, and it is through developing a healthy animal that the god in man would be revealed. The physiological conditions of self-mastery were to be attained through a regimen of muscular exercise and respiratory gymnastics that would function as a primary school for the will. (1909).
- Ideas were taken up by the New Thought movement
- Affirmations are combined with physical exercise to create the corporeal conditions for cosmic flux
- Albrecht Jensen (1920): Identified muscle control as an Indian invention,
- but its identification with yoga is more a result of its association with alternative medicine (like Jensen’s “medical massage” and new thought.
- Probably got ideas from Yogendra (NYC 1919)
- EL & WA Kellogg (gurus of alternative medicine in US)
- friends and associates of Yogendra in NYC
- Yogi Gherwal (Indian Export Guru in US)
- (1923) Practical Hatha Yoga: Science of Health- published from his base in CA
- Earliest photo manual of hatha yoga & advertisement for Gherwal’s correspondence course. (modeled on Sandow’s very popular “postal courses”) were already big business at the time. SELF-HELP MODEL
- Physiology of the postures and their application in therapeutics
- Modern medical & Psychologized new thought physical culture interpretations of physical practice
- For many Americans, MOVEMENTS LIKE THEOSOPHY, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, NEW ENGLAND TRANSANDENTALISM AND NEW THOUGHT, functioned as way stations between participation in institutional church and an identification with [neo] Vedanta (Gjerwal is an example of this)
- West Coast Yogis: Wassan, Hari Rama, Bhagwan Gyanee
- All contemporaries of Yogananda and Gherwal & all peddled a comparable formula for spiritual and material advancement through NATURE CURE and NEW THOUGHT religion.
- Wassan (1924) The Hindu System of Health Development
- Opened with healing chant meant to “vibrate the brain, body & business” (preparatory)
- Hindu System of Physical Culture (1925): series of exercises derived from modern gymnastics like Muller’s system & bears bo resemblance to hatha yoga postures (look like Western physical culture manuals)
- Very successful on the lecture tour
- Hari Rama (1926) Yoga System of Study (same system)
- Bhagwan Gyanee (1931) Yogi Exercises
- Authored a plethora of New Thought self-help manuals
- Exercises explicitly presented as yoga’s equivalent to the “allied branches of magnetism, osteopathy, nature cure and naturopathy”.
- Look like European gymnastics, but attributed to original 84 postures
- Only recognizable “asana” is Ardha Chandrasana (Iyengar) which was popular in bodybuilding well before Iyengar identified it.
THESE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL VARIETIES OF POSTURAL YOGA ENACT A REDEFINITION OF THE INDIAN SYSTEM TO SUIT LOCAL TASTES AND EXPECTATIONS, MUCH IN THE SAME WAY THAT VIVEKANANDA’S VERSION OF VEDANTA MAY LEGITIMATELY BE SAID TO REPRESENT A DEGREE OF STRATEGIC “GLOCAL” TWEAKING OF RECEIVED HINDU TRADITION
(From, Andrea Jain, Selling Yoga: From Counter-Culture to Pop Culture).
Early modern yoga was often marred by controversy for its countercultural agenda. Despite its visibility therefore, modern yoga only attracted a small following in the West made up of those who could afford to be eccentric.
FOUR (Andrea Jain's three) DEVELOPMENTS enabled the global popularization of modern yoga:
- Mobility: The ability to travel allowed teachers to travel to sell their wares and consumers to travel to seek new experiences.
- Disillusionment with Established Religious Institutions: Gurus and godmen were able to break into the spiritual marketplace with solutions to these problems.
- Growth of Consumer Culture: Postural Yoga Increasingly Intersected with growing global consumer culture-they appropriated popular ideas and practices of late 20th century consumer culture enabling the shift from visibility to popularization through consumption.
- The notion of CHOICE is central to consumer narratives. This CHOICE runs counter to the meta-narratives (like institutional religion or biomedicine) that believe they have the monopoly on truth. What global consumers expressed as an identity was this individual choice (occupation, marriage, leisure, material goods, lifestyle, diet, ideology, religion, etc.).
--PETER BERGER (sociologist) "The Heretical Imperative" -- instead of being demonized, the idea of personal choice became a necessity along with increasing globalization and the growth of consumer culture.
--These choices were a MARKER OF PERSONAL IDENTITY -- they reflected individual preferences and were conscious decisions made by each consumer.
The result was a bricolage: the synchretism (mixing) of heterogenous (unrelated) ideas and practices constructed by the individual for the individual. (Bricolage could be something as sacred as religion).
- yoga moved from an esoteric countercultural activity to an esoteric body maintenance regimen for the masses.
- yoga became a system of individual self-development tied to market capitalism
- a system of individual salvation that could be combined with other "worldviews" and practices
- European, American and Indian Gurus "reconstruct" yoga systems
- attributed benefits that were separate from Indian Nationalism and Mystical Contexts
- Changed Method of delivery
- changed from guru-disciple relationship in an ashram as gurus began to market to mass audiences
- American and British Countercultures valorize yoga transnationally
- Result of transnational developments in Consumer Culture
Visibility Without Popularization
- Early visibility came in Western counterculture with meditational practices
- Paramahansa Yogananda
- Swami Vivekananda
- Postural Yoga in the 1930s in India was an elite enterprise
- prescribed by Hindu reformers in opposition to British Colonialism
- emphasized scientific aspects of yoga as one component of the superiority of Indian culture
- not translatable to Western culture or export
- In the 1950's, popular magazines (e.g. Life) showed pictures of postural yoga practiced in India increasing its visibility without transfer to the West
Modern Soteriological (Religion of Salvation) Yoga
- Westerners in the 1950s were looking for solutions to the perceived stresses, excess and chaos of modern life.
- If the face of modernity, it provided a re-mystification of the world in the form of a personal (rather than institutional) spirituality
- 1960s Rise of Spiritual Gurus (Entrepreneurial godmen)
- Muktananda: Siddha Yoga and the Meditation Revolution (in India)
- sold a direct spiritual experience with the "god" within you, which he facilitated called shaktipat
- look, touch, strike on the head with peacock feathers. Shaktipat was a necessary initiation into yoga practice and required a guru.
- provided "choices" for the amount of commitment one would make to the practice
- provided an attractive retreat center (rather than traditional sparse ashram) for middle and upper class Europeans, Americans and Indians
- Like other gurus in the spiritual marketplace, he used his and others transformational narratives to entice new students who desired the experience of shaktipat.
- 1970s he marketed Siddha Yoga to the West by traveling in search of disciples and later introduced "intensives" where hundreds of people would receive shaktipat at once.
- only required a weekend of commitment for seekers worldwide
- emphasized a strong sense of belonging in an organized community for those who felt disenfranchised.
- "the blissful, perfect, ordered life of utter dependency and spiritual bliss" (Sarah Caldwell, scholar and disciple)
- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: Trascendental Meditation
- Spread TM throughout India and then in 1959 around the world
- Yogi to the Beatles and others who gained popularity in the 1960s
- Bhaktivendanta Prabhupada: Krishna Consciousness (Hari Krishna)
- Established ISKCON in 1966
- Satya Narayan Goenka: Vipassana Meditation
- 1969 he brought "Insight Meditation" to the world- a universal form of "Buddhist Meditation"
- All of the successful spiritual entrepreneurs used a number of different strategies to attract disciples
- de-emphasizing Hindu aspects of yoga
- denying any formal associations with traditional religious institutions
- adapting traditions to "local tastes"
- "the inclusivist, pluralist approach made teachings accessible to suburban clientele...facilitating opportunities for disciples to transcend the constraint of their ego-defined self and move beyond the humdrum existence of consumer life." (Chris Chapple)
- Eventually embrace a doctrine of god-realization which rejects materialism, scientific technology and consumerism, and this was not palatable to the masses
Postural Yoga Gurus Become Mass Marketers
- The entrepreneurial spirit was most strong among yoga proponents concerned with POSTURAL yoga.
- Success based on the proponents willingness to consistently make concessions to consumer cultural norms and drop traditional requirements of yoga study and practice.
- provided direct access to consumers without the intermediary of the teacher or text
- marketed forms of yoga that did not privilege religious, ethnic, or national "metanarrative"--privileged individual choice instead
- alms, celibacy, scriptural study, and retreat from society in favor of the increasing popularity of FITNESS
Marilyn Monroe: One of many celebrities to promote postural yoga as "body beautiful"
- Gurus
- Selvarajan Yesudian: Yoga and Health (1941/1953)
- written with Elizabeth Haich became a best seller showed Yesudian in physical postures and emphasized his physical perfection
- Physical Culture was popular and at the root of Nazi eugenics: the health of the nation depends on the perfection of individual physical bodies. And physique is inherited.
- His yoga schools in Europe which remained open until 1989
- Swami Sivananda: Healthy Lifestyle Through Healthy Living
- Enhancing mind through healthy living based on biomedical science: "good for anyone interested in enhancing the MIND through a healthy BODY" through his ashram in Rishikesh in north India
- 1959 publication: Yogic Home Exercises: easy Course of Physical Culture for Modern Men and Women
- Students traveled to the West to spread the system
- Vishnudevananda: Spread the Sivananda system to the West
- Krishnamacharya: Godfather of Modern Postural Yoga
- Mysore School: trained teachers who created many popular postural "lineages" which principally made their way to the West. Gathering the patronage of celebrities beginning in the 1950s
- Indira Devi
- BKS Iyengar (Iyengar Yoga)
- Pathabi Jois (Ashtanga Yoga)
- DKV Deskichar (Viniyoga)
- By the 1960s, many people across the world were choosing yoga a a daily physical regimen- chosen as a body-enhancing practice as part of an individual regimen packaged for self-development to consumers.
Branding Yoga
By the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s the postural yoga market became increasingly diversified and featured an endless variety of yoga brands constructed and marketed for immediate consumption.
- 1997 Anusura Yoga (John Friend)--offered a better quality of yoga for consumption based on Iyengar yoga, but with "heart"
- friend conveniently linked his brand to the lineage of Siddha Yoga (and the guru Nitayanda). As the finale at Wunderlust in 2011
- Branding is all important in MPY--there is authority in branding yoga
- Babtiste Yoga (Baron Baptiste)
- Prana Vinyasa Yoga (Shiva Rea)
- adopts disparate elements from different worldviews based on the needs and concerns of the individual
- "spiritual technologies" -- marketed postural yoga is a UNIVERSAL and SCIENTIFIC system that anyone can adopt as part of his or her larger worldview and practice.
- SIVANANDA and KRISHNAMACHARYA were some of the first to market brands that touted:
- physical fitness,
- stress reduction,
- beauty and
- overall well-being.
- Economic shifts went from one based on mass production to a personalized one based on "customized products for individualistic consumers."-goods and services
- consumers construct their SELF-IDENTITY by consuming what they think signifies that self identity
- marketers uniquely package their products by mythologizing them, a process which serves to position them in consumer's minds
- BRANDS signify those meanings and yoga in general signifies self-development (become better people through physical and psychological transformation)
- successful popular yoga entrepreneurs exploit pop-cultural trends:
- body enhancement means self-development
- establish yoga in the sports and fitness market
- consumers today shop for classes that are convenient, open to the general public, and other yoga products (clothing, mats, jewelry) that are immediately available in shopping malls.
- REJECTIONS? "Yoga to the People"-donation classes
First Generation Yoga Brands: Iyengar Yoga and Siddha Yoga (branded nonbranded yoga systems of Krishnamacharya and Nityananda, respectively)
- Iyengar Yoga: capitalized on the value of fitness in branding
- yoga conquers the body and makes it a fit vehicle for the soul
- to the yogi, his body is a prime instrument of attainment
- 1966 Light on Yoga
- biomedical dialect-made postural yoga appealing to a wide variety of urbanites
- did not have to give up their modern lifestyle commitments
- established authority by claiming connections at the same time to modern traditions
- Ramanuga-direct descendent
- Invocation to Patanjali formerly only in ashtanga
- Healing stories and $$$ stories
- Rmamani Institute in Pune as official training site (only)-- stick with it (like Bikram) because of the incredible investment that you are required to make in terms of $$$ and time
- Muktananda--different branding and trajectory
- Siddha Yoda based on carefully selected scriptures (get out the weird stuff)
- World tours and "retreats" established and "intensives" where devotees get "shakti pot" (divine light from the master)
- commodification of shakti pot for $$$$$$
- established siddha yoga centers where "community" could be established for those who could not be in direct contact with the master.
- brand diminished when he was accused of indiscretions after his death (sex with young disciples).
- All the practices we do are FIRST GENERATION BRANDS this semester
- Anusura Yoga (John Friend) 1997
- goodness is present in everyone and the "heart" is at the center of practice
- light heartedness and positive affirmation as a hallmark of the brand
- 2009 teacher training manual solidified perspectives and control of brand
- collaboration with fitness giants Addidas and Manduka
- created consumer goods with Anusura branding
- Locked in students with expensive and extensive training requirements
- Yoga was accessible to a large audience, which could be integrated into any worldview or lifestyle.
"give feedback by first looking for what is right-- the beauty, the light and the positive in people and things-- instead of the ugliness, the darkness, or what is wrong. In this way you will always give the student the benefit of the doubt."
- 2012 scandal and collapse (ethical and financial indescretion)
- fled to Denver and touts a new brand: Svidaiva Yoga (Roots practice)
- LINK
- SURRENDER TO A GURU OR A BRAND? what is the difference?
- CELEBRITY, GURU, or CEO? What's the difference?
- KULA (and the notion of community) created in anusura yoga as a marketing tool
From Counterculture to Pop culture: Influences
FIVE IMPORTANT EARLY INFLUENCES:
- The International PHYSICAL CULTURE MOVEMENT (19th century)
- Quasi-religious movements of physical culture went through Europe to India where they were infiltrated with popular new forms of HINDU NATIONALISM
- Found their way from India to America
- Now a merging of these two movements
- ORIENTALISM
- 19th century European scholars who studied the texts & traditions of Asia (great interest in the East)
- Prevalent attitudes about yoga among Orientalists
- Part of nation-building (Said) or more (Smith)?
- MODERN DANCE Traditions in the West
- Turn of the century female choreographers
- NEW AGE RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS
- Share features of mysticism and esotericism and universalism with the evolving identity of yoga in the modern context.
Before the mid-20th century, modern yoga was made up of controversial, elite or countercultural movements opposed to the prevailing religious orthodoxy.
Anthony Comstock vs Ida Craddock
- Attempts to legally enforce fundamentalist protestantism by American reformers like Comstock. In his and other's crosshairs were practices like yoga (especially the body practices) since the body (defiled) should be subordinated to the soul (pure).
- Craddock was already a radical as a woman in academia and an avowed "independent scholar of phallic worship"
- influenced by the sexual/mystical practices of the tantric texts which claimed that one could find union with the divine through ritualized sexual practices.
- saw sexual intercourse between men and women as a divine act where god was the third party (sacred me'nage a' trois)
- established the Church of Yoga in 1899 as well as being a Unitarian minister.
- 1902: convicted of blasphemy, jailed and committed suicide (martyred)
- modern yoga was seen as a THREAT to mainstream religious traditions (regardless of whether they were body or meditative techniques)
- Traveled the the country demonstrating his trance-like states associated with his guru, Sylvais Hamati.
- 1910 he was accused of "white slavery" in NYC (female sex slaves)
- Later opened a country club in Nyack, NY supported by the Vanderbuikts and other rich Americans who could afford to be eccentric.
- Thrived, through somewhat secretly, because his aims -- PLEASURE, teachings went against puritanical Christianity
- A high court judge in colonized Calcutta, he studied the tantric texts with both scholarly and personal interest
- published tantric texts in English under a pseudonym to protect his identity.
- Backlash was swift in British and its colonies against practitioners of physical yoga systems (unlike today).
- seen as SAVAGE, EXTREME, BARBARIC and ANTISOCIAL practices
- opponents most vocally were British colonists and Christian missionaries although Indian elites, looking to align themselves with "civilized" cultures and saw hatha yoga as backward and savage religion (embarrassment).
- Stereotypes of yoga
- seen as contortionists -- crass entertainment
- Siddhis (powers) associated with occult magic (blasphemous)
- Degenerate mysticism -- sex magic
- ALL in opposition to the more pure versions of Indian philosophy (VEDANTA) touted at the time. This contrast was supported by European, American and Indian elites.
- Hatha yoga was seen as mysterious, bizarre, uncivilized and threatening to modernity and rationality= a corruption of TRUE Indian philosophy.
Modern Yoga From The Neck Up
- Transcendentalism, Theosophy, New Thought, Christian Science and Indian reform movements like Brahmo Samaj all attempted to synchretize ideas and practices from Christian Protestantism, modern science, yoga and other south Asian traditions and sometimes "mind cure" (a new healing system touting mind over body).
- chose to ignore and highlight certain aspects of yoga to resuscitate it
- emphasized philosophical, meditative and ethical components of CLASSICAL yoga or RAJA YOGA. (yoga sutras)-censored yoga of its scandalous practices
- Transcendentalism: privileged intuition as a means to god realization which they saw as compatible with nondualist philosophy of yoga
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