Modern postural yoga as a religion: Difference between revisions

 

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In [[mindful yoga]], the practice of asanas is combined with pranayama and meditation, using the breath and sometimes Buddhist [[Vipassana]] meditation techniques to bring the attention to the body and the emotions, thus [[Samatha|quietening the mind]].{{sfn|Cushman|2014|pp=xi and whole book}}

In [[mindful yoga]], the practice of asanas is combined with pranayama and meditation, using the breath and sometimes Buddhist [[Vipassana]] meditation techniques to bring the attention to the body and the emotions, thus [[Samatha|quietening the mind]].{{sfn|Cushman|2014|pp=xi and whole book}}

Kelly Lindsay suggests that modern postural yoga, while physical, is continually seeking for an authentic spiritual legitimacy. Hindu tradition has been modified for Western yoga practice to suit the “spiritual needs of a secularizing and body-conscious Western society”.{{sfn|Lindsay|2013|pp=108–127}} She writes that the sociologist [[Max Weber]] thought that the Protestant Reformation identified the body as reflecting the soul, and that the [[physical culture]] movement continued this.{{sfn|Lindsay|2013|pp=108–127}} In turn, modern standards of beauty and fitness retain the idea that a fit body suggests inner spirituality, as described by [[Mark Singleton (yoga scholar)|Mark Singleton]] in his 2010 book ”[[Yoga Body]]”.{{sfn|Lindsay|2013|pp=108–127}}{{sfn|Singleton|2010}}

Kelly Lindsay suggests that modern postural yoga, while physical, is continually seeking for an authentic spiritual legitimacy. Hindu tradition has been modified for Western yoga practice to suit the “spiritual needs of a secularizing and body-conscious Western society”.{{sfn|Lindsay|2013|pp=108–127}} She writes that the sociologist [[Max Weber]] thought that the Protestant Reformation identified the body as reflecting the soul, and that the [[physical culture]] movement continued this.{{sfn|Lindsay|2013|pp=108–127}} In turn, modern standards of beauty and fitness retain the idea that a fit body suggests inner spirituality, as described by [[Mark Singleton (yoga scholar)|Mark Singleton]] in his 2010 book ”[[Yoga Body]]”.{{sfn|Lindsay|2013|pp=108–127}}{{sfn|Singleton|2010}}

== Ritual ==

== Ritual ==

Modern postural yoga is practised for multiple reasons. It is a form of exercise based largely on asanas, yoga postures, improving fitness and flexibility, but in addition it is connected to India and to religions including Hinduism. It has both spiritual and ritual aspects, but it is often claimed to be spiritual but not religious. Scholars have investigated this claim, noting that it has many similarities with religion.

From its origins in the 1920s, yoga used as exercise has had a “spiritual” aspect which is not necessarily neo-Hindu; its assimilation with Harmonial Gymnastics is an example. Jain calls yoga as exercise “a sacred fitness regimen set apart from day-to-day life.” The yoga therapist Ann Swanson writes that “scientific principles and evidence have demystified [yoga]” without making its practice less enjoyable.

The yoga scholar Elliott Goldberg notes that some practitioners of yoga as exercise “inhabit their body as a means of accessing the spiritual… they use their asana practice as a vehicle for transcendence.” He cites yoga teacher Vanda Scaravelli‘s 1991 Awakening the Spine as an instance of such transcendence: “We learn to elongate and extend, rather than to pull and push… [and so] an unexpected opening follows, an opening from within us, giving life to the spine, as though the body had to reverse and awaken into another dimension.”

In mindful yoga, the practice of asanas is combined with pranayama and meditation, using the breath and sometimes Buddhist Vipassana meditation techniques to bring the attention to the body and the emotions, thus quietening the mind.^[7]

Kelly Lindsay suggests that modern postural yoga, while physical, is continually seeking for an authentic spiritual legitimacy. Hindu tradition has been modified for Western yoga practice to suit the “spiritual needs of a secularizing and body-conscious Western society”. She writes that the sociologist Max Weber thought that the Protestant Reformation identified the body as reflecting the soul, and that the physical culture movement continued this. In turn, modern standards of beauty and fitness retain the idea that a fit body suggests inner spirituality, as described by Mark Singleton in his 2010 book Yoga Body. In addition, Western yoga has been successful because, she argues, of “its ethos of spirituality that distinguishes it from a simple physical regimen”, while “downplay[ing] the transcendent goals of older traditions.” The overt religious side of yoga is largely absent, but many clues such as “décor, music, chanting of a certain mantra, the philosophical teachings … or … resting the hands in prayer pose” all hint at spirituality.

Yoga practice sessions have, notes yoga scholar Elizabeth De Michelis, a highly specific three-part structure that matches Arnold van Gennep‘s 1908 definition of the basic structure of a ritual:

1. a separation phase (detaching from the world outside);

2. a transition or liminal state; and

3. an incorporation or postliminal state.

For the separation phase, the yoga session begins by going into a neutral and if possible a secluded practice hall; worries, responsibilities, ego and shoes are all left outside;^[12] and the yoga teacher is treated with deference. The actual yoga practice forms the transition state, combining practical instructions with theory, made more or less explicit. The practitioner learns “to feel and to perceive in novel ways, most of all inwardly”; to “become silent and receptive” to help to get away from the “ego-dominated rationality of modern Western life.”^[14] The final relaxation forms the incorporation phase; the practitioner relaxes in Savasana, just as dictated by the Hatha Yoga Pradipika 1.32. The posture offers “an exercise in sense withdrawal and mental quietening, and thus … a first step towards meditative practice,” a cleansing and healing process, and even a symbolic death and moment of self-renewal. Iyengar writes that savasana puts the practitioner in “that precise state [where] the body, the breath, the mind and the brain move toward the real self (Atma)” so as to merge into the Infinite, thus explaining the modern yoga healing ritual in terms of the Hindu Vishishtadvaita: an explanation that, De Michelis notes, practitioners are free to follow if they wish.

The scholar of religion Paul Bramadat notes that both teachers and students in a yoga class can perceive yoga as exercise as completely separate from religion. This is despite the frequent presence of statues of Shiva Nataraja, a major Hindu god, in yoga studios, along with the classical Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, and an early Indian yoga text, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. These can be accompanied by statues of Patanjali or Ganesh decorated with flowers and prayer beads, framed leaves from the Bodhi tree under which The Buddha received enlightenment, and large depictions of the sacred Om symbol, ॐ. He adds that some practitioners speak of being “spiritual but not religious“, where the two have historically been seen as inseparable, the practices rooted in Indian religion. In addition, Ashtanga classes start by saying Om and chanting an invocation to ancient gurus and to Patanjali, in Sanskrit. The first verse is from the 14th century Yogatārāvalī; the second verse is likely far older. Students chant without necessarily understanding the words; in Bramadat’s view, they get a “sense of solidarity” and an “ineffable feeling of wholeness” by chanting together.

Bramadat comments that scholars of spirituality in North America see spaces other than churches, especially “yoga spaces” as “the most interesting” objects of study. These spaces, whether in practitioners’ homes or formal yogashalas, employ “a carefully selected Indian aesthetic” with artwork, incense, music, and statues; Sanskrit chants and names for asanas; Indian philosophical concepts such as karma, moksha, and samadhi; and a deferential Indian idea of the relationship between pupil and teacher. Yoga as exercise is branded as somewhat Indian with the colour saffron, Indian motifs and designs, and recognisably Indian words like Om and “namaste“. An American yoga studio is, Bramadat writes, predictably “clean, well lit, airy, quiet, serene, vaguely Indic, and lightly scented, with carefully curated music playing softly.” In addition, he suggests that they are peopled by individuals with almost unimaginable physical abilities to achieve difficult asanas without effort; he describes these “playfully” as “jivanmuktas” (a term denoting the self-realised in Indian philosophies and religions) or “superpeople”.

• Bramadat, Paul (2025-04-15). Yogalands. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. ISBN 978-0-2280-2374-6.
• Cushman, Anne (2014). Moving into Meditation. Shambhala. ISBN 978-1-61180-098-2.
• De Michelis, Elizabeth (2004). A History of Modern Yoga: Patañjali and Western Esotericism. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-8772-8. OCLC 51942410.
• Goldberg, Elliott (2016). The Path of Modern Yoga: the history of an embodied spiritual practice. Inner Traditions. ISBN 978-1-62055-567-5. OCLC 926062252.
• Iyengar, B. K. S. (1983). Light on Pranayama: Pranayama Dipika. Unwin Paperbacks.
• Jain, Andrea (2015). Selling Yoga: from Counterculture to Pop culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-939024-3. OCLC 878953765.
• Lindsay, Kelly (1 November 2013). “Spiritual Authenticity in a Secular Context: How Modern Postural Yoga is Searching for Legitimacy in All the Wrong Places”. The Arbutus Review. 4 (1): 108–127. doi:10.18357/tar41201312686.
• Scaravelli, Vanda (1991). Awakening the Spine. Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-242853-0. OCLC 907678659.
• Singleton, Mark (2010). Yoga Body: the origins of modern posture practice. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-539534-1. OCLC 318191988.
• Swanson, Ann (2019). Science of yoga: understand the anatomy and physiology to perfect your practice. New York, New York: DK. ISBN 978-1-4654-7935-8. OCLC 1030608283.
• Van Gennep, Arnold (1965) [1908]. The Rites of Passage. Routledge & Kegan Paul. OCLC 752944237.