Modern yoga is a wide range ofyoga practices with differing purposes, encompassing in its various formsyoga philosophy derived from theVedas,physical postures derived fromHatha yoga,devotional andtantra-based practices, andHindu nation-building approaches.
The scholarElizabeth de Michelis proposed a 4-part typology of modern yoga in 2004, separating modern psychosomatic, denominational,postural, and meditational yogas. Other scholars have noted that her work stimulated research into the history,sociology, andanthropology of modern yoga, but have not all accepted her typology. They have variously emphasised modern yoga's international nature with its intercultural exchanges; its variety of beliefs and practices; its degree of continuity with older traditions, such as ancient Indian philosophy and medieval Hatha yoga; its relationship to Hinduism; its claims to provide health and fitness; and its tensions between the physical and the spiritual, or between the esoteric and the scientific.
In the early years of British colonialism in India, the elites from the United States, Europe, and India rejected the concept ofhatha yoga and perceived it as unsociable.[1] By the late 19th century,yoga was presented to the Western world in different forms such as byVivekananda andMadame Blavatsky. It embodied the period's distaste foryoga postures andhatha yoga more generally, as practised by the despisedNath yogins, by not mentioning them.[2] Blavatsky helped to pave the way for the spread of yoga in the West by encouraging interest inoccult andesoteric doctrines and a vision of the "mystical East".[3] She had travelled to India in 1852-53, and became greatly interested in yoga in general, while despising and distrusting hatha yoga.[4] In the 1890s, Vivekananda taught a mixture of yoga breathwork (pranayama),meditation, and positive thinking, derived from theNew Thought movement, again explicitly rejecting the practice of asanas and hatha yoga.[5]
A few decades later, a very different form of yoga, the prevailingyoga as exercise, was created byYogendra,Kuvalayananda, andKrishnamacharya, starting in the 1920s. It was predominantly physical, consisting mainly or entirely ofasanas, postures derived from those of hatha yoga, but with a contribution from western gymnastics (Niels Bukh's 1924Primary Gymnastics[6][7]). They advocated this form of exercise under the guise of the supposed specificmedical benefits of particular postures, quietly dropping its religious connotations, encouraged by the prevailingIndian nationalism which needed something to build an image of a strong and energetic nation. The yoga that they created, however, was taken up predominantly in the English-speaking world, startingwith America andBritain.[5]
The popularity of modern yoga increased as travel became more feasible, allowing exposure to different teachings and practices. Immigration restrictions were relaxed from India to the USA and some parts of Europe around the 1960s. And, spiritual gurus began to offer what they referred to as solutions to the problems of modern life. As new-age high profile individuals, such as the Beatles, tried out yoga, the practice became more visible and desirable as a means to improve life.[1]
The idea of yoga as "modern" was current before any definition of it was provided; for example, the philosopherErnest Wood referred to it in the title of his 1948 bookPractical Yoga, Ancient and Modern.[8]Elizabeth de Michelis started the academic study of modern yoga with her 2004 typology.[9] She defined modern yoga as "signifying those disciplines and schools which are, to a greater or lesser extent, rooted in South Asian cultural contexts, and which more specifically draw inspiration from certain philosophies, teachings and practices ofHinduism."[10] WithVivekananda's 1896Raja Yoga as its starting point, her typology of yoga forms as seen in the West, explicitly excluding forms seen only in India, proposed four subtypes.[11]
| De Michelis type[11] | De Michelis definition[11] | Example given by De Michelis of "relatively pure contemporary types"[11] | Image of exampleguru named by De Michelis[11] |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Modern Psychosomatic Yoga" | Body-Mind-Spirit training Emphasises practical experience Little restriction on doctrine Practised in a privatised setting | The Yoga Institute, Santa Cruz (Yogendra, 1918) Kaivalyadhama, Lonavla (Kuvalayananda, 1924) Sivananda yoga (Sivananda,Vishnudevananda, etc., 1959) Himalayan Institute (Swami Rama, 1971) |  |
| "Modern Denominational Yoga" | Neo-Hindugurus Emphasis on each school's own teachings Own belief system and authorities Cultic environment, sometimes sectarian May use all other forms of Modern Yoga | Brahma Kumaris (Lekhraj Kripalani, 1930s) Sahaja Yoga (Nirmala Srivastava, 1970) ISKCON (A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, 1966) Rajneeshism (Rajneesh, c. 1964) LateTranscendental Meditation |  |
| "Modern Postural Yoga" | Emphasisesasanas (yoga postures) andpranayama | Iyengar Yoga (B. K. S. Iyengar, c. 1966) Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga (Pattabhi Jois, c. 1948) | .jpg) |
| "Modern Meditational Yoga" | Emphasises mental techniques of concentration andmeditation | EarlyTranscendental Meditation (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1950s) Sri Chinmoy, c. 1964 some currentBuddhist organisations[a] |  |
From the 1970s, modern yoga spread across many countries of the world, changing as it did so, and in De Michelis's view becoming "an integral part of (primarily) urban cultures worldwide", to the extent that the wordyoga in the Western world now means the practice of asanas, typically in a class.[b][12]
Mark Singleton, a scholar of yoga's history and practices, states that De Michelis's typology provides categories useful as a way into the study of yoga in the modern age, but that it is not a "good starting point for history insofar as it subsumes detail, variation, and exception".[13] Singleton does not subscribe to De Michelis's interpretative framework, instead considering "modern yoga" to be a descriptive name for "yoga in the modern age".[13] He questions the De Michelis typology as follows:
Can we really refer to an entity called Modern Yoga and assume that we are talking about a discrete and identifiable category of beliefs and practices? Does Modern Yoga, as some seem to assume, differ in ontological status (and hence intrinsic value) from "traditional yoga"? Does it represent a rupture in terms of tradition rather than a continuity? And in the plethora of experiments, adaptations, and innovations that make up the field of transnational yoga today, should we be thinking of all these manifestations as belonging to Modern Yoga in any typological sense?
— Mark Singleton[13]
Modern yoga is derived in part fromHaṭha yoga (one aspect of traditional yoga),[15] with innovative practices that have taken the Indian heritage, experimented with techniques from non-Indic cultures, and radically evolved it into local forms worldwide.[16][7] The scholar of religionAndrea Jain calls modern yoga "a variety of systems that developed as early as the 19th century as a [response to] capitalist production, colonial and industrial endeavors, global developments in areas ranging from metaphysics to fitness, and modern ideas and values."[9] In contemporary practice, modern yoga is prescribed as a part of self-development and is believed to provide "increased beauty, strength, and flexibility as well as decreased stress".[9]
Modern yoga is variously viewed through "cultural prisms" includingNew Age religion,psychology,sports science,medicine,[17]photography,[18] andfashion.[19] Jain states that although "hatha yoga is traditionally believed to be the ur-system of modern postural yoga, equating them does not account for the historical sources". According to her, asanas "only became prominent in modern yoga in the early twentieth century as a result of the dialogical exchanges between Indian reformers and nationalists and Americans and Europeans interested in health and fitness".[20] In short, Jain writes, "modern yoga systems ... bear little resemblance to the yoga systems that preceded them. This is because [both] ... are specific to their own social contexts."[21]
Modern yoga has been led bydisparate gurus for over a century, ranging fromVivekananda with hisVedanta-based yoga philosophy to Krishnamacharya with his gymnastic approach, his pupils including the influentialPattabhi Jois teaching asanas linked by flowingvinyasa movements andB. K. S. Iyengar teaching precisely-positioned asanas, oftenusing props. The gurus' approaches to yoga span thetantra-basedKripalu Yoga ofSwami Kripalvananda and theSiddha Yoga ofMuktananda; theBhaktiyoga ofSvaminarayana, as ofSathya Sai Baba; the "inner technology" ofJaggi Vasudev'sIsha Yoga andSri Sri Ravi Shankar's "Art of Living"; and finally the Hindu nation-building approaches ofEknath Ranade and ofSwami Ramdev. Through the work of these gurus, yoga has been widely disseminated across the western world, and radically transformed in the process. Health benefits have been claimed; yoga has been brought to a "spiritual marketplace", different gurus competing for followers; and widely differing approaches have claimed ancient roots in Indian tradition.[22] The result has been to transform yoga from "a hidden, weird thing"[23] to "yoga studios on almost very corner",[23] in a "massive transition from spiritual practice to focusing on health and fitness".[24] The trend away from authority is continued inpost-lineage yoga, which is practised outside any major school orguru's lineage.[25]
The author and yoga teacherMatthew Remski writes thatNorman Sjoman[c] considered modern yoga to have been influenced by South Indian wrestling exercises; Joseph Alter[d] found it torn between esoteric and scientific;Mark Singleton[e] discovered a collision of Western physical culture with Indian spirituality; whileElliott Goldberg[f] depicted "a modern spirituality, written through richly realized characters" includingKrishnamacharya,Sivananda,Indra Devi, and Iyengar.[27][28]
Suzanne Newcombe, a scholar of modern yoga, especiallyin Britain, writes that modern yoga's development included "a long history of transnational intercultural exchange", including between India and countries in the western world, whether or not it is an "outgrowth of Neo-Hinduism". It is seemingly torn between being a secular physical fitness activity sometimes called "hatha yoga" (not the similarly namedmedieval practice ofHaṭha yoga), and a spiritual practice with historical roots in India. She noted that thehistorical,sociological, andanthropological aspects of modern yoga were starting to be researched.[30]
The scholar of religion Anya Foxen writes that "modern postural yoga",especially in America, was created through a complicated process involving both cultural exchange andsyncretism of disparate approaches. Among the many ingredients are thesubtle body and various strands of Greek philosophy,Western esotericism, and wellness programs for women based on such things as the teaching system ofFrançois Delsarte and the harmonial gymnastics ofGenevieve Stebbins.[29]
James Mallinson, a scholar of Sanskrit manuscripts and yoga, writes that modern yoga's relationship toHinduism is complex and contested; some Christians have challenged its inclusion in school curricula on the grounds that it is covertly Hindu, while the "Take Back Yoga" campaign of theHindu American Foundation has challenged attempts to "airbrush the Hindu roots of yoga" from modern manifestations. Modern yoga, he writes, uses techniques from "a wide range of traditions, many of which are clearly not Hindu at all".[31] While yoga was integrated withVedantic philosophy, "the first text to teach hathayoga says that it will work even for atheists, who ... did not believe in karma and rebirth".[31]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)The yoga widely known in the West is based on hatha yoga, which forms one aspect of the ancient Hindu system of religious and ascetic observance and meditation, the highest form of which isRaja yoga and the ultimate aim of which is spiritual purification and self-understanding leading to samadhi or union with the divine
Lululemon has sparked a global fashion revolution, sometimes called 'athleisure' or 'activewear,' which has injected prodigious quantities of spandex into modern dress and blurred the lines between yoga-and-spin-class attire and normal street clothes.
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