If you look at just about any Yoga magazine or blog today you will find one or another article about the state of the Yoga industry, with equal representation of optimistic and pessimistic voices (though these days the latter seems more pronounced). There are many angles one can take to comment on and criticize the industry, whether it is the watering down of Yoga from its expansive, flexible, and multi-faceted approach to one that emphasizes only its physical forms and benefits, to the appropriation of Indian, Vedic, and Hindu symbols, practices, and language to instill an exotic allure and a facade of authenticity to that modern physically oriented practice that is being commercialized. Commercialization alone is a major perennial topic, as it isn't clear how the merits and pitfalls of taking spirituality and effectively productizing it is working out. Is it leading people in the right direction, albeit slowly? Or is it changing the ultimate goal of Yoga practice altogether (and for the worse)?
In the second part to the interviews with my friend and mentor, Kausthub Desikachar, two major topics regarding Yoga in modern times are discussed:
1. The first is the increasing fanaticism within Yoga that drives many to speak in terms of what style or tradition "is right" and which ones are not. Factions within Yoga are actually nothing new. Historically there have been many different groups that practiced Yoga in their own way, with their own emphasis and practices. There was even often philosophical discord and even animosity between these groups. What we practice as Yoga today in the West actually has influences from a variety of these different factions, which made their way to the West at different times, in different ways, and through different teachers. But where the divisions in the past had largely to do with philosophical, religious, and cultural disagreements, in the West today, much of this discord is mixed with competition within a commercial industry. This means that, though in previous times, the conflict between factions effectively contributed to Yogic thought and to interpretation of Yoga philosophy, the conflict today is primarily if not exclusively about increasing student-base and, by virtue of this, revenue... something which arguably does not benefit and certainly does not improve or evolve the Yoga system.
2. The second is challenge in having a large regulating body in Yoga, which on the one hand creates a basic and common standard for who can call themselves a Yoga teacher, but on the other is forced to set that standard fairly low in order to not favor or exclude any one of the Yoga styles or traditions that would want to register with such a governing body. As with the issues of commercialization, these governing bodies effectively function as registries and rely on having a large body of teachers and schools to support its authority. If it imposes too strict a requirement, it risks losing many of these teachers and schools and effectively regulating itself into obsolescence. But if its regulations are too relaxed, it risks not being very meaningful at all in the goal of maintaining the integrity of Yoga and those who claim to represent it.
Kausthub addresses both these topics in this interview, which you can read here.
By the way, you can get a glimpse of me in one of the photos here as well, though you wouldn't likely recognize me unless you know what my hands and feet look like.
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