body-spirit tagged posts

Exercising the Spirit: Yoga and the Mind-Body Conundrum

 “With its emphasis on strength and flexibility, power yoga brought yoga into the gyms of America, as people began to see yoga as a way to work out.”

So says a response to an inquiry about “power yoga”—a form of vigorous, extreme effort hatha yoga—on ask.com.

“A way to work out.”

As indeed it is.

Get that body to the studio.

Work it out.

Feel good.

Look toned.

Pat your yoga butt as you walk into the cafe to pick up a protein shake.

I don’t know exactly when yoga began to suffer the first fissures from those who would separate it from its profound spiritual roots. It’s a 5,000-year-old discipline, after all, and it was probably 4,999+ years ago that an enterprising Indian merchant wove together some special yoga garment or drew a posture or two on parchment that he traded for a persimmon or a bowl of soup at his friend’s stand down a dusty road.

Eventually, everything worth a whit attract...

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