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Alistair Shearer
''The Story of Yoga: From Ancient India to the Modern West'' is a cultural history of yoga by Alistair Shearer, published by Hurst in 2020. It narrates how an ancient spiritual practice in India became a global method of exercise, often with no spiritual content, by way of diverse movements including Indian nationalism, the Theosophical Society, Swami Vivekananda's coming to the west, self-publicising western yogis, Indian muscle builders, Krishnamacharya's practice in Mysore, and pioneering teachers like B. K. S. Iyengar. The book has been received warmly by critics in the western world, who found it erudite, informative and well-written. In India, ''The Hindu'' found it a readable account of how an ancient path to enlightenment had become a profitable wellness industry, while the ''Hindustan Times'' considered that Shearer had an agenda to argue that western body-yoga was unrelated to Indian spiritual yoga. Context Alistair Shearer is a cultural historian of India; he w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Akarna Dhanurasana
Akarna Dhanurasana ( sa, आकर्ण धनुरासन; IAST: ''Ākarṇa Dhanurāsana''), also called the Archer pose, Bow and Arrow pose, or Shooting Bow pose is an asana in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise. The posture resembles an archer about to release an arrow. Etymology and origins The name of the pose is from Sanskrit कर्ण ''Karṇa'', "ear" with the prefix ''Ā'', "towards" or "near". धनुर ''Dhanura'' means "bow" and आसन ''asana'' means "posture" or "seat". The name alludes to a myth in the Ramayana in which the infant Sita is able to lift Shiva's enormous bow, and when she reaches marriageable age, only Rama is able to wield it, and so become her husband. The pose is shown as ''Dhanurāsana'' in the 19th century ''Sritattvanidhi''. It has its modern name in the 1966 '' Light on Yoga''. File:Sritattvanidhi Akarna Dhanurasana.jpg, Pose labelled ''Dhanurāsana''in the 19th century ''Sritattvanidhi'' Description Akarna Dhanurasan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali
The ''Yoga Sutras of Patañjali'' is a collection of Sanskrit sutras (aphorisms) on the theory and practice of yoga – 195 sutras (according to Vyāsa and Krishnamacharya) and 196 sutras (according to others, including BKS Iyengar). The ''Yoga Sutras'' was compiled in the early centuries CE, by the sage Patanjali in India who synthesized and organized knowledge about yoga from much older traditions. The ''Yoga Sutras'' is best known for its reference to '' ashtanga'', eight elements of practice culminating in ''samadhi''. The eight elements are ''yama'' (abstinences), ''niyama'' (observances), '' asana'' (yoga postures), ''pranayama'' (breath control), ''pratyahara'' (withdrawal of the senses), '' dharana'' (concentration of the mind), ''dhyana'' (meditation) and ''samadhi'' (absorption). The main aim of practice is ''kaivalya'', discernment of ''purusha'', the witness-consciousness, as distinct from '' prakriti'', the cognitive apparatus, and disentanglement of ''purush ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Of Yoga
The science of yoga is the scientific basis of modern yoga as exercise, yoga as physical exercise in human sciences such as human anatomy, anatomy, human physiology, physiology, and psychology. Yoga's effects are to some extent shared with other forms of exercise, though it differs in the amount of stretching involved, and because of its frequent use of long holds and relaxation, in its ability to reduce stress. Yoga is here treated separately from meditation, which has effects of its own, though yoga and meditation are combined in some schools of yoga. Yoga has been studied scientifically since the 19th-century physiology experiments of N. C. Paul. The early 20th-century pioneers Yogendra and Kuvalayananda both set up institutes to study yoga systematically. Yoga helps to maintain bone strength, joint mobility, and joint stability. It improves posture, muscle strength, coordination, and confidence, in turn reducing the risk of injury and bone fracture. As it is generally slow an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bikram Yoga
Bikram Yoga is a system of hot yoga, a type of yoga as exercise, devised by Bikram Choudhury and based on the teachings of B. C. Ghosh, that became popular in the early 1970s. Classes consist of a fixed sequence of 26 postures, practised in a room heated to with a humidity of 40%, intended to replicate the climate of India. The room is fitted with carpets and the walls are covered in mirrors. The instructor may adjust the students' yoga postures. Choudhury's teaching style was abrasive. Bikram Yoga spread rapidly across America and the Western world, reaching a peak of some 1,650 studios in at least 40 countries in 2006. Choudhury attempted to copyright the Bikram Yoga sequence from 2011, but was ultimately unsuccessful. In 2016, facing lawsuits and accusations of sexual assault, Choudhury fled to India, leaving Bikram Yoga, Inc. to be run by others. Origins Bikram Choudhury was born in Calcutta in 1944. He began studying yoga in 1969. He arrived in America in 1971, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asana
An asana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose,Verse 46, chapter II, "Patanjali Yoga sutras" by Swami Prabhavananda, published by the Sri Ramakrishna Math p. 111 and later extended in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, to any type of position, adding reclining, standing, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. The ''Yoga Sutras of Patanjali'' define "asana" as " position thatis steady and comfortable". Patanjali mentions the ability to sit for extended periods as one of the eight limbs of his system. Patanjali ''Yoga sutras'', Book II:29, 46 Asanas are also called yoga poses or yoga postures in English. The 10th or 11th century '' Goraksha Sataka'' and the 15th century '' Hatha Yoga Pradipika'' identify 84 asanas; the 17th century ''Hatha Ratnavali'' provides a different list of 84 asanas, describing some of them. In the 20th century, Indian nationalism favoured physical culture in response to colonialism. In that enviro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transcendental Meditation
Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a form of silent mantra meditation advocated by the Transcendental Meditation movement. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi created the technique in India in the mid-1950s. Advocates of TM claim that the technique promotes a state of relaxed awareness, stress relief, and access to higher states of consciousness, as well as physiological benefits such as reducing the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure. Building on the teachings of his master Brahmananda Saraswati (known honorifically as Guru Dev), the Maharishi taught thousands of people during a series of world tours from 1958 to 1965, expressing his teachings in spiritual and religious terms. TM became more popular in the 1960s and 1970s, as the Maharishi shifted to a more technical presentation, and his meditation technique was practiced by celebrities, most prominently members of the Beatles and the Beach Boys. At this time, he began training TM teachers and created specialized organizations t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (born Mahesh Prasad Varma, 12 January 1918Yogi's passport paulmason.info – 5 February 2008) was an Indian Modern yoga gurus, yoga guru known for developing and popularizing Transcendental Meditation (TM), and for being the leader and guru of a Transcendental Meditation movement, worldwide organization that has been characterized in multiple ways including as a new religious movement and as non-religious. He became known as ''Maharishi'' (meaning "great seer") and ''Yogi'' as an adult.#Mason, Mason (1994), p. 28 After earning a degree in physics at Allahabad University in 1942, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi became an assistant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yogananda
Paramahansa Yogananda (born Mukunda Lal Ghosh; January 5, 1893March 7, 1952) was an Indian Hindu monk, yogi and guru who introduced millions to the teachings of meditation and Kriya Yoga through his organization Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) / Yogoda Satsanga Society (YSS) of India, and who lived his last 32 years in America. A chief disciple of the Bengali yoga guru Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, he was sent by his lineage to spread the teachings of yoga to the West, to prove the unity between Eastern and Western religions and to preach a balance between Western material growth and Indian spirituality. His long-standing influence in the American yoga movement, and especially the yoga culture of Los Angeles, led him to be considered by yoga experts as the "Father of Yoga in the West." Yogananda was the first major Indian teacher to settle in America, and the first prominent Indian to be hosted in the White House (by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927); his early acclaim l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indra Devi
Eugenie Peterson ( lv, Eiženija Pētersone, russian: Евгения Васильевна Петерсон; 22 May, 1899 – 25 April 2002), known as Indra Devi, was a pioneering teacher of yoga as exercise, and an early disciple of the "father of modern yoga", Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. She went to India in her twenties, becoming a film star there and acquiring the stage name Indra Devi. She was the first woman to study under the yoga guru Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, Krishnamacharya at the Mysore Palace, alongside B. K. S. Iyengar, B.K.S Iyengar and K. Pattabhi Jois who went on to become Modern yoga gurus, yoga gurus. Moving to China, she taught the first yoga classes in that country at Madame Chiang Kai-shek's house. Her popularization of yoga in America through her many celebrity pupils in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood, and her books advocating yoga for stress relief, earned her the nickname "first lady of yoga". Her biographer, Michelle Goldberg, wrote that Devi "plan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yogini
A yogini (Sanskrit: योगिनी, IAST: ) is a female master practitioner of tantra and yoga, as well as a formal term of respect for female Hindu or Buddhist spiritual teachers in Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Greater Tibet. The term is the feminine Sanskrit word of the masculine ''yogi'', while the term "yogin" is used in neutral, masculine or feminine sense. A yogini, in some contexts, is the sacred feminine force made incarnate, as an aspect of Parvati, and revered in the yogini temples of India as the Sixty-four Yoginis. History The worship of yoginis began outside Vedic Religion, starting according to Vidya Dehejia with the cults of local village goddesses, the ''grama devatas''. Each one protects her village, sometimes giving specific benefits such as safety from the stings of scorpions. Gradually, through Tantra, these goddesses were grouped together into a number believed powerful, most often 64, and they became accepted as a valid part of Hinduism. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoga For Women
Modern yoga as exercise has often been taught by women to classes consisting mainly of women. This continued a tradition of gendered physical activity dating back to the early 20th century, with the Harmonic Gymnastics of Genevieve Stebbins in America and Mary Bagot Stack in Britain. One of the pioneers of modern yoga, Indra Devi, a pupil of Krishnamacharya, popularised yoga among American women using her celebrity Hollywood clients as a lever. The majority of yoga practitioners in the Western world are women. Yoga has been marketed to women as promoting health and beauty, and as something that could be continued into old age. It has created a substantial market for fashionable yoga clothing. Yoga is now encouraged also for pregnant women. A gendered activity The yoga author and teacher Geeta Iyengar notes that women in the ancient Vedic period had equal rights to practice the meditational yoga of the time, but that these rights fell away in later periods. The Indologist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norman Sjoman
Norman E. Sjoman (born July 6, 1944, Mission City) is known as author of the 1996 book ''The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace'', which contains an English translation of the yoga section of ''Sritattvanidhi'', a 19th-century treatise by the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar III (b. 1794 - d. 1868). This book contributes an original view on the history and development of the teaching traditions behind modern asanas. According to Sjoman, a majority of the tradition of teaching yoga as exercise, spread primarily through the teachings of B. K. S. Iyengar and his students, "appears to be distinct from the philosophical or textual tradition f hatha yoga">hatha_yoga.html" ;"title="f hatha yoga">f hatha yoga and does not appear to have any basis as a [genuine] tradition as there is no textual support for the asanas taught and no lineage of teachers." Education Sjoman studied at the University of British Columbia and Stockholm University before obtaining a PhD from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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