Americanized Yoga

Continued from page 4

• Introduction
• Yoginis in Bikinis?
• Asana Rules!
• East Meets West
• Everyday Yogis

Everyday Yogis

The second characteristic that sets American yoga apart from its Indian roots is the emphasis on lay practice. In Indian culture, life was traditionally divided into four stages, each with its own unique duties and opportunities: student, householder, forest-dweller, and renunciate. The practices of meditation and hatha yoga were, until relatively recently, reserved for renunciates--men (women were for the most part excluded from classical yogic practice) who had given up their possessions and families and taken up the lives of monks and wandering sadhus. The spiritual paths for householders were the paths of bhakti yoga (devotion to a god or guru) and karma yoga (selfless service to one's family or community).

But in the West--and, increasingly, in India as well--hatha yoga and meditation are householder paths. Most Western yogis practice yoga as an adjunct to their family and professional lives, not as a substitute for them. They take their classes and go on their retreats--and then return to the world of relationships, career, achievement, and money.

Along with this orientation comes what some traditionalists view as an even more alarming trend--an abandoning of "enlightenment" as a goal of practice. Most Westerners come with more earthly aspirations--relief from physical pain and tension, a taste of inner quiet and relaxation, the ability to be more present in their relationships and more focused in their work.

But others see this shift as a healthy development, even a kind of maturation of practice. "Here at Kripalu, we used to think we were going for enlightenment, going for the 'diamond body.' This led to a certain amount of spiritual perfectionism," reflects Cope. "Now there's no longer the sense that we're going to come to the end of the path. Our yoga is more about learning to live in a way that softens some of the

kleshas

, the classic obstacles to practice--greed, hatred, and delusion."

The vast majority of Western students are not exclusive devotees of a particular guru or lineage--they're interested in practices, not sectarian loyalties. Western yoga is an increasingly eclectic, democratic path, in which hierarchical structures are being dismantled and gurus dethroned.

And Western yogis have also inevitably begun to cross-pollinate yoga with Western approaches to spirituality, psychology, bodywork, and mind-body healing. Until you've taken a few hatha-yoga classes in India, you won't fully realize how thoroughly most American classes have been permeated with a unique marinade that includes everything from somatic psychology to Reichian bodywork, from modern dance techniques to 12-step programs. As yoga gains more and more acceptance in the medical world, it's inevitably flavored with the language and concerns of Western science.

Schools of yoga that emphasize physical precision often draw on techniques from Western physical therapy and movement disciplines such as Alexander and Feldenkrais work. Styles that use the asanas to consciously unwind and release stored emotional traumas draw on the tools and language of body-centered psychotherapy.

The danger in this eclecticism, of course, is that we may dilute the power of the traditional teachings. We run the risk of patching together a yoga quilt from only the most superficial elements of a variety of paths, rather than delving deep into a single tradition.

But as Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman told a class at the Jivamukti Center in Manhattan, we also have a unique opportunity in the West to practice the dharma--the path of awakening--without getting trapped in "isms."

Ultimately, there's not all that much difference between yoga as it was and yoga as it is. For thousands of years, yoga has asked us to get quiet enough to look deeply at exactly what is within us and around us--and while cultures and kingdoms have changed almost beyond recognition, the human heart has not.

Asked whether yoga can survive American culture, most serious yogis just laugh. "I don't think we have to worry about

yoga

. Yoga is a self-sustaining thing," says Sharon Gannon, co-founder of the ultra-fashionable Jivamukti Yoga Center in Manhattan. "Yoga is happiness. It's always been around. And it always finds a way to emerge."

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