How this sacred Indian spiritual discipline became a Western commodity and what its original meaning asks of us today.
Rudyard Kipling’s famous line—“East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”—falls flat in the new millennium. The East and the West have come together in unprecedented ways sharing, learning, and enriching each other across cul- tural, intellectual, in- dustrial, and spiritual boundaries.
America’s fascination with India’s spiritual traditions, which took root in the 1960s, has reached an all-time high in the new millennium. Many Americans today seem to be seeking spiritual solace, if not salvation itself. Unfortunately, though, the overbearing capitalist marketplace of the country does not leave even the spiritual questuntainted. Nowhere is this more evident than in the popularization and commodification of yoga. Today, in America, yoga is often marketed less as a spiritual discipline and more as a fun, feel-good exercise or bodytoning routine.
As Pravrajika Vrajaprana observes in her essay, “Contemporary Spirituality and the Thinning of the Sacred: A Hindu Perspective” (Cross Currents, Spring/ Summer 2000):
“Contemporary spirituality in the West betrays a lack of the groundedness that comes from a deeply centered spiritual life. While Western contemporary spirituality parrots Hinduism’s most sacred precepts—karma, dharma, yoga, guru, nirvana—the talk remains just talk because there is no genuine spiritual effort to support it. Like a Hollywood set design, the semblance of the sacred remains just that—a cheap façade.”
Of course, yoga can be enjoyable and physically beneficial. But it offers far more to those who seek alignment with their deeper, divine nature. The very word yoga means “to yoke” or “to bring into union.” In this sense, yoga signifies bringing all aspects of one’s being—body, mind, and spirit—into harmony and balance.
According to Patanjali, the ancient sage and author of the Yoga Sutra, yoga is “a methodical system for attaining perfection and the establishment of the self in purity through control of the various elements of human nature—physical and psychological.” By controlling the mind (chitta vritti nirodha), one gains mastery over the body; by harmonizing both, one can meditate upon the Divine.
Patanjali outlined two broad paths toward perfec- tion, purity, and self-equilibrium:
- Yamas (self-restraints): abstinence from injury (nonviolence), theft, greed, and sensual indulgence.
- Niyamas (observances): cleanliness, study, contentment, purification, and meditation upon the Supreme (Brahman).
This holistic approach represents the original essence of yoga—an integration of moral, physical, psychological, and spiritual practices. Sadly, this meaning has been largely lost in the West, where yoga has been reduced to hatha yoga, which focuses solely on the physical asanas.
Vrajaprana explains that hathayoga was originally intended as a preliminary discipline—“a technique of strengthening the body and increasing longevity”—to prepare the practitioner for higher spiritual practices. Indeed, hatha yoga can be a legitimate and valuable system for training the body, keeping it fit and resilient, and aligning it as an instrument for physical, mental, and spiritual harmony.
However, in today’s commercialized culture, “Power Yoga,” which emphasizes muscle-building and endurance through a hybrid of Eastern and Western techniques, is a hot seller in the fitness industry. Such fixation on the physical dimension of yoga can be a waste of its potential at best and damaging at worst. True yoga needs a teacher who is not merely a technician, but also a guide to its deeper spiritual and psychological dimensions. Such a teacher integrates meditation, pranayama (controlled breathing), sacred chanting, and reflection—explaining their inner meaning before demonstrating the postures.
In the modern marketplace, hatha yoga often mas- querades as true yoga. The latter, however, is like a multi-petalled Indian lotus—beautiful, fragrant, and sacred. Sadly, the sacred has been stripped of much of its intrinsic value and repackaged as yet another commodity. Today, yoga too has joined the long list of things “for sale.”
Let us hope and pray that yoga will once again be taught—and lived—by authentic teachers who are also sincere practitioners.
Uma Majmudar, Ph.D. is a scholar of comparative religion and a longtime student and practitioner of Vedanta and yoga philoso- phy. A retired faculty member from Emory University, she writes on spirituality, social ethics, and interfaith dialogue. She is the author of Gandhi’s Pilgrimage of Faith: From Darkness to Light.