History of Asana and Exercise in India
In the following article, we will examine the origins of the asana side of Yoga in India, including relative to Vedic teachings. Asana is the aspect of Yoga least detailed in older Vedic and Yogic texts and is the More...
Time is Ripe for Deeper Look at Indian Knowledge Systems
Last year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi for his work on Autophagy caused quite some excitement among Indians as it directly correlated with what we knew about Ekadasi Vrata and cellular More...
Vedānga: The limbs of Vedic knowledge
The meaning of Saṃskrta (Devanāgarī: संस्कृत) word Veda (Devanāgarī: वेद) means knowledge of primordial origins, which Rishi-s (Devanāgarī: ऋषि) gathered over the time through More...
Yoga: Philosophy, practice, or politics?
[contextly_sidebar id=”PeRhGeG0eFP2a5fDRfs4BKDxjxwWY6id”]Ever since the declaration of an International Yoga Day, there has been a curiously bifurcated international reaction to Yoga, Hinduism and India. More...
New Tactics: Attack Yoga to malign Hindus
On the occasion of the International Yoga Day there was an article published in the Scroll, by one Vikram Zutshi, arguing against the Hindu roots of Yoga, and questioning why Patanjali’s yoga is given so much More...
Interview with Yogi Amrit Desai- I: Hatha Yoga is integrated into Ashtanga Yoga
Editor’s Note: Yogi Amrit Desai is the pioneer who brought Hatha Yoga to America. When he first came to America (5th February 1960), there was hardly any yoga anywhere. There were other teachers, who had brought More...
What Constitutes Yoga, What Doesn’t
With another “International Yoga Day” having approached, it is good time to ponder over some fundamental questions like what constitutes Yoga and what does not. This article seeks to answer both these questions What More...
Western Postural Yoga: Promoting Postures in the name of Yoga
Yogāsana practice can be a gateway to deeper spiritual teachings with a proper background of the Yogic wisdom or āsana practice can just be a form of exercise, aerobics, and gymnastics. Āsana, physical practice More...
Yoga Teachers need Yoga, not superficial imposition of Code of Ethics
In her recent article in The New York Times titled “Yoga Teachers Need a Code of Ethics”, Sarah Herrington makes a case for a need for “Code of Ethics” for Yoga teachers in the current aftermath of scandals More...
What constitutes the idea of abuse of Yoga?
There is a system of “Yoga” wherein a woman lays down on a yoga mat without her bottom in a completely relaxed position, before a “trained person” who then massages her clitoris and other parts of vagina. More...