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The Path of Modern Yoga - The History of an Embodied Spiritual Practice

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Item Code: NAP356
Author: Elliott Goldberg
Publisher: Inner Traditions India Home Office
Language: English
Edition: 2016
ISBN: 9781620556696
Pages: 511 (20 B/W Illustrations)
Cover: Paperback
Other Details 10.0 inch x 8.0 inch
Weight 1 kg
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Shipped to 153 countries
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More than 1M+ customers worldwide
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100% Made in India
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23 years in business
Book Description
About the Book

In the Path of Modern yoga, Elliott Goldberg Shows how the sacred Discipline of Yoga was transformed in the early 20 the century into a health and fitness regimen, giving prominence to the yogic postures traditionally used only as preparatory exercises for seated meditation. He establishes that far from corrupting the sacred tradition, as some believe, this emphasis on the moving body in yoga allowed for the creation of a sacred yoga for our times: an embodied spiritual practice.

Goldberg tells this sweeping story of modern yoga through the remarkable lives and accomplishments of 11 key figures: six Indian yogis (Sri Yogendra, Swami Kuvalayananda, S. Sundaram, T. Krishnamacharya, Swami Sivananda, and B.K.S. Iyengar), and Indian bodybuilder (K.V. Iyer), a rajah (Bhavanarao Pant Pratinidhi), an American-born journalist (Loouise Morgan), an Indian diplomat ( Apa Pant), and a Russian born yogi trained nationalism movement in India and such Western trends as the physical culture movement, the commoditization of exercise, 9th century new age religion, jazz age popular entertainment, and the quest for youth and beauty – revealing the multitude of diverse influences that have shaped yoga today.

 

About the Author

Drawing on More than 10 year of research from rare primary sources and engaging with contemporary yoga scholarship, Goldberg presented papers at the Modern yoga Workshop at Combridge and at the American Academy of Religion (AAR), He lives in New York City.

Foreword

Surely the most consequential and curious development in modern yoga is its emphasis on asana (postural practice). Although taking this strand of modern yoga as its subject, Elliott Goldberg's The Path of Modern Yoga is not by any means a survey of trends in postural yoga in the 20th century. It is instead a reconstruction of the course of modern postural yoga as a transformation from a set of primarily religious practices within traditional Hindu settings to an exercise regime deeply influenced by Western physical culture and health care and finally to an embodied spiritual practice that renews the spiritual aspirations of premodern forms of yoga within refined postural training. Goldberg tells this grande histoire of modern yoga by reconstructing a complexity of interwoven trajectories of the pioneers of modern postural practice that presents a new and deeply human perspective on the history of modern yoga. He interprets this intertwined network of life stories with impressive psychological sophistication and a good portion of humor. He blends in often surprising cultural and social circumstances-usually Western trends-to elucidate the larger contexts of personal achievements.

Goldberg also provides insightful interpretations of historical developments that lead us to a deeper understanding of the meaning of modern postural yoga. Academic studies on the history of asana have largely treated the yogic postures as a form of exercise, one largely influenced by Western gymnastics. Only a few attempts have been made to reconstruct historical perspectives on yogic practices generated by the experience of dwelling within asanas. Goldberg's reading of the achievements of the pioneers of modern postural yoga leads us closer to our actual experience of body-centered forms of yoga than any other historical study. Research on the history of modern yoga has recently flourished. I am certain that The Path of Modern Yoga will be accorded the place of prominence within this field of study that the book so richly deserves. But The Path of Modern Yoga also appears at a moment of widespread interest in yoga history within the general public as well as academia. Luckily Goldberg creates a multifaceted, in-depth, and sweeping history that is scholarly bur not academic. And unlike the usual academic treatise, his work is elegantly written, making it extraordinarily pleasurable to read. In short, it is a work of literature. Thus, his research findings, engagement with recent scholarship, and insights are accessible to a large audience.

Goldberg writes the sort of history that not only illuminates the past bur has an implicit practical goal for the future: in this case, to inspire a change in yoga practice-to push it toward being more existentially and spiritually meaningful. For this reason, not only readers interested in learning about the history of modern yoga (as well as the history of modern India and of modernity as an intercultural phenomenon) bur also yoginis and yogins who want to deepen their practice stand to profit greatly from reading this remarkable book.

Contents

  Foreword by Karl Baier, Ph.D xi
  Acknowledgments xiii
 
Part I
 
 
Divesting Yoga of the Sacred
 
 
Yogic Physical Culture and Health Cure
 
1 Shri Yogendra: Rajecting the Role of Yoga Guru 2
2 Shri Yogendra: Creating the Profession of Yoga Teacher: The Yoga Class 16
3 Shri Yogendra: Making Yoga into Calisthenics 28
4 Shri Yogendra Taking Practical Yoga to the New World: Hatha Yoga in America 44
5 Shri Yogendra: Making Yoga Gentrale 65
6 Swami Kuvalayanda - Claiming Yoga is Science 75
7 Swami Kuvalayananda - Promoting Yoga as Health cure: A Yoga Journal and Yoga Institute 88
8 Swami Kuvalayananda: Investigating the Yogic Phenomena: Yoga Research 100
9 Swami Kuvalyananda: Standing Up Straight:Yoga and Good Posture 110
10 Swami Kuvalyananda: Youthifying the spine Yoga and Chiropractice 125
11 K.V. Iyer: Mixing Bodybuilding and Yoga 142
12 S. Sundaram: Publishing Yoga Manual 152
13 S. Sundaram: Publishing Yoga Manual 168
 
Part II
 
 
Making Yoga Dynamic
 
 
The Sun Salutations as Yogic Exercise
 
14 Bhavanarao Pant Pratinidhi: Reviving Surya Namaskar 180
15 Bhavanarao Pant Pratinidhi: Reviving Surya Namaskar 189
16 Bhavanarao Pant Pratinidhi: Making Surya Namaskar a Part of Physical Education: Mass Exericse 197
17 T. Krishnamacharya: Keeping the Flame: Yoga at the Palace 208
18 T. Krishmacharya: Incorporating Contortion into Yoga 223
19 T. Krishnamacharya: Infusing Yoga with Surya Namaskar: Yoga as Performance 234
20 K.V. Iyer: Mixing Bodybuilding and Yoga at the palace 249
21 K. V.Iyer: Presenting Surya Nmaskar as Stretching Exericse 262
22 Louise Morgan: Making Surya Namaskar into an Elixir for Western Women 275
23 Louise Morgan: Poing the Way to health through Surya Namaskar 285
24 Louise Morgan: Becoming Aware of the Body in Surya Namaskar 295
25 Apa Pant: Making Surya Namaskar into a Meditation 305
26 Swami Sivananda: Using Surya Namaskar as a Warm-up Exericse for Yoga 320
 
Part III
 
 
Making Yoga Sacred Again
 
 
Yogic Embodied Spirituality
 
27 Indra Devi: Becoming a Western, Female Yoga Teacher 338
28 Indra Devi: Treating Anxiety with Yoga 349
29 B.K.S. Iyengar: Enduring Cruelty: A Yoga Student 364
30 B.K.S. Iyengar: Making Yoga Fierce: A Yoga Teacher 374
31 B.K.S. Iyenger: Making Yoga All-Encompassing 386
32 B.K.S. Iyenger: Making Yoga Precise 395
33 B.K.S. Iyenger Spiritulizing the Domain of Acrobatics: Asana Practice as the Eight-Limbed Path 413
34 B.K.S. Iyenger: Making Asana Practice into a Meditation of Insight 426
35 B.K.S. Iyenger: Teaching Asana as Embodied Spirituality 434
  Notes 446
  Biblipgraphy 468
  Index 480

 










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