A history of modern yoga : Patañjali and Western esotericism
Elizabeth De Michelis (Author)
"In recent years yoga and meditation have become mass market pursuits in the West. A History of Modern Yoga traces this phenomenon back to its ideological roots in the esoteric circles of late eighteenth-century Bengal, and follows some of its main developments to date. Fully-fledged Modern Yoga, the author argues, started with the publication of Swami Vivekananda's seminal Raja Yoga (1896), in which Patanjali's Yoga Sutras were reconfigured along the lines of a then-emerging New Age style of secularized and individualistically oriented religiosity." "But what exactly are yoga and meditation as taught and practised today? In order to map this unknown territory, this book discusses some of the central religio-philosophical tenets of Modern Yoga, and offers a fourfold typology comprising Modern Psychosomatic, Modern Meditational, Modern Postural and Modern Denominational forms of yoga. Special attention is then given to Modern Postural Yoga, and the teachings and practices of the influential lyengar school of yoga are analysed in detail. The book's conclusion shows how a typical Modern Postural Yoga session may be interpreted to reveal the forms and contents of a healing ritual of secular religion. Book jacket."--Jacket
Print Book, English, 2005
First paper back edition View all formats and editions
Continuum, London, 2005
History
xvii, 282 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780826487728, 9780826465122, 0826487726, 0826465129
1010743061
What is Modern Yoga?
Modern Yoga scholarship
Some notes on terminology
Esoteric myopia
Description of contents
The Prehistory of Modern Yoga
Roots of Modern Yoga
"Esotericism" as academic field of research
The worldview of Western esotericism
(1 to 6): Basic characteristics of esotericism
Correspondences
Living nature
Imagination and mediations
Experience of transmutation
The praxis of concordance
Transmission
Reformation "Spiritualism"
Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought
Esotericism in classical and modern Hinduism
Mysticism, cult and sect
From mysticism to cultic milieu
New Age religion vs. New Age movement
Classical Hinduism vs. modern Hindu elaborations
The beginnings of Neo-Hinduism
Esoteric East-West cross-influences in historical perspective
The Brahmo Samaj and the occultization of Neo-Vedanta
The religious foundations of Modern Yoga
The turning point between classical Hinduism and Neo-Vedanta: Rammohan Roy's Neo-Vedantic Enlightenment
Neo-Vedantic Enlightenment to Neo-Vedantic Romanticism
Tagore's intellectual background
Tagore's doctrinal and ritual innovations
Intuitional epistemology
Evolutionary spirituality
"Scientific religion"
Initiation
From Neo-Vedantic Romanticism to Neo-Vedantic "spiritualism"
The Eastern outreaches of Western esotericism
India responds as 'esoteric Other'
Sen as charismatic Neo-Vedantic leader
Sen's religious career
The influence of American Transcendentalism
Sen's proto Modern Yoga
Vivekananda and the emergence of Neo-Vedantic occultism
Vivekananda: spiritual hero or esoteric seeker?
Vivekananda's esoteric biography I: India
Childhood
Schooling
Brahmo
Freemason
Ramakrishna and Vivekananda
Ramakrishna's spiritual transmission
After Ramakrishna
Vivekananda's esoteric biography II: the West
Vivekananda at the Parliament of Religions
Vivekananda's assimilation of Western occultism
Harmonial Religion: Metaphysical beliefs and mesmerism
The demand for "occult" practices at the end of the nineteenth century
Vivekananda's 'turn West'
Vivekananda's '4 yogas' model
"God-realization" and "Self-realization" in Neo-Vedanta
Pervasiveness of Vivekananda's Neo-Vedantic influences
Centrality of the "realization" theme
Ultimate aims: Vedantic and Neo-Vedantic
Classical interpretations of atma- and brahmajnana
Early attempts at translation and contextualization: Rammohan Roy
Subsequent attempts at translation and contextualization by Brahmo leaders and others
Ramakrishna and his interpreters: the elaboration of a sampradaya
Modern Yoga Theory and Practice
Vivekananda's Raja Yoga (1896): Modern Yoga formulated
Raja Yoga: style, structure and overall contents
An emanationist cosmology
Three gunas vs. two evolutes
Vivekananda's Naturphilosophie
The Prana Model
Prana as vitalistic element
Prana as healing agent
Pranayama as healing technique
Samadhi as psychological "superconsciousness"
The Samadhi Model
The influence of Metaphysical beliefs
The influence of Functionalist psychology
Psychological proprioception as practice
The Neo-Advaitic component
Yogic experience in classical Vedanta
The Yoga Sutras: a rajayoga textbook?
Twentieth-century developments of Modern Yoga
Alternative medicine and New Age religiosity
New Age healing ..
... and personal growth
Towards a typology of Modern Yoga
The development of Modern Postural Yoga: 1950s to date
Popularization: 1950s to mid-1970s
Consolidation: mid-1970s to late 1980s
Acculturation: late 1980s to date
The Iyengar School of Modern Postural Yoga
B.K.S. Iyengar: his life and work
Popularization
Consolidation
Acculturation
Theory and practice of Iyengar Yoga
Iyengar's Modern Yoga trilogy
Light on Yoga (1966): the Popularization period
MPY practice as psychosomatic self-help
MPY theory in Light on Yoga
Two specific aspects of Modern Yoga theory
Neo-Vedantic ethics
The concept of 'self-improvement'
"Self-realization": a chameleonic concept
Light on Pranayama (1981): the Consolidation period
Fully-fledged Neo-Hathayoga
MPY theory and practice in Light on Pranayama: the consolidation of the Prana Model
Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (1993): the Acculturation period
The Samadhi Model in Iyengar's Neo-Hathayoga
The Neo-Visistadvaita synthesis
Conclusion: Modern Postural Yoga as healing ritual of secular religion
MPY in everyday life
The MPY practice session
MPY as healing ritual of secular religion
The separation phase (introductory quietening time in MPY)
The transition phase (MPY practice proper)
The incorporation phase (final relaxation in MPY)
"First published 2004 by Continuum"--Title page verso