The Subtle Body

I spent August reading Stephanie Syman's The Subtle Body: The History of Yoga in America, and here's what I found most fascinating - I didn't learn any of this in my yoga teacher training.

If I were to base what I know about yoga's presence in North America solely on the history presented in my Yoga Work's training, I would believe that Hatha yoga was non-existent before Indra Devi began teaching in the late 40's or early 50's.

In fact, yoga arrived in the United States via The Atlantic, a quasi-political literary magazine courtesy of Emerson, Thoreau and company prior to the American Civil War and by the late 1800's there were not only yoga communes but studios, where the meditation and yoga were taught by American teachers - mostly young women who were former dancers.

Many of yoga's main players in the U.S. were a mix of Indian gurus and their well-to-do American students. The Indians, who came to America to enlighten and set the record straight about their country, people and belief systems, fell into careers as lecturers and teachers who spawned true believers and yoga practices in their wake.

The book starts slow. Aside from the fact that Thoreau apparently tried to teach himself to mediate using the few books on the subject that he could find, the first couple of chapters nearly had me ready to give up and take the book back to the library.

But perseverance is it's own reward and I was richly repaid as the book moved forward.

One of the most interesting yogi's of the early Hatha movement was a man named Theos Bernard. The nephew of one of the first yoga studio founders in New York City, Theos contracted rheumatic fever as a teenager which greatly damaged his heart muscle. He turned to yoga, believing that it could restore his health. After ten years of study - some of which took him to India where he spent years studying asana and theory - his doctors were startled to discover that yoga had healed the young man's damaged heart.

If you are in the mood for a history book, I highly recommend Syman's history. She tells a good tale as she enlightens.

Getting High on Yoga or as Preparation for Yoga?

About three-fourths of the way in to Stephanie Syman's The Subtle Body, the 1960's arrive with their emphasis on pharmaceutical yoga. The preceding decade had nearly stripped yoga clean of its spiritual trappings and as the pendulum nearly always wildly over corrects, flower-children sought to erase the physical yoga and replace it entirely with "enlightenment".

A tad on the lazy and impatient side, Baby Boomers didn't have time to wait for meditation or asana to reveal the true self ready for communion with God. They were the first tv dinner generation after all and true believers in the scientific methods promises of a brighter, faster and less energy intensive tomorrow. They were ripe for the illusion that the drug culture would push at them - enlightenment was just a swallow, injection or puff away.

As my teacher Jill reminded me, "People are always ready to believe the illusions."

Probably because illusions require a lot less work of them.

Yoga managed to survive the 60's, but there are still those who are seduced by delusion.

The Globe and Mail recently reported Marijuana Yoga is enjoying a resurgence. Instructor Dee Dussault of Toronto openly runs an "enhanced" yoga class from her home. Students bring their own pot which they smoke small doses of before beginning their asana practice.

Proponents claim that getting high before yoga enhances their concentration skills and Dussault says,

smoking marijuana in small doses before a yoga class also makes students more receptive to the poses and philosophies behind the activities. “For some people, it makes them uninhibited and open to the idea of the heart chakra, for example.”

My personal take is that like any drug, marijuana acts upon a person and that any feelings or insights a person might have are coming from the drug's effect and not any sort of a-ha that the yogi/yogina may have intuited though their own efforts. It's like letting someone else do your homework and than believing you learned something in the process.

They call it "being under the influence" for a reason. You are no longer driving.

But that's my opinion. What's yours?

Happy Yoga Month!

September is yoga month, so get thee to a ashram or studio.

I began the month in a severe yoga slump due to a viral infection that makes my bout with H1N1 last fall pale to invisibility by comparison and followed it up with an abscess under a molar and root canal. However, I redeemed myself a bit by reading Alexandra Gray's The Yoga Teacher and am in the middle of The Subtle Body by Stephanie Syman. Must reads for yoga teachers for sure, and reviews will be forthcoming.

How do you plan to spend Yoga Month? Any plans for mindful observation?