Millions of people practise yoga, attracted to the mat by its promise of physical and mental benefits, social connection, and spiritual nourishment. Promoted as a way of healing the body and mind from wounds inflicted by the world, modern yoga may be a critique of the social order - an "anti-world" to which practitioners escape. Yet yoga can never free itself entirely from the compromises and contradictions of reality.
In Yogalands Paul Bramadat wrestles with his position as a skeptical scholar who is also a devoted yoga practitioner. Drawing from his own experience, and from conversations with hundreds of yoga teachers and students in the United States and Canada, he seeks to understand what yoga means for people in the modern West. In doing so, he addresses issues that often sit beneath the surface in yogaland: why yoga's religious dimensions are rarely mentioned in classes; how the relationship between yoga and trauma might be reconsidered; and how yoga seems to have survived debates around nationalism, cultural appropriation, and sexual misconduct.
Yogalands encourages practitioners and critics to be more curious about yoga. For insiders, this can deepen their practice, and for observers, this approach is an inspiring and unsettling model for engaging with other passionate commitments.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"Bramadat unpacks and culturally and conceptually situates yoga practitioners' prevailing attitudes toward authenticity, authority, their relationship to religion, and their experiences of health, the body, and trauma. I love the way Yogalands meets practitioners on their own terms while maintaining a critical perspective." Anya P. Foxen, author of Inhaling Spirit: Harmonialism, Orientalism, and the Western Roots of Modern Yoga "This is a great book! It made me laugh. It got me thinking about how to be a better teacher because of how it presents concepts in ways that feel accessible without being condescending. It is unlike anything else I have read in modern yoga studies in both its approach and subject matter. This is a necessary book and an enjoyable read." Laurah E. Klepinger, Utica University and author of *Transnational Yoga at Work: Spiritual Tourism and its Blind Spots * "In this honest, critical, and compassionate study, Bramadat challenges simplistic accounts of Western appropriations of historically Asian spiritual practices, rousing curiosity about yoga's complex entanglements with North American approaches to religion, health, and trauma. The result is a nuanced picture of what yoga is and why it matters." Andrea R. Jain, author of Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality "Fascinating... revealing subtle ways in which yoga, for so many, is spiritual, yes, but also religious without being religion." Spirituality & Practice "Yogalands is an inherently fascinating and thought-provoking read that will hold immense appeal to readers with an interest in the practice of yoga and its historical origins in the context of Eastern religions." Midwest Review of Books
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ISBN-13
978-0-2280-2444-6 (9780228024446)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Paul Bramadat is director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria.
