alain danielou - yoga - 1991

 

Basically short. Not that good. Probably one of the worst books I have read in recent times. He quotes too much from ancient texts without enough commentary. 

I will read one more book about yoga before trying to come to a definitive opinion. Yoga is basically a combination of stretching, sweating, meditating, and postures in order to achieve separation from the physical self and become united to the universe. But, you can return to the physical self. Yoga apparently also gives you superpowers and heals many diseases. It also seems to be a form of super primitive medicine (things like putting string down your nose and through your mouth to clean out your nose; there are other weird ones too). 

This one seemed to be against Christianity. This one did mention sweating while practicing yoga. This one did not say anything about drinking your own urine. Like my search for religion, there seems to be a lot of inconsistency simply because all of the sacred texts were written so long ago. 

To conclude, I need to figure out in the last book how we got from all of this "weird" stuff to modern yoga. In class today, we listen to snoop dog, you can text, there is a mirror, it is mostly women in spandex, and we do a lot of animal based poses. I am not sure where these poses came from. 

I think yoga is just a niche exercise routine with an emphasis on breathing and holding your own body weight. Most of the mythical stuff is too inconsistent for me. That being said, I like modern yoga a lot. I just wish it had a real meaning other than exercise, because essentially I could just join group workout sessions (like ab blaster or something and it would be pretty similar). Oh well. I will keep practicing yoga and keep reading. Hopefully the last book will help me come to a more definitive conclusion (and I will read more about yoga but not right now).  peace!