The Path of Modern Yoga - Elliott Goldberg

 



I am sitting by the fire in md writing this review. 

This is the book to read about yoga. Forget the other ones I reviewed. 

This book gives a good history of yoga, but also of body building, chiropractic treatment (the first person was taught about chiropractic treatment from the spirit of a dead person apparently), contortion, makeup, calisthenics, and physical culture in general. 

This book is really well researched and well written. I learned a lot of new words from reading such as votary, numinous, and preclude among others.

Related to yoga, basically it was a sacred and religious practice but around 1900 it was used to help sick people heal (I think by Shri Yogendra). From there yoga started to become more and more mainstream. Each guru (the book discusses 10-12 main figures in yoga history) molded yoga the way they thought it should be. For example Indra Devi thought it was for stress relief. Iyengar thought by holding the asanas (postures) you would enter a meditative state (i disagree with iyengar because asana is only one part of yoga). B.K. Iyer combined yoga with bodybuilding. Through all of these main figures and perhaps others we have reached what yoga is today. To be clear, yoga today is only one part of the 8 parts of yoga (the part we do is asana which was originally used to strengthen the body so you could meditate longer and more comfortably).

To conclude, after reading this book I like yoga again. It is just like everything else in life. Certain people in history have adjusted (pun intended) it over the past few centuries. As a form of western physical culture today (which is what I use it for), I think it is a good source of exercise and calm. I am sure it will continue to evolve in the coming years. I am curious to see how it will evolve. I see some yoga 6 studios are using the trx thing now. Maybe that is the future. 

Page it and enjoy!!!!

p.s. I am going to read one more yoga book now. I know I said I would not do this, but since this book was so good, I will read another. 

p.s.s. this book is pretty long but it is worth reading! The author writes with a lot of detail. He did a lot of really good research. You will learn a lot from reading this book!!  

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