Sinister Yogis

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Sinister Yogis

Author : David Gordon White
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2010-07-15
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780226895154

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Sinister Yogis by David Gordon White Pdf

Since the 1960s, yoga has become a billion-dollar industry in the West, attracting housewives and hipsters, New Agers and the old-aged. But our modern conception of yoga derives much from nineteenth-century European spirituality, and the true story of yoga’s origins in South Asia is far richer, stranger, and more entertaining than most of us realize. To uncover this history, David Gordon White focuses on yoga’s practitioners. Combing through millennia of South Asia’s vast and diverse literature, he discovers that yogis are usually portrayed as wonder-workers or sorcerers who use their dangerous supernatural abilities—which can include raising the dead, possession, and levitation—to acquire power, wealth, and sexual gratification. As White shows, even those yogis who aren’t downright villainous bear little resemblance to Western assumptions about them. At turns rollicking and sophisticated, Sinister Yogis tears down the image of yogis as detached, contemplative teachers, finally placing them in their proper context.

Yoga

Author : Debra Diamond,Molly Emma Aitken
Publisher : Smithsonian Books
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781588344595

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Yoga by Debra Diamond,Molly Emma Aitken Pdf

"Published by the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition Yoga: The Art of Transformation, October 19, 2013 - January 26, 2014. Organized by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the exhibition travels to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, February 22-May 18, 2014, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, June 22-September 7, 2014."

Is This Yoga?

Author : Anya Foxen,Christa Kuberry
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2021-05-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780429750588

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Is This Yoga? by Anya Foxen,Christa Kuberry Pdf

This book provides a rigorously researched, critically comparative introduction to yoga. Is This Yoga? Concepts, Histories, and the Complexities of Contemporary Practice recognizes the importance of contemporary understandings of yoga and, at the same time, provides historical context and complexity to modern and pre-modern definitions of yogic ideas and practices. Approaching yoga as a vast web of concepts, traditions, social interests, and embodied practices, it raises questions of knowledge, identity, and power across time and space, including the dynamics of "East" and "West." The text is divided into three main sections: thematic concepts; histories; and topics in modern practice. This accessible guide is essential reading for undergraduate students approaching the topic for the first time, as well as yoga teachers, teacher training programs, casual and devoted practitioners, and interested non-practitioners.

Yoga, Meditation, and Mysticism

Author : Kenneth Rose
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2016-09-08
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 9781472571700

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Yoga, Meditation, and Mysticism by Kenneth Rose Pdf

Contemplative experience is central to Hindu yoga traditions, Buddhist meditation practices, and Catholic mystical theology, and, despite doctrinal differences, it expresses itself in suggestively similar meditative landmarks in each of these three meditative systems. In Yoga, Meditation and Mysticism, Kenneth Rose shifts the dominant focus of contemporary religious studies away from tradition-specific studies of individual religious traditions, communities, and practices to examine the 'contemplative universals' that arise globally in meditative experience. Through a comparative exploration of the itineraries detailed in the contemplative manuals of Theravada Buddhism, Patañjalian Yoga, and Catholic mystical theology, Rose identifies in each tradition a moment of sharply focused awareness that marks the threshold between immersion in mundane consciousness and contemplative insight. As concentration deepens, the meditator steps through this threshold onto a globally shared contemplative itinerary, which leads through a series of virtually identical stages to mental stillness and insight. Rose argues that these contemplative universals, familiar to experienced contemplatives in multiple traditions, point to a common spiritual, mental, and biological heritage. Pioneering the exploration of contemplative practice and experience with a comparative perspective that ranges over multiple religious traditions, religious studies, philosophy, neuroscience, and the cognitive science of religion, this book is a landmark contribution to the fields of contemplative practice and religious studies.

Pop Culture Yoga

Author : Kristen C Blinne
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 330 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2020-01-31
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781498584388

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Pop Culture Yoga by Kristen C Blinne Pdf

Pop Culture Yoga: A Communication Remix was born out of a series of questions about the paradoxical nature of yoga: How do individuals and groups define yoga? What does it mean to "practice yoga", and what does this practice involve? What are some of the most important principles, guidelines, or philosophical tenets of yoga that shape people's definitions and practices? Who has the power and authority to define yoga? What are the limits, if any, of shared definitions of yoga? Kristen C. Blinne explores the myriad ways "yoga" is communicatively constructed and defined in and through popular culture in the United States. In doing so, Blinne offers insight into the many identity work processes in play in the construction of yoga categories, illuminating how individuals' and groups' words and actions represent practices of claiming--part of a complex communicative process centered around membership categorization--based on a range of authenticity discourses. Employing popular culture writing styles, Blinne ultimately contends that the majority of yoga styles practiced in the United States are remixes that can be classified as pop culture yoga, a distinct way of understanding this complex phenomenon.

The Assimilation of Yogic Religions through Pop Culture

Author : Paul G. Hackett
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2017-10-23
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781498552301

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The Assimilation of Yogic Religions through Pop Culture by Paul G. Hackett Pdf

This volume presents case studies in the shifting representations of yogic themes and figures in worldwide popular culture from the middle of the nineteenth century to contemporary times. The authors analyze everything from comic books and novels to television, movies, and theater as they portray yogis and their esoteric practices.

Essays on Women in Western Esotericism

Author : Amy Hale
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2022-01-21
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783030768898

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Essays on Women in Western Esotericism by Amy Hale Pdf

This book is the first collection to feature histories of women in Western Esotericism while also highlighting women’s scholarship. In addition to providing a critical examination of important and under researched figures in the history of Western Esotericism, these fifteen essays also contribute to current debates in the study of esotericism about the very nature of the field itself. The chapters are divided into four thematic sections that address current topics in the study of esotericism: race and othering, femininity, power and leadership and embodiment. This collection not only adds important voices to the story of Western Esotericism, it hopes to change the way the story is told.

Yoga Powers

Author : Knut A. Jacobsen
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 533 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2011-09-30
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789004212145

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Yoga Powers by Knut A. Jacobsen Pdf

The book offers a number of new insights in the history of yoga powers in the South Asian religious traditions, analyzes the position of the powers in the salvific process and in conceptions of divinity, and explores the rational explanations of the powers provided by the traditions.

The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations

Author : Chad M. Bauman,Michelle Voss Roberts
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 957 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2020-12-30
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781000328882

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The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations by Chad M. Bauman,Michelle Voss Roberts Pdf

The historical interplay of Hinduism as an ancient Indian religion and Christianity as a religion associated (in India, at least) with foreign power and colonialism, continues to animate Hindu–Christian relations today. On the one hand, The Routledge Handbook of Hindu–Christian Relations describes a rich history of amicable, productive, even sometimes syncretic Hindu–Christian encounters. On the other, this handbook equally attends to historical and contemporary moments of tension, conflict, and violence between Hindus and Christians. Comprising thirty-nine chapters by a team of international contributors, this handbook is divided into seven parts: Theoretical and methodological considerations Historical interactions Contemporary exchanges Sites of bodily and material interactions Significant figures Comparative theologies Responses The handbook explores: how the study of Hindu–Christian relations has been and ought to be done, the history of Hindu–Christian relations through key interactions, ethnographic reflections on current dynamics of Hindu–Christian exchange, important key thinkers, and topics in comparative theology, ultimately providing a framework for further debates in the area. The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations is essential reading for students and researchers in Hindu–Christian studies, Hindu traditions, Asian religions, and studies in Christianity. This handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as anthropology, political science, theology, and history.

A Genealogy of Devotion

Author : Patton E. Burchett
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 468 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2019-05-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780231548830

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A Genealogy of Devotion by Patton E. Burchett Pdf

In this book, Patton E. Burchett offers a path-breaking genealogical study of devotional (bhakti) Hinduism that traces its understudied historical relationships with tantra, yoga, and Sufism. Beginning in India’s early medieval “Tantric Age” and reaching to the present day, Burchett focuses his analysis on the crucial shifts of the early modern period, when the rise of bhakti communities in North India transformed the religious landscape in ways that would profoundly affect the shape of modern-day Hinduism. A Genealogy of Devotion illuminates the complex historical factors at play in the growth of bhakti in Sultanate and Mughal India through its pivotal interactions with Indic and Persianate traditions of asceticism, monasticism, politics, and literature. Shedding new light on the importance of Persian culture and popular Sufism in the history of devotional Hinduism, Burchett’s work explores the cultural encounters that reshaped early modern North Indian communities. Focusing on the Rāmānandī bhakti community and the tantric Nāth yogīs, Burchett describes the emergence of a new and Sufi-inflected devotional sensibility—an ethical, emotional, and aesthetic disposition—that was often critical of tantric and yogic religiosity. Early modern North Indian devotional critiques of tantric religiosity, he shows, prefigured colonial-era Orientalist depictions of bhakti as “religion” and tantra as “magic.” Providing a broad historical view of bhakti, tantra, and yoga while simultaneously challenging dominant scholarly conceptions of them, A Genealogy of Devotion offers a bold new narrative of the history of religion in India.

Yoga Traveling

Author : Beatrix Hauser
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2013-06-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783319003153

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Yoga Traveling by Beatrix Hauser Pdf

This book focuses on yoga’s transcultural dissemination in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the course of this process, the term “yoga” has been associated with various distinctive blends of mental and physical exercises performed in order to achieve some sort of improvement, whether understood in terms of esotericism, fitness, self-actualization, body aesthetics, or health care. The essays in this volume explore some of the turning points in yoga’s historico-spatial evolution and their relevance to its current appeal. The authors focus on central motivations, sites, and agents in the spread of posture-based yoga as well as on its successive (re-)interpretation and diversification, addressing questions such as: Why has yoga taken its various forms? How do time and place influence its meanings, social roles, and associated experiences? How does the transfer into new settings affect the ways in which yogic practice has been conceptualized as a system, and on what basis is it still identified as (Indian) yoga? The initial section of the volume concentrates on the re-evaluation of yoga in Indian and Western settings in the first half of the twentieth century. The following chapters link global discourses to particular local settings and explore meaning production at the micro-social level, taking Germany as the focal site. The final part of the book focuses on yoga advertising and consumption across national, social, and discursive boundaries, taking a closer look at transnational and deterritorialized yoga markets, as well as at various classes of mobile yoga practitioners.

Tracing the Path of Yoga

Author : Stuart Ray Sarbacker
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2021-01-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781438481234

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Tracing the Path of Yoga by Stuart Ray Sarbacker Pdf

Clear, accessible, and meticulously annotated, Tracing the Path of Yoga offers a comprehensive survey of the history and philosophy of yoga that will be invaluable to both specialists and to nonspecialists seeking a deeper understanding of this fascinating subject. Stuart Ray Sarbacker argues that yoga can be understood first and foremost as a discipline of mind and body that is represented in its narrative and philosophical literature as resulting in both numinous and cessative accomplishments that correspond, respectively, to the attainment of this-worldly power and otherworldly liberation. Sarbacker demonstrates how the yogic quest for perfection as such is situated within the concrete realities of human life, intersecting with issues of politics, economics, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as reflecting larger Indic religious and philosophical ideals.

Yoga in Practice

Author : David Gordon White
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 414 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Health & Fitness
ISBN : 9780691140865

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Yoga in Practice by David Gordon White Pdf

An anthology of primary texts drawn from the diverse yoga traditions of India, greater Asia, and the West. Focuses on the lived experiences in the many world of yoga.

Calcutta Yoga

Author : Jerome Armstrong
Publisher : Pan Macmillan
Page : 478 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2020-01-09
Category : Health & Fitness
ISBN : 9781529048117

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Calcutta Yoga by Jerome Armstrong Pdf

An often surprising and always sure-footed survey of the magic of yoga and Calcutta's role in bringing it to the world' JOHN ZUBRZYCKI 'Interweaving historical facts with Armstrong's own experiences ... the result is a book which is neither an autobiography nor a purely scientific work - quite a unique mixture ... it moves me' CLAUDIA GUGGENBÜHL 'I wish I was doing what he is doing [in Calcutta Yoga]' BISHWANATH GHOSH The epic story of how Buddha Bose, Bishnu Ghosh and Yogananda took yoga from Calcutta to the rest of the world. In Calcutta Yoga, Jerome Armstrong deftly weaves the multi-generational story of the first family of yoga and how they modernized the ancient practice. The saga covers four generations, the making of a city, personal friendships, and shines light on the remarkable people who transformed yoga and made it a truly global phenomenon. Along the way, we also meet the people who founded the schools of yoga that are so well known today. Enriching the cast of characters are the internationally renowned B. K. S. Iyengar, Mr Universe Monotosh Roy, even as the book uncovers the truth about Bikram Choudhury, the founder of Bikram Yoga. We follow them and others from the streets of Calcutta to the United States, London, Tokyo and beyond, where they perform astounding feats and help revise Western perceptions of yoga. Cleverly researched and enjoyably anecdotal, Calcutta Yoga gives a holistic picture of the evolution of yoga, and pays homage to yogic heroes previously lost from history, while highlighting the pivotal early role the city of Calcutta played in redefining the practice. A culmination of rigorous fieldwork and numerous interviews, this book is as much about yoga as it is about history, relationships and human nature.

Biography of a Yogi

Author : Anya P. Foxen
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2017-07-03
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780190668075

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Biography of a Yogi by Anya P. Foxen Pdf

With over four million copies in print, Paramahansa Yogananda's autobiography has served as a gateway into yoga and alternative spirituality for North American practitioners since 1946. Balancing traditional yoga, metaphysical spirituality, and a flair for the stage, Yogananda inspired countless people to practice Yogoda, his own brand of yoga. His method combined the spiritual and superhuman aspirations of Indian traditions with the health-oriented sensibilities of Western practice. Because the Yogoda program does not rely on recognizable postures and poses, it has remained under the radar of yoga scholarship. Biography of a Yogi examines Yogananda's career and Yogoda in the wider context of the development of yoga in the twentieth century. Focusing on Yogis during this early period of transnational popularization, Foxen highlights the continuities in the concept of the Yogi as superhuman and traces the transformation of yoga from a holistic and spiritual practice to its present-day postural practice.