THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN YOGA AS PHILOSOPHY AND YOGA AS POSTURAL PRACTICE

David Gordon White, The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali: A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books) (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2014) ("In the United States, where an estimated seventeen million people regularly attend yoga classes [note: this is the yoga subculture], there has been a growing trend to regulate the training of yoga instructors, the people who do the teaching in the thousands of yoga centers and studios spread across the country [note: this is corporate yoga]. Often, teacher training includes mandatory instruction in the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. This is curious to say the least, given the fact that the Yoga Sutra is as relevant to yoga as it is taught and practiced today as understanding the workings of a combustion engine is to driving a car." Id. at 1. From the bookjacket: "White brings to life the improbable cast of characters whose interpretations--and misappropriation--of the Yoga Sutra led to its revered place in popular culture today. Tracing the remarkable trajectory of this enigmatic work, White's exhaustively researched book also demonstrates why the yoga of India's past bears little resemblance to the yoga practiced today.").