Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Modern Yoga'

The present study looks to evaluate the effectiveness of the meditative practice of Sahaja Yoga as a treatment for the symptoms of anxiety and depression. Whilst there is a small research literature that has investigated the efficacy of meditation (usually based upon the Buddhist Vipassana tradition) for the treatment of such symptoms, and a smaller literature looking at the effectiveness of Sahaja Yoga in the treatment of a number of physical health problems, no published studies have looked at the effectiveness of Sahaja Yoga as a treatment for mental health problems. The present study therefore compared three independent groups, these being a 'waiting list' control group, a cognitive-behavioural (CBT) based stress management group and a Sahaja Yoga meditation group. Both treatment groups consisted of six, two hourly sessions, once per week, with symptom severity being measured at pre- and post-treatment using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADs) and the 12 item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Data were analysed using MANOV A and repeated measures AN OVA tests. The results show that, compared to controls, the participants in the Sahaja Yoga group reported significant reductions on all measures of symptomology, however, surprisingly, the CBT based group showed no such reductions. Limitations of the study, barriers to the use of Sahaja Yoga in clinical practice and the need for future research, particularly regarding process, are considered.

The purpose of this study is to document and analyze the presence of yoga in school in the city of Värmland region, Sweden. To this day, there is a lack of emperic studies of yoga in schools and therefore, it is interesting to find out how yoga will be usefull in schools. The chosen method for this study was to observe and find out how students and teachers practice yoga in a secular contexts during school lessons. The critical part of using yoga in schools is about the background from yoga, and how yoga can be connected with religious and Hinduism spirituality. The results from this study show that yoga in school is more like an activity with a series of movements with focus on wellness and with the possibility to refresh the body and brain during a school lesson, and this without any connections of religious contexts at all.

As we move further into the 21st century, social observers are increasingly aware of the individual yet collective forms of spiritual practices emerging globally. In this study, I focus on two specific practices, yoga and Buddhism, as framed in the teachings of Master Thich Nhat Hanh, which have significant impacts on individuals in the late modern city of Hong Kong. This research investigates the implications these practices pose for self-identity in late modernity. Using semi-structured, face-to-face, in-depth interviews of forty individuals who have been engaging in these practices in Hong Kong during 2008-2009, I investigate the self-identity of these individuals using Anthony Giddens’ theoretical framework of selfhood. I propose the following questions: (1) How do these individuals respond to the conditions of late modernity in Hong Kong? (2) How do these individuals experience Giddens’ four dilemmas of late modernity (unification versus fragmentation, powerlessness versus appropriation, authority versus uncertainty, personalization versus fragmentation) and in what ways do they cope with these dilemmas? (3) How do these individuals engagement with these practices interact with their life trajectories and manifest the main features of Giddens’ reflexive project (lifestyles and life plans, the pure relationship, the body and self-actualization)? Several findings have emerged from the data that empirically affirm Giddens’ self-reflexivity framework: (1) the self-identity of individuals engaging in yoga and/or Master Thick Nhat Hanh’s teachings is reflexively understood in terms of their personal biographies; (2) from each distinctive biography, individuals use these practices to find a balance of the four dilemmas outlined in Giddens’ theoretical framework, namely, unification versus fragmentation, powerlessness versus appropriation, authority versus uncertainty and personalization versus commoditication; (3) three trajectories emerge from the data: the “healing self”; the “health/exercise self”; and the “lifestyle/re-emerging self.” These patterns show how individuals manage threats to selfhood in a late modern society while finding ways to achieve personal development and increased self-awareness. By empirically testing the applicability of Giddens’ theory through the study of these two mind/body practices in Hong Kong, this research has contributed to the field of modern sociology by: (1) offering an in-depth and systematic qualitative inquiry into practices of spirituality that are undertaken on both the individual and global level, (2) addressing the prevailing research gap by empirically supporting and expanding the utility of Giddens’ self-reflexive project and (3) presenting an accessible analysis of the concepts informing the idea of self-identity and how conditions of late modernity influence this process.
published_or_final_version
Sociology
Doctoral
Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis advisor: Catherine Cornille
This dissertation contributes to a scholarly understanding of Yoga in modern times by considering the dialectical tension between life-affirming goals in Yoga (health, balance, well-being) and the world-renouncing asceticism of the classical text, Patañjali’s Yogasūtras. In particular, I focus on the teaching tradition of the 19th century guru Tirumalai Krishnamacharya and the prominent teachers who learned from him, K. Pattabhi Jois, BKS Iyengar, and TKV Desikachar. Through a study of the classical text, historical commentators, recent scholarship, and modern teachers, I advance an understanding of the structure and general rubric of the Yogasūtras as a text that emphasizes process, the attainment of accomplishment/power, and ultimately the need for detachment from power. I further contend that this rubric may provide an insightful means for interpreting the Yogasūtras as an authoritative and informative text for Yoga in modern times. The teaching tradition of Krishnamacharya is notable for its effort to revive Yoga and the Yogasūtras within India and for an international audience. However, the core concept of detachment, while prominent throughout the Yogasūtras, appears to be at odds with the modern tradition, which emphasizes attachment oriented goals like health and well-being. Thus, I introduce a comparative study of detachment in the work of the 18th century Jesuit, Jean Pierre de Caussade, in order to further consider the dialectic between detachment, action, and love. The practice of Comparative Theology is perhaps most effective at creating a new light with which the individual can freshly examine her own tradition. The comparison between Caussade, Krishnamacharya, and the Yogasūtras highlights the role of devotion in relation to detachment and offers particular challenges and points for further consideration for the on-going tradition of Yoga in modern times
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Theology

Studien ämnar till att undersöka anledningarna till samt resultatet av att yoga har blivit så populärt i Sverige, sett till sekulariseringsprocessen i Sverige idag, att det som ett resultat bidragit till att det erbjuds som en hälsofrämjande träningsform till skolpersonal på en gymnasieskola i Sverige. Vi har därför undersökt lärares och skolpersonals upplevelser av personalyoga, främst kundaliniyoga, som ett verktyg för stresshantering och tittat på yogans religiösa bakgrund. Sex kvalitativa intervjuer, där både lärare, skolpersonal och yogainstruktör blivit intervjuade har genomförts, transkriberats och analyserats. Resultatet visade att samtliga respondenter ansåg att yoga fungerar stressreducerande men endast en av de sex respondenterna ansåg att yoga var religiös utövning. Nästan alla respondenter var dock medvetna om att yoga har religiösa rötter i hinduism och buddhism, men samtidigt ansåg samtliga respondenter att målet med personalyogan endast var avkoppling i hälsofrämjande syfte. Utifrån resultatet har vi dragit slutsatsen att respondenterna är påverkade av sekulariseringsprocessen i Sverige samt att synen på yoga har gått från en mer religiös handling till en allt mer filosofisk väg och förhållningssätt i västvärlden.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the dynamic transformations of the bodyself- society relationship as storied by 'Western' practitioners in Modem Yoga and Meditation. The study drew upon three philosophical approaches that belong to the interpretive paradigm: the social phenomenological, the hermeneutical and the social constructionist approaches. The use of life history and ethnographic research strategies allowed for the performance of a combination of purposive, opportunistic, snowball and discrepant case sampling that led to conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews with ten long-term (studying and practising regularly for more than two years) Yoga and Meditation practitioners/teachers. The practi~es included a variety of traditions like Vipassana Meditation, Zen, Neo-Advaita, Asthanga Yoga, Iyengar Yoga and others. The study used categorical-content and categorical-form analyses to 'bracket' the whats and the hows of the informants' stories respectively. The findings are represented through . . predominantly modified realist tales, which are accompanied by confessional tales and a five-part creative fiction. The fmdings highlight important issues regarding the participants' beginnings with their practices, which are marked by a desire for some form of transformation that broadly alluded to an increased sense of self-reflexivity and resisting feelings of anomie. Also, they illustrate Modem Meditation and Yoga practices as invented traditions, and thus a complex and dynamic socio-cultural fusion of Asian and Western philosophies and pedagogies that transforms in historical time. Furthermore, long-term engagement with Yoga and Meditation practice is suggestive to involve cultivation of an ethical lifestyle and a somaesthetic, kinaesthetic inner bodymind (high degree ofbodymind unity). This set of somatic pedagogies potentially transforms the practitioners' existential feelings, thus moving their body-selves from a restrictive emotional habitus to it more productive one and altering their sense of self, time, space and relationality (body-selfother). The findings also highlighted how the informants tap into an AsianlWestern fusion of embodied metaphorical narrative resourses, and how they (re)create these narratives in the process of constructing narrative coherence. Finally, the implications of this study's findings suggest that al} the above mundializations in the phenomenal, subjective, social and narrative worlds of the informants culminate in three key mundializations of their socialities (spiritual hierarchies, charisma and achievement) and two key mundializations of their body-selves (disciplined liberal body-selves and samadhic body-selves).

The individual's experience of inner authority takes centre stage in the majority of scholarship on New Ageism, with many writers highlighting this theme as a defnitive characteristic of the spiritual culture. The aim of this thesis is to explore this topic and to ascertain the place of the individual and the collective within two commercial New Age feld sites in London. The qualitative data which lead this investigation were collected from a yoga centre called Shanti and a Suf dance organisation called the Suf Order. From this data, the thesis identifes an individual-collective dialectic, one which manifests in particular forms and with divergent orientations; the result is a multiplicity of types of individualisms which include collective forces. The study makes the case for this argument by focusing on four modes in which, at both sites, the individual and the collective co-produce each other. One, the (collective) class culture of the practitioners informs and is informed by the (individual) ideologies of self that the informants assert. Two, the (collective) capitalist context of the organisations infuence and are perpetuated by the ways the (individual) representatives of those organisations express themselves. Three, (collective) shared principles regarding 'positivity' and 'energy' enforce and are sustained by the (individual) feelings of the student. Four, the (collective) communities of practitioners depend on and contribute to the (individual) set apart status of the teacher. These four manifestations of the individual-collective dynamic appear with different orientations in each feld context; in all versions and in both settings, individual and collective are both present and mutually- constituting forces, but at Shanti the dialectics lean more towards the personal and at the Suf Order, the 'same' dialectics lean more towards the social. Each organisation refects and adds to the intersections, both in their forms and their orientations. In so doing, the two New Age centres present divergent balances of the individual-collective dynamic that correlate with the personal and social dispositions of their respective student bodies.

This thesis contains a critical edition, translation and study of the Amanaska, which is a medieval Sanskrit yoga text of one hundred and ninety-eight verses in two chapters (adhyāya). Seventy-five manuscripts have been consulted for this edition and thirty-two were selected for the full collation on the basis of stemmatic analysis on a sample collation of all the manuscripts. The critical apparatus contains references to parallel verses in other works and the notes to the translation provide further information on the content, terminology and obscure passages of the text by citing other Sanskrit works, in particular, earlier Tantras and medieval yoga texts, as well as a Nepalese commentary on the Amanaska. The first part of the Introduction contains a summary of the text and an examination of the colophons of all the available manuscripts in order to establish the proper titles of the text and each of the chapters. Unlike previous editors, I have adopted the title Amanaska because it is found in the great majority of manuscript colophons. The title of previous printed editions, Amanaskayoga, appears to derive from nineteenth-century manuscript catalogues. The authorship of the text has been discussed in light of the claim made in recent Indian scholarship that it was written by Gorakṣanātha, the pupil of Matysendranātha. I conclude that the author is unknown. Discrepancies between the chapters, in particular, various incongruities in content and differences in the limits of dating, strongly suggest that both chapters were originally composed as separate works. Unlike previous editions, this one is based on the north-Indian recension. There is evidence that the north-Indian recension has preserved a more coherent version of the first chapter. The additional verses of the south-Indian recension have been edited and included separately in appendix A. The first part of the Introduction also includes fourteen sections on the content of the Amanaska. The first six of these sections are on absorption (laya), the practice of eliminating reality levels (tattva) and Layayoga, and the following sections cover yogic powers (siddhi), Śāmbhavī Mudrā, the term amanaska and the Amanaska's known sources for verses on the no-mind state. The final section called, 'Amanaska: the Effortless Leap to Liberation' examines the salient teachings of the Amanaska in light of previous ascetic, yogic and tantric traditions, in an attempt to answer questions about whom its intended audience may have been and its place within India's history of yoga. The first part of the Introduction concludes with a discussion of yoga texts which have been either directly or indirectly influenced by the Amanaska. Seeing that many of these texts have not been critically edited or translated, I have discussed their date of composition and their content in addition to the material that derives from the Amanaska. The second part of the Introduction provides essential details on the seventy-four manuscripts consulted for this edition, brief comments on the shortcomings of the previous printed editions and an explanation of the editing methodology. The recensions of the text are discussed in this section as well as my editorial policy. The critical edition and translation of the Amanaska are presented together. Each Sanskrit verse is followed by the translation and its critical apparatus is at the bottom of the page. The endnotes to each verse are located at the end of its respective chapter. Appendices B-E include four stemmatic diagrams along with brief descriptions of each hyparchetype, a list of symbols and abbreviations and an outline of the conventions used in the critical apparatus.

This thesis examines the traces of theological and broader religious discourses in selected works of three major twentieth-century poets. Each of the texts examined in this thesis encodes within its poetics a distinct, theologically derived conception of the ontological status of the self in relation to the Absolute. Yeats primarily envisions the relation as one of essential identity, Jones regards it as defined by alterity, and Eliot depicts it as dialectical and paradoxical. Critics have underestimated the impact on Yeats’s late work of his final and most sustained engagement with Indic traditions, which issued from his friendship and collaboration with Shri Purohit Swami. Though Yeats projected Theosophical notions on the Indic texts and traditions he studied with Purohit, he successfully incorporated principles of Classical Yoga and Tantra into his later poetry. Much of Yeats’s late poetics reflects his struggle to situate the individuated self ontologically in light of traditions that devalue that self in favor of an impersonal, cosmic subjectivity. David Jones’s The Anathemata encodes a religious position opposed to that of Yeats. For Jones, a devout Roman Catholic committed to the bodily, God is Wholly Other. The self is fallen and circumscribed, and must connect with the divine chiefly through the mediation of the sacraments. In The Anathemata, the poet functions as a kind of lay priest attempting sacramentally to recuperate sacred signs. Because, according to Jones’s exoteric theology, the self must love God through fellow creatures, The Anathemata is not only circular, forming a verbal templum around the Cross; it is also built of massive, rich elaborations of creaturely detail, including highly embroidered and historicized voices and discourses. Critics have long noted the influence of Christian mystical texts on Eliot’s Four Quartets, but some have also detected a countercurrent within the later three Quartets, one that resists the timeless even as the poem valorizes transcending time. This tension, central to Four Quartets, reflects Eliot’s engagement with the dialectical theology of Karl Barth. Eliot’s deployment of paradox and negation does not merely echo the apophatic theology of the mystical texts that figure in the poem; it also reflects the discursive strategies of Barth’s theology. The self in Four Quartets is dialectical and paradoxical: suspended between time and eternity, it can transcend its own finitude only by embracing it.

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The ancient yoga period emerges amid a stratified Indian society and influenced by religions like samkhya and the Brahmanical Hinduism if systematizing it as an orthodox Hindu darśana through ancient scripture Yoga Sutras (IS) some centuries before the Christian era. The IS explains both the causes of human suffering and the promise of a good yogi life, based on the behavioral theory of klesas (attachment, aversion, fear of death, pride and ignorance) as adverse spiritual evolution. An eightfold path or asthanga yoga (AI) is built-from it as the yogic proposal for salvation of the soul. The AI aims, through ethical conduct, practices corporal rituals and mystical experience of samadhi mitigate klesas seeking union with God/Isvara. On average Indian age, between X-XV centuries AD, this system of yogic beliefs is the Tantric religiosity, Jain and Buddhist raising the body's value over the other doctrinal aspects of IS. The modern phase of yoga, however, is being erected under the influence of a new social - religious context . Currently, more than Brahmins and swamis , yoga seeks its legitimacy as spiritual path under the aegis of scientific rationality and new religious movements in the West . In this process , the yoga reframes its mystical language circulating among ashrams and Indian forests of ancient and medieval times to an audience facing the stressful challenges of living in large Western cities, above all, a society of consumption, secular and privatized religiously. It is known that nowadays the yoga reframes its metaphysical physiology in the light of biomedical science , I suspect that the theory of klesas , may be going through a religious reform as well. In order to understand these possible soteriological transformation of the current yoga, I led 13 semi-structured interviews with ten way yogis and three Brazilian scientists psychobiological area investigating the yogic system acts as therapy and healing. The data revealed a cleavage perception in the modern yoga, between belonging to a therapeutic New Age or more a Western biomedical technique. From this juncture new beliefs emerged to legitimize the discourse yoga against the socialreligious situation in which it now lives. More than just symbolic reframing, modern yogic soteriology is passed today by a salvific transformation process. The main changes that stood out are: 1) the elevation of design stress level of klesa or spiritual obstacle; and 2) the relaxation antagonistic to stress-klesa, achievement mystical nature of samadhi; and 3) consequently, salvation/liberation of klesas-stress acquire substance "empirical" an unchanging spiritual state of no stress or a kind of "divine homeostasis." It is concluded that scientific rationality rather than promote religious yoga disenchantment, it legitimizes it as a new system of beliefs and produces new goods of salvation (stress-klesa, relaxation-samadhi and homeostasis-kaivalya) . The association of the health benefits of yoga practices defended and propagated by biomedical physiology associated with the restlessness of the western urban centers , may have weakened the behavioral theory of klesas as essential cause of human suffering
O período antigo do ioga emerge em meio a uma sociedade indiana estratificada e influenciado por religiões como o samkhya e o hinduísmo bramânico, sistematizando-se como um dársana ortodoxo hinduísta por meio da escritura antiga Ioga Sutras (IS) alguns séculos antes de era cristã. O IS explica tanto as causas do sofrimento humano quanto a promessa de uma boa vida iogue, baseando-se na teoria comportamental dos klesas (apego, aversão, medo da morte, orgulho e ignorância) como nefastos a evolução espiritual. Um caminho óctuplo ou asthanga ioga (AI) edifica-se a partir dele como a proposta ioguica de salvação da alma. O AI visa, por meio de condutas éticas, práticas rituais corporais e a experiência mística do samadhi atenuar os klesas em busca da união com deus/Isvara. Na idade média indiano, entre os séculos X-XV d.C., esse sistema de crenças ioguico encontra a religiosidade tântrica, jainista e budista elevando o valor do corpo em detrimento a outros aspectos doutrinais do IS. A fase moderna do ioga, no entanto, está sendo erigida por influência de um novo contexto social-religioso. Atualmente, muito mais do que brâmanes e swamis, o ioga busca a sua legitimidade como caminho espiritual sob a égide da racionalidade científica e de novos movimentos religiosos do ocidente. Nesse processo, o ioga ressignifica a sua linguagem mística que circulava entre os ashrams e florestas indianos dos tempos antigo e medieval, para um público que enfrenta os desafios estressantes de se viver nos grandes centros urbanos ocidentais, sobretudo, uma sociedade do consumo, secular e privatizada religiosamente. Sabe-se que nos tempos atuais o ioga ressignifica a sua fisiologia metafísica à luz da ciência biomédica, desconfio que a teoria dos klesas, pode estar passando por uma reforma religiosa também. Para buscar compreender essas possíveis transformações soteriológicas do ioga atual, saí a campo e conduzi de forma semiestruturada entrevistas com dez iogues e três cientistas brasileiros da área psicobiológica que investigam o sistema de atos ioguicos como terapia e cura. Os dados revelaram uma percepção de clivagem no ioga moderno, entre pertencer a uma terapêutica Nova Era ou mais uma técnica biomédica ocidental. A partir dessa conjuntura novas crenças despontaram para legitimar o discurso do ioga frente ao panorama social-religioso em que ele vive atualmente. Mais do que simples ressignificação simbólica, a soteriologia ioguica moderna está passado hoje por um processo de transformação soteriológica. As principais transformações que se destacaram, estão: 1) na elevação da concepção de estresse ao nível de klesa ou obstáculo espiritual; e 2) o relaxamento, antagônico ao estresse-klesa, conquista natureza mística do samadhi; e 3) por consequência, a salvação/libertação dos klesasestresse adquiri substância empírica de um estado espiritual imutável de não-estresse ou de uma espécie de homeostase divina . Conclui-se que a racionalidade científica ao invés de promover o desencantamento religioso do ioga, legitima-o como um novo sistema de crenças e produz novos bens de salvação (estresse-klesa, relaxamento-samadhi e homeostasekaivalya). A associação dos benefícios para a saúde das práticas do ioga defendidos e propalados pela fisiologia biomédica associado ao desassossego dos centros urbanos ocidentais, pode ter enfraquecido a teoria comportamental dos klesas como causa essencial do sofrimento humano

As a distinct category of yoga practice, “modern yoga” evades simple definition. Researchers study modern yoga within a variety of disciplines, adding to the ambiguity of the category. These diffuse approaches can harden the disciplinary boundaries that surround certain expressions of the category. Consider that although yoga originated within South Asian religious traditions, some current expressions of yoga practice, such as those found in fitness or biomedical contexts, can appear to have little to do with Religious Studies. However, I suggest that bracketing off such expressions of modern yoga practice—although necessary for specialized analysis—can hinder the fruitful investigation of “yoga” as a more complex category and limit the potential reach of Religious Studies inquiries. In this dissertation, I draw on methods from intellectual history, phenomenology, and comparative analysis to explore the category of modern yoga by developing a typology built around three organizing principles: legitimacy, embodiment, and American identity. Legitimacy represents the various ways that types of modern yoga practice are considered authentic. Embodiment represents the common theme among the various expressions of modern yoga practice that each is an embodied form of practice. I develop embodiment further to analyze the concept of connectedness, which includes connection with oneself, others, and one's environment. Finally, American identity represents how the varieties of modern yoga practice dynamically respond to their cultural contexts. The typology proposes that modern yoga comprises five sub-categories: religious yoga, spiritual yoga, fitness yoga, wellness yoga, and biomedical yoga. Like the unique colors on a palette, these categories are themselves distinct. Yet, also like colors on a palette, each represents just one shade among a nearly infinite number of real-world expressions. I argue that this classificatory system is useful to Religious Studies, because comparative analysis of the subcategories illustrates how even the most apparently secularized forms of yoga practice are relevant for Religious Studies inquiries. By constructing the categories of this typology, while simultaneously blurring their internal boundaries, I provide an expanded conceptual vocabulary with which to discuss the expansive expressions of modern yoga and to support future interdisciplinary work.

This thesis examines a yoga collective of primarily students and teachers in Montreal with attention to the circuits of mobility as well as broader interconnections and disjunctures created by global cultural flows. Varying forms of mobility within yoga are identified and studied such as, spatial, bodily, cognitive and conceptual mobility. Within these patterns of mobility the joining of ideas and practices as well as the contradictions that emerge from them are explored, for example between commercialism and the intended spirituality of yoga practice. This research project focuses on common modern postural and meditational yoga practices of today, and briefly looks at the teaching methods and learning practices within the kinesthetic culture of yoga. Further, the ways in which practitioners embody yoga is investigated.

This thesis investigates transcultural exchange expressed in architectural and conceptual spaces as well as visual and material culture through the case study of HappyTree Yoga, a popular downtown Montreal studio. Through images and objects within these spaces, I explore how the modern postural yoga studio is designed as an escape from, or antidote to, the stresses of modern Western lifestyle through the integration of spirituality from an imagined, ahistorical Orient with Western socio-cultural norms of health, gender and bodily regulation. The studio interior and the objects housed therein are considered from the perspective of material culture in order to understand how the practice of yoga is constructed and authenticated through ‘exotic’ objects such as images of gurus and small shrines and how practitioners encounter and experience the agency of these objects. I discuss the hybridity of modern yoga’s performance as both openly progressive and Western but aware of a need for legitimacy and authorization through the presence of Hindu imagery, ultimately creating new meanings for both these artifacts and those who participate in the highly ritualistic and performative use of these interiors.

This dissertation evaluates preksha dhyana, a form of modern yoga introduced by the Jain Shvetambara Terapanth in 1975. Modern yoga emerged as a consequence of a complex encounter of Indian yogic gurus, American and British metaphysical thinkers, and modern ideas about science and health. I provide a brief history of the Terapanth from its eighteenth-century founder, Bikshu, to its current monastic guru, Mahaprajna, who constructed preksha dhyana. I evaluate the historical trajectory that led from the Terapanth's beginnings as a sect that maintained a world-rejecting ascetic ideal to its late twentieth-century introduction of preksha dhyana, which is popularly disseminated as a practice aimed at health and well-being. The practice and ideology of preksha dhyana is, however, context specific. In the Terapanthi monastic context, it functions as a metaphysical, mystical, and ascetic practice. In this way, it intersects with classical schools of yoga, which aim at ascetic purification and release from the world. In its popular dissemination by the samanis, female members of an intermediary Terapanthi monastic order, it functions as a physiotherapeutic practice. The samanis teach yoga to students in India, the United States, and Britain whose interests are primarily in yoga's physical and psychological benefits. In this way, it is a case study of modern yoga, which aims at the enhancement of the body and life in the world. I demonstrate how the samanis are mediators of their guru, Mahaprajna, and thus resolve ancient and contemporary tensions between ascetic and worldly values. I also demonstrate how Mahaprajna and the samanis construct preksha dhyana as a form of modern yoga by appropriating scientific discourse and attributing physiological function to the yogic subtle body. I argue that preksha dhyana can be located at an intersection with late capitalist cultural processes as well as New Age spirituality insofar as its proponents participate in the transnational yoga market. Finally, I conclude with some thoughts on the successes and failures of the Terapanth in its attempt to globally disseminate preksha dhyana.

Yoga, an ancient philosophy and practice undertaken as a path towards self-realisation, was originally written for men, by men living in the East. However, a large and growing number of people in the West now practice some form of yoga, with more than 80% of practitioners being women. Since the 1980s, there has been a ‘feminisation’ of yoga in the West, as female teachers and practitioners tailor its practice to meet the specific needs of women. The practice of yoga has also changed to meet the needs of the modern Western practitioner more generally, such that the primary reasons for practicing yoga are to improve physical well-being and to cope with stress. Nonetheless, for some practitioners, yoga continues to offer philosophical and spiritual direction. The aim of this thesis is to critically examine mid-aged women’s experiences of Iyengar yoga. Focusing on a select group of 35 women living in New South Wales, Australia, the study ultimately seeks to determine whether a process of self-transformation arises from their yoga practice. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus provides a very useful context for describing the study participants’ shared disposition and values. The women’s demographic characteristics, for example, help explain why they were attracted to and maintained a regular yoga practice. An aspect of their habitus is also distinctly feminine, incorporating values of connectedness and holism. The women’s experiences were examined to consider why they were practicing yoga. In an exploration of the processes that emerged from the women’s experiences of Iyengar yoga, a paradox arose concerning the nature of ‘the Self’ that is depicted by yoga philosophy, and ‘the self’ that is portrayed in modern societies. To examine how ideals from the West and the East have come together in the modern practice of yoga, the women’s experiences are compared here with Giddens’ ‘reflexive project of the self’ (a process of self-actualisation) and the broader principles of classical yoga (a process of self-realisation). Western practices, like Giddens’ project, emphasise processes of ‘becoming’: a means to perpetually progress and improve oneself. Eastern practices, however, give priority to states of ‘being’, via the cultivation of awareness to attain experiences of constancy and stillness within. The women’s stories and experiences are integral to understanding the processes of self-transformation that arise from their yoga practice. Their experiences demonstrate that although initially reasons for practicing yoga identify primarily with Giddens’ reflexive project (‘becoming’), through the practice of yoga their experiences become embodied (����being����). The thesis explores the evolving interplay between ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ that ensues from experiences of Iyengar yoga, and explains how and why these processes of self-transformation impact on the lives of the women interviewed.
PhD Doctorate

Dans le contexte de l’expression moderne de la religiosité, l’étude explore comment les méthodes de l’Ashtanga yoga produisent l’expérience de la transformation chez les individus qui les pratiquent et qui atteint, dans une certaine mesure, leur entourage. Ethnographiquement, le mémoire se concentre sur le rituel principal de l’Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga (AVY), les séances de style Mysore, telle qu’exercé par la communauté de pratiquants de la Sattva Yoga Shala à Montréal. En tant que performance, le rituel met en branle le potentiel de transformation. La pratique de ce yoga implique une discipline et un apprentissage draconien sur une longue échelle temporelle qui amènent, au fur et à mesure, des changements se répercutant dans/et influençant le vécu quotidien des adeptes. Le mémoire résume d’abord les bases littéraires du yoga, et le contexte historique de l’avènement de l’AVY ainsi que celui de sa venue à Montréal. Pour solidifier l’analyse, le travail poursuit par l’idéologie et la praxis du groupe d’étude. Le coeur de l’analyse suit. Nous examinons premièrement les modalités potentielles à la transformation du soi, c’est-à-dire les éléments rituels généraux et ceux spécifiques à l’AVY; puis, nous nous penchons sur ce que ces modalités développent, permettent, et changent chez les répondants, donc leurs impacts. Dans cette recherche, l’Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga est à la fois une réalité empirique et une catégorie analytique servant à approfondir les connaissances anthropologiques sur le phénomène de la transformation personnelle selon le cadre expérientiel de la religiosité moderne.
Within the context of the modern expression of religiosity, this study explores how the methods of Ashtanga yoga is produce the experience of transformation for the individual who practices them, and to a certain extent, his or her surroundings. Ethnographically, the thesis concentrates on the main ritual of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga (AVY), Mysore style sessions, as practiced by the community of practitioners at Sattva Yoga Shala in Montreal. Through its execution, the ritual sets into motion the potential for transformation. The practice of this yoga involves long-term discipline and a draconian learning process whose gradual changes influence and/or carry over into the daily experience of devotees. The thesis first summarizes the textual foundations of yoga, and the historical context of both the rise of AVY, as well as its arrival in Montreal. To solidify the analysis, the work continues with the ideology and praxis of the study group. The heart of the analysis follows. In the analysis, I first examine potential modalities of self-transformation; that is to say, general elements of ritual and those specific to AVY. I go on to examine their impact, that is, what these modalities develop, allow and change for practitioners. In this research, Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga is simultaneously an empirical reality and an analytical category serving to deepen the anthropological knowledge of the phenomenon of personal transformation according to the experiential framework of modern religiosity.

Author: Bc. Barbora Valková Title: Modern fitness systems in outpatient physiotherapy Objectives: The main goal of this work is to describe a fitness systems that can be part of the therapy patients and to determine what these systems are used in physiotherapy. Methods: The research was conducted per a survey. I sent e-mails physiotherapists along with a request to fill. Regardless of the type of facility in which they work, age and length of experience. Survey consisted of two parts, demographic and special. Total survey questionnaire was completed by 137 physiotherapists. Results: The most commonly used system was Bosu. In addition to the described systems are still using TRX system, trampolines, functional circuit training and jungle. Other systems in the results are initially therapeutic systems and their use in fitness centers is low. They were also given access systems such as zumba, piloxing, cross fit, spinning and others. Their use during therapy did not show. Keywords: yoga, pilates, kettlebell, bosu, flowin