ABSTRACT Yoga is an increasingly visible and versatile commodity in the United States health market. Though its origins stretch to pre-Vedic India and its traditional religious purpose is linked to Hinduism, it is evident that yoga has undergone much change since its transmission to U.S. culture. In its popular, widespread …
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ABSTRACT Yoga is an increasingly visible and versatile commodity in the United States health market. Though its origins stretch to pre-Vedic India and its traditional religious purpose is linked to Hinduism, it is evident that yoga has undergone much change since its transmission to U.S. culture. In its popular, widespread incarnation in the United States, yoga is not usually learned at the feet of a guru, but at exercise centers and gyms. These secular locales of yoga’s practice help define the “yoga phenomenon” in contemporary America. This phenomenon has resulted in yoga’s wide acceptance and high visibility in American popular culture — especially within the “cultic milieu” as it is expressed in the “spiritual marketplace” and “therapeutic culture.” Yoga’s apparent transformation from an explicitly Hindu religious practice to one located in cultural environments that appear non-religious on the surface (such as gyms or therapeutic regimens) is a topic of interest in religious studies. Of even greater interest to religious studies, however, is the argument put forward by some scholars that these non-religious environments are actually profoundly religious in character and suggest that yoga’s apparent transformation is a manifestation of a new type of religious experience within the United States.
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