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Western Early Practices: From Counterculture to Counterculture

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From Counterculture to Counterculture: Influences FIVE IMPORTANT EARLY INFLUENCES: The International  PHYSICAL CULTURE MOVEMENT   (19 th  century) Quasi-religious movements of physical culture went through Europe to India where they were infiltrated with popular new forms of  HINDU NATIONALISM  Found their way from India to America Now a merging of these two movements ORIENTALISM 19 th  century European scholars who studied the texts & traditions of Asia (great interest in the East) Prevalent attitudes about yoga among Orientalists Part of nation-building (Said) or more (Smith)? MODERN DANCE Traditions in the West Turn of the century female choreographers NEW AGE RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS  Share features of mysticism and esotericism and universalism with the evolving identity of yoga in the modern context. Yoga was a tradition made up of heterogenous systems of thought and practice in which individuals sought to destabilize normal consciousness and...
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What's This Course About Anyway?

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What is Yoga?   (that depends on who you ask) "The stilling of the movements of the mind" (YS 1.2)-  Yoga is a meditative technique that brings stillness and connects one to the divine force "Skill in Action" (BG 4.22) - Yoga is one's ability to perform one's action with the utmost skill so that one might always "act" properly "Yoga is a technique which stops death"(HYP 2.16) - yogic techniques are meant to stop the natural processes of time and have one experience the eternal divine force. "Yoga is the practice of non attachment" (BG 6.15) -Yoga is the ability to perform a ll actions according to one's purpose (dharma) without regard to the consequences of these actions. "Yoga is a form of exercise which  p ractice a designed to empower you with the focus, training and insight you need to achieve consistent results in the most important areas of your life." (Baron Baptiste)-  Yoga is a form of physical culture whi...
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Philosophy: The Bhagavad Gita

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  On the field of Dharma on the firld of kuru assembled together desiring to fight were my armies and indeed those of bthe pandu- how did they act o Sanjaya? 1.1 (seed mantra) "The Lord's Great Love Song" POWER POINT LINK Key Points SYNTHETIC & REVOLUTIONARY TEXT Philosophical Foundations of Hindu Philosophy Hard to put a firm date but about  400-100 BC Elitism of Yoga at the time from  Brahminical Traditions  & for men at the time of its writing Ascetics rather than lay people were capable of enlightenment.  No place for “householders” BEFORE the Baghavad Gita Opens up enlightenment to all Harmonizes all of the yogic paths Harmonizes many philosophies, jnana, advaita, Upanishads, etc. KRISHNA is imparting the GITA…not just about personal consciousness. REVOLUTIONARY TEXTS as it opens up many approaches to yoga---no intermediary needed now…PERSONAL & DIRECT & SIMPLE (no clergy needed, no complexity in this path) DEPARTURE FROM EARLIER TRADITIONS ...
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