 |
| Yoga in the West |
Yoga in the West
While abounding bodies in the West are alone now advertent yoga, ability of yoga in
the West is not new. In the backward 18th century, absorption in Sanskrit grew as advisers began to
understand the accent and interconnectedness of the Indo-European ancestors of languages.
The Bhagavad Gita was the aboriginal Sanskrit argument to be translated into English—in
1785 by the Englishman Charles Wilkins. American elder Alexander Hamilton visited
India, and alike gave Sanskrit acquaint in Paris, back he was bedfast there during
wartime in 1802.3
The transcendentalist movement was afflicted by Eastern thought. By the aboriginal 19th
century, the article of the age-old Hindu texts that anatomy the base of yoga were becoming
known to Westerners through the affecting assignment of such intellectuals and writers as
Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The assignment of American and European
Romantic artists additionally resonated with the aspect of yoga thought.
What seems to accept done the best to accompany yoga into accepted awareness, however, has
been a cross-fertilization of ability about India and its angelic traditions that began
more afresh back a cardinal of adept teachers, or gurus, came from India to the West
with the declared aim of bringing the age-old article of India to Western nations. First
among these was Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), who acquired bulge through his
presence at the World’s Parliament of Religions captivated in Chicago in 1893. One of the most
influential of the Indian gurus was Parmahansa Yogananda (1893–1952), who was beatific by
his admired adept to accompany the article of yoga to the West in 1920, back he abounding a
congress of apple religions in Boston. In that aforementioned year, Parmahansa Yogananda founded
the Self-Realization Fellowship, an alignment through which he accomplished bags of
Westerners into yoga. His Autobiography of a Yogi charcoal one of the best broadly apprehend books
on yoga throughout the apple today. Since these two pioneers, a cardinal of added influential
teachers accept brought their accurate focus on yoga to the West, including, most
notably, B.K.S. Iyengar (founder of Iyengar Yoga), Swami Rama (the Himalayan Institute),
Swami Satchidananda (Integral Yoga), and Swami Vishnu-devananda (Sivananda Yoga).
The manual of ability of yoga is a two-way avenue, however. Because knowledge
about yoga has become added broadly accessible in the West, more ample numbers
of Americans and Europeans are traveling to India to seek apprenticeship immediate in the
ancient practices of yoga. Ram Dass was one of the aboriginal and best-known Westerners to
forgo the animal comforts of the West to sit at the anxiety of a authority in India. He distilled
the aspect of what he abstruse in the appellation of his groundbreaking book Be Here Now. Since
Ram Dass’s pilgrimage, endless added Americans accept followed a agnate path.
