Gurus of Modern Yoga explores the contributions that individual gurus have made to the formation of the practices and discourses of yoga in today's world. The focus is not limited to India, but also extends to the teachings of yoga gurus in the modern, transnational world, and within the Hindu diaspora. Each of the sections deals with a different aspect of the guru within modern yoga. Included are extensive considerations of the transnational tantric guru; the teachings of modern yoga's best-known guru, T. Krishnamacharya, and those of his principal disciples; the place of technology, business and politics in the work of global yoga gurus; and the role of science and medicine. Although the principal emphasis is on the current situation, some of the essays demonstrate the continuing influence of gurus from generations past. As a whole, the book represents an extensive and diverse picture of the place of the guru in contemporary yoga practice.
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Gurus of Modern Yoga explores the contributions that individual gurus have made to the formation of the practices and discourses of yoga in today's world.
Contributors ; Note on Transliteration ; Introduction - Mark Singleton and Ellen Goldberg ; Part One: Key Figures in Early Twentieth-Century Yoga ; Chapter 1: Manufacturing Yogis: Swami Vivekananda as a Yoga Teacher - Dermot Killingley ; Chapter 2: Remembering Sri Aurobindo and the Mother: The Forgotten Lineage of Integral Yoga - Ann Gleig and Charles I. Flores ; Chapter 3: Shri Yogendra: Magic, Modernity and the Burden of the Middle-Class Yogi - Joseph S. Alter ; Part Two: The Lineages of T. Krishnamacharya ; Chapter 4: T. Krishnamacharya, "Father of Modern Yoga" - Mark Singleton and Tara Fraser ; Chapter 5: "Authorized by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois": The Role of Parampara and Lineage in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga - Jean Byrne ; Chapter 6: B.K.S. Iyengar as a Yoga Teacher and Yoga Guru - Frederick M. Smith and Joan White ; Chapter 7: The Institutionalization of the Yoga Tradition: "Gurus" B. K. S. Iyengar and Yogini Sunita in Britain - Suzanne Newcombe ; Part Three: Tantra Based Gurus ; Chapter 8: Swami Krpalvananda: The Man Behind Kripalu Yoga - Ellen Goldberg ; Chapter 9: Muktananda: Entrepreneurial Godman, Tantric Hero - Andrea R. Jain ; Chapter 10: Stretching toward the Sacred: John Friend and Anusara Yoga - Lola Williamson ; Part Four: Bhaktiyoga ; Chapter 11: Svaminarayana: Bhaktiyoga and the Aksarabhraman Guru - Hanna H. Kim ; Chapter 12: Sathya Sai Baba and the Repertoire of Yoga - Smriti Srinivas ; Part Five: Technology ; Chapter 13: Engineering an Artful Practice: On Jaggi Vasudev's ISHA Yoga and Sri Sri Ravi Shakar's Art of Living - Joanne Punzo Waghorne ; Chapter 14: Online Bhakti in a Modern Guru Organization - Maya Warrier ; Part Six: Nation-Builders ; Chapter 15: Eknath Ranade, Gurus and Jivanvratis (life-workers): Vivekananda Kendra's Promotion of the "Yoga Way of Life" - Gwilym Beckerlegge ; Chapter 16: Swami Ramdev: Modern Yoga Revolutionary - Stuart Sarbacker ; Index
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"Gurus of Modern Yoga offers needed treatments of contemporary figures whose current popularity far exceeds existing scholarly work on them-including Swami Ramdev, Sri Ravi Shankar, and Jaggi Vasudev-as well as several chapters on Krishnamacharya and his heirs."--Philip Deslippe, Nova Religio
"This fascinating collection of essays records the historical and sociological developments within particular yoga communities impacted by modernity, globalism, consumerism, competition, and technology...It is a rich contribution to the field. Recommended."
--CHOICE
"Mark Singleton and Ellen Goldberg have put together an enlightening survey of the leading yoga gurus from around the world within the Hindu diaspora." --Spirituality Practice
"Mark Singleton and Ellen Goldberg have assembled a group of essays that combine critical rigor with sympathetic insight, including many by authors with extensive personal background in the practice of yoga. It is a welcome development that the scholar-practitioner model is becoming an accepted part of the study of Indian religions. This excellent book will likely become the go-to resource for the study of modern gurus and guru-based movements." --Andrew J.
Nicholson, Stony Brook University
"This is a well-organized volume and a great resource. The essays present interesting biographies and fascinating developments of a worldwide spiritual industry that in the U.S. alone has an annual sale of supposedly more than $27 billion." --Numen
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Selling point: The first collection of cutting-edge essays on the phenomenon of gurus in modern yoga.
Selling point: Each essay represents an important facet of the modern yoga guru phenomenon.
Mark Singleton is an Instructor at St. John's College.
Ellen Goldberg is Associate Professor of South Asian Religions at Queen's University.
Selling point: The first collection of cutting-edge essays on the phenomenon of gurus in modern yoga.
Selling point: Each essay represents an important facet of the modern yoga guru phenomenon.
