A ticket to self-discovery: Situating yoga in yoga travel

Abstract

I problematise the understanding of yoga in popular forms of yoga travel by pointing to the discrepancy between yoga as it originated in ancient India and yoga as it is practised in contemporary Western societies. Overlooking the socio-historical and philosophical context within which yoga arose, I argue, tends to misplace the ways in which it is understood today. This gap in understanding seems to form the basis of an unhealthy hybridisation of yoga that permeates the spiritual industry today. While I am in favour of creative reinterpretation of classical beliefs and practices for contemporary use, I argue that there needs to be in place a mode of critical refl ection that disallows bogus formulations of hodgepodge to pass off as authentic systems of belief and practice.