'Physicalisation': A pedagogy of body-mind cultivation for liberation in modern yoga and meditation methods

Abstract

This paper explores the transformation of a dualistic mind-body relationship as reported by participants in a recent qualitative study involving modern yoga and meditation practitioners. The stories of the practitioners focused strongly on transforming a body-self that was configured as a result of living a life in Western cultural contexts where philosophies of mind-body dualisms were taken to underpin daily practices. The practitioners described a well-trodden somatic pedagogical pathway towards liberation from domination that they called 'physicalisation'. The paper illustrates physicalisation as cultivation of bodymind unity and de-identification before exploring the three dimensions of the practitioners' embodied spatiotemporal transformations that we have termed: empowerment, mustery and negating domination. © 2008 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden.