RAMAKRISHNA (1836–1886). Hindu mystic. Described the physical sensations of kundalini running up his spine.
MEL ROBIN (1934– ). Yogi scientist. Worked for decades at Bell Telephone Laboratories before studying the science of yoga. Authored books in 2002 and 2009 on the inner repercussions.
W. RITCHIE RUSSELL (1903–1980). British neurologist at Oxford University. Warned in 1972 that extreme bending of the neck in strenuous yoga poses can result in debilitating strokes.
LEE SANNELLA (1916–2010). San Francisco psychiatrist. Authored a 1976 book arguing that kundalini leads to enlightenment rather than madness. Helped found the Kundalini Crisis Clinic.
BETH SHAW (1966– ). Los Angeles entrepreneur. Founded YogaFit, a vigorous style that combines push-ups, sit-ups, and other repetitive exercises with yoga postures.
RANJIT SINGH (1780–1839). Maharajah of the Punjab. Sponsored a yogi’s live burial in 1837, providing an early case study for the science of yoga.
SWAMI SIVANANDA (1887–1963). Guru to modern gurus. Taught Swami Vishnudevananda, who authored The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga and popularized the Sivananda style.
TARA STILES (1981– ). Fashion model turned yoga teacher. Opened a Manhattan studio, Strala. Authored the 2010 book Slim Calm Sexy Yoga.
CHRIS C. STREETER (1957– ). Psychiatrist and neurologist at the Boston University School of Medicine. Led studies reporting in 2007 and 2010 that the brains of yogis show increases in a neurotransmitter that acts as an antidepressant.
JILL BOLTE TAYLOR (1959– ). Neuroscientist at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Experienced right-brain euphoria after a left-brain stroke, as recounted in her 2008 book, My Stroke of Insight.
PATRICIA TAYLOR (1953– ). Money manager turned sex therapist. Studied Tantra and authored the 2002 book Expanded Orgasm.
SHIRLEY TELLES (1962– ). Indian physician and researcher. Led team reporting in 2011 that yoga can ease rheumatoid arthritis, a painful inflammation of the joints.
KEVIN J. TRACEY (1957– ). Immunologist at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island. Reported in 2002 that the vagus nerve—a major target of yogic stimulation—wields control over the immune system.
AUREL VON TöRöK (1842–1912). Director of the Anthropological Museum in Budapest. Led a 1896 study of two yogis claiming to go into deathlike trances.
KATIL UDUPA (1920–1992). Doctor and medical research director at the Benares Hindu University. Reported in 1974 that yoga can increase the production of testosterone, a sex hormone.
RICHARD USATINE (1956– ). American physician. Helped run the family medicine program at the UCLA School of Medicine. Coauthored the 2002 book Yoga Rx.
AMY WEINTRAUB (1951– ). Yoga teacher based in Tucson. Authored the 2004 book Yoga for Depression. Founded LifeForce yoga, a style designed for mood management.
CARL VON WEIZSÄCKER (1912–2007). German physicist who determined how big stars like the sun shine. Vouched for Gopi Krishna as a genuine mystic and advocated the serious study of kundalini.
DAVID GORDON WHITE (1953– ). Professor of religion at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Argued that the ancient yogis sought a mental state corresponding to the bliss of sexual orgasm.
NAN WISE (1957– ). Sex researcher at Rutgers University.0 Scanned the brains of women who can think themselves into ecstasy.
YOGANANDA (1893–1952). Celebrated yogi. Moved in 1920 from India to the United States. Authored the 1946 book Autobiography of a Yogi, the story rich in supermen and supernatural feats.
PUNJAB YOGI (c. 1837). Mystic showman. Underwent live burial in 1837 before the court of Ranjit Singh, maharajah of the Punjab. The feat became an early case study in the science of yoga.
Styles of Yoga
ANUSARA. Lighthearted. Puts emphasis on alignment of limbs and upbeat philosophy. Uses props to ease postures.
ASHTANGA. Serious. Features linked poses that flow together, as in Sun Salutation. Ties breath to postural flow. Physically demanding.
BIKRAM. Hot and sweaty. Heats practice room to loosen joints and muscles. Features twenty-six poses and two breathing exercises. Challenging.
FLOW. Graceful. Common name for styles with interconnected poses.
HATHA. Ancestral. The forerunner of all postural yoga, from medieval India. Modern forms tend to be gentle.
IYENGAR. Precise and popular. Focuses on alignment and holding poses. Uses blocks, straps, and blankets to improve positioning and avoid injury. Trains instructors for at least two years, versus weeks for many styles.
KRIPALU. Introspective. Puts emphasis on slowly introducing more challenging poses and holding them longer. Stresses awareness.
KUNDALINI. Intense. Focuses on breathing, chanting, and meditating more than postures. Seeks to awaken kundalini energy at base of spine.
POWER. Ashtanga on steroids. Many variations.
SIVANANDA. Thorough. Promotes lifestyle of moderate poses, breathing, relaxation, vegetarian diet, and cheerful attitude.
VINIYOGA. Gentle. Puts emphasis on Sun Salutations as warm-ups for more vigorous stretching.
VINYASA. Fluid. Links body movements with breath in a continuous flow. A yoga ballet.
YOGAFIT. Athletic. Targets gyms and health clubs. Mixes poses with sit-ups, push-ups, and other exercises.
Chronology
BCE
c. 2500 Clay seals of the Indus Valley civilization show figures in poses that some scholars consider the earliest known precursors of yoga. The feet of the sitting figures are tucked beneath the torso, near the genitals. The depicted individuals are seen as seeking inner heat for magic power.
438 Athens dedicates the Parthenon.
CE
c. 400 Patanjali writes Yoga Sutras, a series of aphorisms on enlightenment. It describes the value of sitting comfortably for meditation but says nothing of body twists and rearrangements despite its regular citation as a founding document of postural yoga.
c. 600 Tantra emerges in India and begins to spread through Asia. It worships female deities, roots its ceremonies in human sexuality, seeks supernatural powers for material gain, and cloaks its rites in secrecy.
c. 950 Erotic sculptures of the Lakshmana temple at Khajuraho in central India depict orgies, echoing Tantric themes.
c. 1200 Gorakhnath, a Hindu ascetic of western India, fuses traditions of Tantra and body discipline into Hatha yoga. The goal is to speed enlightenment.
1288 Marco Polo visits India.
c. 1400 Swatmarama writes Hatha Yoga Pradipika, an early text that survives to modern times. It describes fifteen postures and many techniques of physiologic arousal.
1588 A Tantric text details a magic rite meant to let a man seduce a woman against her will.
c. 1650 The Yoni Tantra advises yogis to revere the female sex organ and engage in vigorous intercourse. Suggested candidates include sisters, actresses, and prostitutes.
1687 Newton posits universal gravitation and three laws of motion.
c. 1700 The Gheranda Samhita, a Hatha text, describes thirty-two postures and many techniques of physiologic arousal.
1772 Calcutta becomes the capital of British India.
1837 A wandering yogi undergoes live burial at the court of Ranjit Singh, the maharajah of the Punjab. The interment lasts forty days and becomes a legendary wonder.
1849 Thoreau tells a friend that he considers himself a yogi—the first known instance of a Westerner making that claim.
1851 N. C. Paul authors A Treatise on the Yoga Philosophy, considered the first scientific study of yoga. It seeks to explain how yogis maintain what the Indian doctor calls states of “human hibernation” and looks to yoga breathing for clues to metabolic slowdowns.
1859 Darwin authors On the Origin of Species.
1896 Scientists study two yogis at the Millennial Exposition in Budapest who appear to go into deathlike trances.
1918 Carl Jung treats a female client in the throes of kundalini arousal—a rush of body energy
that runs from her perineum, to her uterus, to the crown of her head. His fascination with the state, central to advanced yoga, marks the beginning of Western debate on whether it results in madness or enlightenment.
1922 Gandhi is arrested for sedition during his campaign of noncooperation with the British.
1924 Jagannath G. Gune founds an ashram south of Bombay and embarks on a major experimental study of yoga as part of a comprehensive effort to improve its image.
1926 Gune reports that the Headstand and Shoulder Stand promote blood circulation but not high pressure, casting the poses as a gentle means of physical renewal.
1927 Gune advises Gandhi on how to treat high blood pressure.
1929 Edmund Jacobson, a Chicago physician, authors Progressive Relaxation. It describes how easing the muscles can treat everything from headaches to depression, echoing the techniques of yoga.
1931 Gune publishes Asanas, the term for yoga postures. The book omits any reference to supernatural feats or Tantric rites and instead focuses on health and fitness.
1932 Kovoor T. Behanan, a Yale psychologist, arrives at Gune’s ashram to study yoga.
1932 Scientists split the atom.
1933 The maharajah of Mysore in southern India hires Tirumalai Krishnamacharya to run the palace yoga studio. In time, his students become yoga’s most influential gurus.
1934 The Mysore palace sends Krishnamacharya to study Gune’s methods.
1937 Behanan of Yale reports on experiments in yogic breathing that produce “a retardation of mental functions.”
1938 Jung calls kundalini a “deliberately induced psychotic state” that can result in “real psychosis.”
1945 The first atom bomb explodes.
1946 Yogananda in Autobiography of a Yogi tells of mystic supermen who can read minds, see through walls, and bring the dead back to life.
1947 India becomes an independent state.
1953 Indra Devi authors Forever Young, Forever Healthy—the first yoga book to widely popularize the objective of ultimate health.
1957 Basu Kumar Bagchi, a scientist at the University of Michigan and onetime confidant of Yogananda, reports that yogis can achieve “an extreme slowing” of such life basics as respiration and heart rate.
1961 Bagchi reports that advanced yogis can slow but not stop their hearts—a finding that contradicts ages of miraculous claims.
1962 Scientists at Gune’s ashram find that yogis in an airtight pit can withstand live burial for hours rather than weeks.
1965 B. K. S. Iyengar authors Light on Yoga, which becomes a global bestseller. It features the language of medicine and promotes yoga as aligned with science.
1969 Astronauts land on the moon.
1970 In a laboratory, Swami Rama demonstrates mental control over blood flowing through his palm, warming and cooling different sides.
1972 W. Ritchie Russell, a British scientist and physician, warns that pronounced bending of the neck in yoga can result in strokes and crippling disabilities.
1973 Scientists report the first of what turn out to be a number of gruesome yoga strokes.
1974 Scientists at Benares Hindu University find that yoga prompts rises in testosterone—the first evidence from a clinical laboratory that yoga can enhance sexuality.
1975 Herbert Benson, a physician at Harvard, reports that meditators can lower their respiratory rate, heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen consumption. He calls the relaxed state hypometabolism.
1976 Lee Sannella, a San Francisco psychiatrist, authors a book on kundalini arousal and concludes from case studies that it promotes spiritual uplift rather than psychosis.
1976 Sannella opens the Kundalini Crisis Clinic.
1977 Voyager 1 blasts off for Jupiter and Saturn.
1978 Scientists at Stanford University report that people in Tantric meditation undergo a variety of physiologic arousals—the reverse of yoga’s usual promotion of calm serenity.
1983 Swedish scientists find that advanced yogis who breathe fast can do so without light-headedness or passing out.
1985 Czech scientists report that Tantric poses can generate surges of brain waves similar to those of lovers.
1987 The Spiritual Emergency Network finds that the typical caller to its help line is a woman with questions about kundalini.
1991 The Cold War ends.
1992 Scientists at Rutgers report that some women can think themselves into states of sexual ecstasy—an ability known clinically as spontaneous orgasm and popularly as thinking off.
1998 The National Institutes of Health begins spending public funds on yoga research, starting a wave that builds slowly in size to address such conditions as diabetes, arthritis, insomnia, depression, and chronic pain.
2001 Italian scientists report that repeating a mantra reduces respiration by about half, calming the mind.
2001 A research team at the University of California at Davis finds that yoga boosts aerobic conditioning and meets the “current recommendations to improve physical fitness and health”—a claim the sports establishment doubts and eventually seeks to disprove.
2002 Scientists at the University of British Columbia report that fast breathing can result in sexual arousal.
2002 The Consumer Product Safety Commission detects a sharp rise in yoga injuries.
2003 Yogani, an American Tantric, debuts on the Internet and draws thousands to his methods of kundalini arousal.
2004 Yogani calls kundalini a code word for sex.
2004 Russian scientists find that the Cobra position causes blood levels of testosterone to rise.
2004 Medical doctors report that fast yoga breathing ruptured a woman’s lung.
2005 Analysts at the University of Virginia review seventy studies and find that yoga promotes cardiovascular health.
2006 Indian scientists report that yoga cuts the basal metabolic rate by 13 percent, threatening students with “weight gain and fat deposition.” The finding contradicts a tradition of slenderizing claims.
2006 Graduates of More University in California report an experiment in which a woman stayed in an orgasmic state for eleven hours.
2007 Scientists at Columbia and Long Island universities report that vigorous yoga fails to meet the minimum aerobic recommendations of medical and government groups.
2007 A team at Boston and Harvard universities find that the brains of yoga practitioners exhibit rises in a neurotransmitter that acts as an antidepressant.
2008 A team based at the University of California at San Francisco finds that yoga increases the production of telomerase, an enzyme linked to cellular longevity.
2009 The discovery of telomerase and its role in the human body wins a Nobel Prize.
2009 Investigators at the University of Pennsylvania report that yoga can reduce hypertension and its precursors—factors linked to stroke and cardiovascular disease.
2009 Scientists in Philadelphia report that yoga activates the right brain—the side that governs creativity.
2009 A team at the University of British Columbia shows that fast breathing can heighten sexual arousal among healthy women as well as those with diminished sex drives.
2010 Analysts at the University of Maryland examine more than eighty studies and find that yoga equals or surpasses exercise in reducing stress, improving balance, diminishing fatigue, decreasing anxiety, lifting moods, and improving sleep.
2010 Indian scientists report that men and women who take up yoga enjoy wide improvements in their sex lives, including better desire, arousal, satisfaction, and emotional closeness with partners.
2011 Physicians in Taiwan find that yoga lessens the incidence of spinal deterioration.
2011 Indian scientists report that yoga can ease trauma from rheumatoid arthritis, a painful inflammation of the joints that afflicts millions of people.
2011 Connecticut researchers find that elderly women who take up yoga improve their sense of balance.
Prologue
Yoga is everywhe
re among the affluent and the educated. The bending, stretching, and deep breathing have become a kind of oxygen for the modern soul, as a tour of the neighborhood shows rather quickly. New condo developments feature yoga studios as perks. Cruise ships tout the accomplishments of their yoga instructors, as do tropical resorts. Senior centers and children’s museums offer the stretching as a fringe benefit—Hey, parents, fitness can be fun. Hollywood stars and professional athletes swear by it. Doctors prescribe it for natural healing. Hospitals run beginner classes, as do many high schools and colleges. Clinical psychologists urge patients to try yoga for depression. Pregnant women do it (very carefully) as a form of prenatal care. The organizers of writing and painting workshops have their pupils do yoga to stir the creative spirit. So do acting schools. Musicians use it to calm down before going on stage.
Not to mention all the regular classes. In New York City, where I work, it seems like a yoga studio is doing business every few blocks. You can also take classes in Des Moines and Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Once an esoteric practice of the few, yoga has transformed itself into a global phenomenon as well as a universal icon of serenity, one that resonates deeply with tense urbanites. In 2010, the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, began illustrating its parking tickets with a series of calming yoga poses.
The popularity of yoga arises not only because of its talent for undoing stress but because its traditions make an engaging counterpoint to modern life. It’s unplugged and natural, old and centered—a kind of anti-civilization pill that can neutralize the dissipating influence of the Internet and the flood of information we all face. Its ancient serenity offers a new kind of solace.
The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards Page 2