Yoga students: What about the corporatization of yoga???

My yoga studio recently sold out to the big corporation that is buying up yoga studios all over the country.

So I started going to DH's studio. I found that it had a much more spiritual feel. It felt less like "yoga as a contact sport."

And then they sold out! A big New York sports company apparently made an offer that they couldn't refuse.

Since when is yoga about making a profit? When did it become a business and stop being a practice?

I guess that people are seeing that yoga's popularity makes it a vehicle for making money.

Anyone else have any feelings about this?

[VasudevaDas]

:-)
It happened quite a while back… when man forgot he has a soul and instead chose to focus only on his senses…

Funny that you bring it up – there was an article in the NY Times Travel section this past weekend about how yoga is now standard feature on various resorts and hotels’ packages… Its all about marketing, about trying to answer a need with a growing demand. Unfortunately the plastic yoga they sell is all about money. Again – senses without a soul… very sad.

I will try to attach it here as a PDF (I saved it off their site). Its actually quite amusing… Some places now sell vacation packages names Yoga and Chocolate (you do yoga in the day and eat chocolate at night or something like this)… if it doesn’t get attached try to look for it in the NY Times web site. The article was called “Everybody Calm? Let's Surf!” from July 24th.

Namaste

VD

[E'sMommy]

That is very interesting. Sad.