My First Impression about the book 'The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America
By Stefanie Syman
I came across this book online while searching for a copy of the 1897 copy of Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda. I am just making some comments here in the fashion of facebook comments and not like a proper Review. Still, I suppose, our time now is a Great Time. For Good or else, we are net democratic. Net in the sense of internet and also in the sense of defining the bottom-line in any affair. Nobody is an island and every body counts and counts in some little or big way in everybody else's affairs. This is all just to say that even a first impression expressed after a (though not cursory but still only) a partial reading of a book is of some value in our times.
The book starts nicely with a very readable description of the President's Dinner function, which turns out to be first time Yoga appears in America as a mainstream affair as American as Apple Pie. The book then goes flashback and starts with Emerson's Brahma poem and then comes to talk about the Coming of the Guru to America, in the person of Swami Vivekananda.
The Author discusses a lot about Swami Vivekananda, Swami Abedhananda and Mrs. Sara Bull. She makes a lot of statements about these times, some of which I wish to contest at a future date, but the Author deserves credit for the pains she had taken to study the subject sincerely and work hard in arranging the facts and then finally in producing the book.
The American 'Yankee' spirit has done great service to the world in taking the pearl of Yoga out from the vast oceans of Hinduism and mass marketing it in different attractive versions, making Yoga a sort of secular thing, and providing it with different 'made to order' versions based on clients' specific needs.
Yoga's first good thing has reached or reaching every body - which is to keep the body steady and strong.
Yoga's first good thing has reached or reaching every body - which is to keep the body steady and strong.
Now for the next thing. The body behind the body. The Spirit within each human ..
One has to keep fit in body,
sit easy,
breath easy,
relax,
develop compassion,
send good thoughts around,
keep at it when you are on your feet,
reaching different levels of depth within while thus working,
keeping at it, strong and steady,
not getting distracted by bouquets and brickbats coming your way,
at it,
stopping not,
you reach the Goal -
the Fulfillment of Yoga.
Swami Sampurnananda - two days post Guru Purnima 2015
