Over dinner and generally amongst our guests the upsurge and role of yoga in our lives is often discussed.

Mysore is one of the major centres of Yoga in India.

One of the concerns I have is how about the I and we. (its one of my pre-occupations which is fundamental to the human condition) it turns out that this bothers a lot of the yoga teachers that come here to train, too. Its reflected in the quote below.

“In the New York Times, American writer Judith Warner noted a disturbing social trend. Just as the women of the mid-70s took flight into consciousness-raising groups, the workforce, divorce and casual sex, their daughters are also taking flight, but that flight is inwards. “They’re fleeing to yoga,” she writes in the Times, “imitating flight in the downward-gazing contortion called the crow position. They’re striving, through exquisite new adventures in internal fine-tuning, to feel more deeply, live more meaningfully, better inhabit each and every moment of each and every day.”

check the whole article here

Now don’t misunderstand me. I feel that yoga is an integral part of life here and its great that it has becomes popular around the world. But its only half the story in more ways than one. Many in the west who follow yoga recognise that the inward focus  (on I) is only the beginning of the process and that in time as it develops within the person it blossoms into ‘we’ .  it follows the Gandhian dictum ‘be the change you want to see’ so i feel that the inward focus is only the beginning of the process. The problem is, in my humble view, that that is where is stays for many people. the shift from the I to the w just doesn’t seem to happen.