Sociology of Religion

¶ … Hanna Rosin's work Striking a Pose is a critical look at the exponential growth of the "yoga" movement in the United States. The work details information about yoga's exploding popularity as a form of both physical exercise and also religion, compared in Rosin's work to the popularity and commercial growth of Starbucks. The creative spirit of the United States, would seem to according to Rosin embrace such a practice, in an expressive manner, but Rosin also points out the oddity of the movement, "All though we are a society known for creative multi-tasking, it seems odd that we have mixed up our gym and our church." Rosin makes this comment within the context of a description of her own experience with yoga, as a place where the physical is tested and the mind is soothed by an intoning of the spiritual. (116) The sociology of religion is therefore explored through an American embrace of alternatives that intone individuality as well as loose spiritual guidance.

In Rosin's early days as a practitioner of yoga she retells the comical story of her first experience of yoga, not in a trendy Washington DC studio, where she lives or in the almost churchlike atmosphere of the opening of a new yoga studio in New York, she attended in conjunction with several notable celebrities, but in the living room of a yoga practitioners home, where she was enlightened more of the need to dress the part than to spiritually connect to her body and henceforth the world around her. Her description of all the scenes, that accompany the growth of yoga as a movement with different schools of thought and social pull, are sardonic but her point is well made. Yoga is fast becoming an alternative religion for millions of people in the United States, so much so that is it under the constant danger of being adulterated to meet the needs of the people who practice it. (116)

The sociology of the movement is well documented, when one looks at the stories, Rosin shares with regard to the manner in which yoga has evolved in the United States, to become what it is today. Yoga, for its practitioners is a way to multitask spiritual with physical. Get a work out and a spiritual boost in the same trendy location, despite the admonitions by most practitioners that yoga is anything but trendy. (115) "When the old yogis complain about commercialization, who can blame them? Gucci sells a yoga mat and matching bag for $655. Companies use famous yogis and yoga lingo to advertise cereal, beer and Hormel pork-loin fillets...Yoga is at a confused, precarious place, teetering on the edge of overexposure." Though, Rosin stresses that there is no real harm in the utilization of such a tool to teach and help people grow in spirituality and body, as a social outlet and a manner of life. (119)

Max Weber contends that a great deal of the importance of understanding the sociology of religion lies in understanding the way such groups access power, and in the modern America what better way for a movement to gain power than through modern media commercialization? "...one aspect of the sociology of religion is the study of how certain groups or institutions (theologians, prophets, churches and sects) attempt to control spiritual power."

Turner 28) If yoga is taken from its origins, humble as they are in the U.S. one can see that it is a totally logical step for exposure to embrace commercialization, in the least it gives yoga the power of awareness, be it true awareness or simply name recognition, it does broaden the base of power for the movement.