(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,...
Military and commercial societies differ in the evaluations that they make, as do spiritual and secular, and industrial-urban and agricultural -- pre-industrial ones.
Blend et al. 258)
The blending of so many values in the constitution of a movement is not unlike a mirror of the culture in which the movement has evolved. Yoga, in the U.S. is therefore a reflection of the broader society and what better reflects the U.S. culture of sociology than the formation of a sub-group that intones the spiritual and physical of the INDIVIDUAL as the core of reality.
Works Cited
Blend, Charles, et al. Emile Durkheim, 1858-1917: A Collection of Essays, with Translations and a Bibliography. Ed. Kurt H. Wolff. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1960.
Rosin, Hanna "Striking a Pose" The Atlantic Monthly December 2006, 114-119.
Turner, Bryan S. Max Weber: From History to Modernity. London: Routledge, 1993.
