'The Story of Yoga': Alistair Shearer focuses on growth of yoga in the West

The Story of Yoga carefully explains how this pre-eminent form of communal exercising in the West is a mere subset of a larger universe whose ultimate goal is self-actualisation

Yoga, the ancient Indian form of spiritual and physical sustenance, has been weaponised today as the pre-eminent form of communal exercising in the West. In the book under review, Alistair Shearer charts this rather rapid change and discusses what it means for a practice that has traditionally been multidimensional.

Shearer’s study is expansive, detailing the origins of yoga in the subcontinent about 5,000 years ago. The Upanishads and the Mahabharata have multiple references to yoga, but those involve detailed instructions on its performative aspect. Shearer is more interested in how the word, which translates to “union”, sits at the centre