A yogi is an individual who has attained spiritual mastery. A much better word to use for someone who practices yoga is yogin (male) or yogini (female).
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"from enlightened beings to pregnant teenagers"? Who are you to say there is a difference? Or do you just have contempt for both?
The photograph of the Yamuna River is breathtaking, simply beautiful!
I developed that piece of land in the very first photo, high in the hills of Northern New Mexico at 8,500' just below Santa Clara peak, outside of Espanola. I put in the utilities and lived there, birthing my 3rd child on that land in 1979, and raising my three boys on that 160 acre parcel until they were 6, 8, and 10. An extremely be-you-to-full piece of natural beauty. No TV, no Internet, just us wandering the 4' deep snowfalls with the cloud cover only 10' above us.
Our family left 3HO for identical organizational reasons found in any cult. Yoga so often is used to create fiefdoms which strangle spirit, as was the case in this cult.
That does not take away from the experiences of connection as you see on the faces linked hand in hand up in nature's cradle.
Someday, perhaps, we will as a society, know the secret that connection is everywhere, and no change or adoption of anyone else's culture is required.
During the 60's and 70's we rejected our USA culture to adopt another culture. But no real difference there.
Yoga = Union, and for that, we can achieve within our American traditions as much or even better than adopting those of others just because they are different.
Keep sikhing all!
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