Yoga culture

After thinking about all of the assignments from this semester, and all of the movies we watched, and practices we experienced, I realized yoga really is its own specific lifestyle and culture. I was thinking about how different yoga is here in America compared to parts of India. Yoga here in America is mostly used for fitness, and to be surrounded by the yoga community that everyone thinks of as friendly, and motivational, and I love the yoga culture in America. However, the culture in India is completely different. People in India use yoga as a way for spiritual guidance, and to heal the mind and body. Part of the culture that we learned about in "Naked in Ashes" involved people performing weird austerities, and covering their bodies in ash to symbolize already being dead. Even in the different practices we had in class, you can see that some of the ideas contrast each other, making it pretty obvious that the cultures surrounding that practice are different than other ones. It was just really interesting to learn and see how one practice, YOGA, can be interpreted in so many different ways.