Another article on Singleton and his findings

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This is a potent combination for generating teacher charisma.

Muktananda did it, and so have many other male yoga teachers.

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Singleton mentions that some militant nationalists and freedom fighters used yogapractice as a front for instruction in violent methods of resistance.

One of them wasTiruka, or Sri Raghavendra Rao, who pretended to be a travelling guru teaching yoga,while in reality training recruits in a combination of exercise and combat practices (103).As Singleton observes:“To ‘do yoga’ or to be a yogi in this sense meant to train oneself as a guerrilla,using whichever martial and body-strengthening techniques were to hand, and it is thusthat the yoga tradition itself, as Roselli [1980:147] puts it, ‘could be used to underwriteboth violence and non-violence’” (my emphasis, Singleton 2010:104).

In a way, the violent, institutionalised ascetic of India’s recent past was creativelyre-fashioned by nationalists like Tiruka “to fit current needs and future aspirations” (myemphasis, 102; also 101,106).

The “close relationship that obtained between nationalist struggle on the one hand and the early formulations of modern (postural) yoga on theother”, is highlighted by the interesting fact of Tiruka’s own teachers – who included Rajaratna Manick Rao, a figure instrumental in the infusion of physical cultural principlesin the akhâla; yogic physical culture pioneer, Swami Kuvalayananda; the influentialmodern transnational gurus, Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh and ParamahamsaYogananda, as well as the Rajah of Aundh (103-104).Depending on the context and discourse at work, the hatha yogi could either becast as “reviled other” or held up as “the ideal of embodied power in the world” (106).

Regarding the latter, Singleton notes how modern physical culture proponents in India often selectively “combined in themselves the mythos of the medieval siddha5with themodern day strong man”

(my emphasis, 106).

All this is a very long way from the renunciation of bodily pleasure and food restriction traditionally practiced by ascetics.

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As the self-styled ‘householder yogi,’ Yogendra perhaps did more than anyone (barringKuvalayananda) to carve out the kind of public health and fitness regimen thattoday dominates the transnational yoga industry – often in explicit opposition tothe secretive, mystical hatha yogi” (my emphasis, Singleton 2010:117).T

he “posture-exercises” advocated by Yogendra in his popular yoga manuals owedsignificant debts to Ling gymnastics, J.P. Müller’s calisthenics as well as the influence offigures like Eugen Sandow, François Delsarte and Bernarr Macfadden (118).

Singleton indicates that Yogendra’s criticisms of them notwithstanding, he employed much the same exercise regimen, model of holistic self-development and rhetoric of moral uplift(118-119).

***Influenced by the Social Darwinist, Lamarckian and eugenic trends of his time,Yogendra believed like many others that it was Sākhya yoga which first generated the concept of evolution (120).

***Formulating his own yoga eugenics, he held that yoga could accelerate human evolution both physically, mentally and morally, dubbing the process sśīghramoksahetu(“the cause of swift liberation”) (120).

Corboy (wonder if this is part of the source for all the chatter we hear these days about yoga or other inner practices facilitating human evolution?)

As pointed out by Singleton,the way in which Yogendra “equates mokṣa with the evolutionary project of ‘modernscience’ and eugenics shows the extent to which his vision of yoga diverges from‘classical’ yogic conceptions of liberation” (120).

Not only did he divest traditional yoga of its magical aspects, but also steered it away from a penchant for individual power andliberation towards a preoccupation with the improvement of the entire human population,including future generations (120-122).

Another significant figure mentioned by Singleton is the famous Indian bodybuilder,K.V. Iyer (1897-1980), who produced a synthesis of bodybuilding and yoga, building on the work of earlier pioneers like Ramamurthy. He incorporated “haṭha yogic exercise aspart of a larger, highly aestheticized physical culture regime based on Western models”(122).

While strongly influenced by Western physical culturalists and bodybuilders likeBernarr Macfadden, Eugen Sandow, Charles Atlas and Maxick, he additionally believed practice of haṭha yoga was needed for superior health (122-123).

...Indeed, Iyer boasted he had “a body which Gods covet” (my emphasis,Singleton 2010:122, quoting Iyer 1927:163) and judging from many of his (admittedly17
beautiful) poses, he must have been referring to the Greek ones.7 Iyer had the samepatron (the Maharaja of Mysore) as Krishnamacharya, and was widely influential –opening gymnasia, featuring in international physical culture magazines, publishingbooks and articles, and offering bodybuilding correspondence courses (Singleton2010:122-125

Schism Emerges in Bikram Yoga Empire Amid Rape Claims

By JACK HEALYFEB. 23, 2015

LOS ANGELES — He is the yoga guru who built an empire on sweat and swagger. He has a stable of luxury cars and a Beverly Hills mansion. During trainings for hopeful yoga teachers, he paces a stage in a black Speedo and holds forth on life, sex and the transformative power of his brand of hot yoga. “I totally cure you,” he has told interviewers. “Whatever the problem you have.”

But a day of legal reckoning is drawing closer for the guru, Bikram Choudhury. He is facing six civil lawsuits from women accusing him of rape or assault. The most recent was filed on Feb. 13 by a Canadian yogi, Jill Lawler, who said Mr. Choudhury raped her during a teacher-training in the spring of 2010.

This month, a Los Angeles judge cleared away several challenges to a lawsuit from a former student who said Mr. Choudhury raped her during another 2010 teacher-training.

The first complaint was filed two years ago. As more surfaced, and more women spoke publicly about accusations of assault and harassment, their accounts have created fissures in the close-knit world of yoga students and teachers who have spent thousands of dollars to study with Mr. Choudhury; opened studios bearing his name; and found strength, flexibility and health in his formula of 26 yoga postures in a sweltering room.

Many have stayed loyal to a man they call Boss and revere as an eccentric guru. Others are walking away.

“A lot of people have blinders on,” said Sarah Baughn, 29, a onetime Bikram yoga devotee and international yoga competitor whose lawsuit against Mr. Choudhury in 2013 was like an earthquake among followers of his style of yoga. “This is their entire world. They don’t want to accept that this has happened.”

Mr. Choudhury, who remains the face of his yoga empire, his grinning photo placed prominently on the home page of Bikram’s Yoga College of India, denies any wrongdoing and faces no criminal charges.

A statement issued by lawyers for Mr. Choudhury and his yoga college, which is also named as a defendant in the lawsuits, said that “Mr. Choudhury did not sexually assault any of the plaintiffs” and that the women were “unjustly” exploiting the legal system for financial gain.

“Their claims are false and dishonor Bikram yoga and the health and spiritual benefits it has brought to the lives of millions of practitioners throughout the world,” the statement said. “After a thorough investigation, the Los Angeles County district attorney declined to file any sexual assault charges against Mr. Choudhury or the college for lack of evidence.”

An August trial date has been set in Ms. Baughn’s case. In her complaint, she said Mr. Choudhury pursued her starting with a teacher-training she attended in 2005, when she was 20. She said he had whispered sexual advances during classes, and had assaulted and groped her in a hotel room and at his home.

In the other case involving a 2010 teacher-training, Mr. Choudhury’s lawyers argued that the woman had waited too long to file the lawsuit, beyond the statute of limitations. But the judge denied parts of the lawyers’ argument, saying the woman, known in court papers as Jane Doe No. 2, had endured so much damage to her life and psyche that most of the suit could move ahead.

“The cases are moving very quickly,” said Mary Shea Hagebols, a lawyer for the six women suing Mr. Choudhury. “Any stays have been lifted, and we’re moving full steam ahead.”

Even as the lawsuits against Mr. Choudhury multiplied over the past two years, new Bikram-branded studios continued to open, joining a list of hundreds of independently operated studios in places like Buenos Aires and Shanghai. Mr. Choudhury is listed as the director of his Los Angeles headquarters, and he personally oversees the grueling, weekslong teacher-trainings that cost $12,500 per pupil.

Tiffany Friedman, owner of Haute Yogi Manhattan Beach, changed the name of her studio, scrapping the word Bikram. Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times
“There have been thousands of Bikram yoga teachers, studio owners and practitioners who have conveyed messages of support and encouragement,” the statement from his lawyers said.

But several owners have decided to jettison the name Bikram from their yoga, saying they now felt uncomfortable with the association. On the Southern California coast, Tiffany Friedman renamed her Bikram studio Haute Yogi Manhattan Beach and began offering her own mixture of yoga styles.

Ms. Friedman had been doing Bikram-style yoga for years, and she said that after buying a studio in 2008, she decided to attend a teacher-training in San Diego. She hoped to learn more about yoga philosophy, anatomy and the underpinnings of a physical practice she had come to love. She found none of that, she said.

“I was pretty much appalled,” she said. “It was very cultish.”

The daylong trainings, she said, consisted of marathon yoga practice in a roasting room, rote memorization of a yoga script to which teachers had to adhere, what she described as rambling lectures led by Mr. Choudhury and mandatory viewings of Bollywood movies until 3 a.m. She said other teacher trainees frequently massaged Mr. Choudhury as he sat in an oversize chair on stage before rows of pupils.

“I saw how people really wanted his favor and wanted him to shine a light on them and wanted to believe he was a guru and had all these powers,” Ms. Friedman said. “It was heartbreaking.”

Ms. Friedman said she had clashed with Mr. Choudhury when she had begun offering an abbreviated version of his 90-minute class, and decided to part ways with the Bikram brand after reading details from the lawsuits.

“I stopped sending people to training,” she said. “I changed the name.”

But other studio owners have drawn borders between the man and his yoga, saying his methods work. And they have continued to use his name in their business.

“I was pretty much appalled. It was very cultish," said Ms. Friedman of a teacher-training with Mr. Bikram that she attended in San Diego after buying a studio in 2008. Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times

In moment-by-moment detail, the civil suits against Mr. Choudhury accused him of harassing, targeting and assaulting young women who had once revered him.

The most recent complaint, filed by Ms. Lawler, described how she felt that “Bikram Yoga was her calling, and that her purpose was to share it with as many people as possible.” At 18, she signed up for a spring 2010 teacher-training in Las Vegas.

Lawyers for Mr. Choudhury said they had not yet been formally served with the lawsuit.

According to the complaint, Mr. Choudhury praised Ms. Lawler’s recitation of the teaching script that accompanied the yoga postures. She massaged him for hours during Bollywood viewings, the complaint said, and at one point, he began groping her.

Ms. Lawler was afraid to speak up, the court papers said, and having spent $10,000 from her college fund on the training, she felt she had to complete the course. Mr. Choudhury pulled her aside one night, apologized for touching her and promised to “make her a champion,” the complaint said.

Weeks later, Mr. Choudhury told Ms. Lawler to accompany him to his hotel room, where he sexually assaulted her, the complaint said.

According to the lawsuit, Ms. Lawler stayed part of the Bikram world for years after that; the complaint accused Mr. Choudhury of sexually assaulting her on multiple subsequent occasions, most recently in February 2013.

In July 2014, she taught her last Bikram yoga class, the lawsuit said, and took a job as a waitress.

Ms. Baughn, who once loved teaching yoga and earned accolades for her strength and flexibility on the yoga mat, has also left the yoga world. She no longer teaches or practices, and she said she could never go back.

“I went through total hell,” she said, adding: “What happened to me was awful. I’ll probably always have bad dreams.”

Correction: February 25, 2015
Because of an editing error, an article on Tuesday about civil lawsuits that accused the yoga guru Bikram Choudhury of rape and assault referred incorrectly to the actions of Tiffany Friedman, owner of Haute Yogi Manhattan Beach, during a Bikram training session. Ms. Friedman said other teacher trainees massaged Mr. Choudhury; she did not do so.

A version of this article appears in print on February 24, 2015, on page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: Schism Emerges in Bikram Yoga Empire.


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Thanks for the information here. I am finding everything on this forum so interesting.

I am working on a paper for a Spirituality in the Modern World class at UC Santa Cruz. I just can't figure out how to narrow down a specific topic. I am considering writing about the Bikram trend and ensuing scandal. It is just so typical of our times- deep spirituality turns to the dark side pretty quickly.

Any other information you guys have that would make a good research paper??? You are a wealth of knowledge.

See [www.culteducation.com]

This page is a guide on finding information throughout the database.

Thanks for the link. I see I have a lot of research to jump in to.

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Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2015 12:34AM by corboy.

You are going to find perverts and predators in all walks of life. We need to not associate a singular person’s act, or misconduct and apply it to all Spiritual Leaders or Yoga Teachers. These crimes aren't necessarily committed because of the teachings, the activity, or the group them self but by an individual. When involved in any group or activity, people need to guard themselves against blindly following any group or teacher. We need to research and educate ourselves so we know what we are getting involved in.
There are many very sincere and spiritually advanced Yoga Teachers and Spiritual Leaders in the world. It’s important that we question and check within ourselves what feels right or wrong. If something makes us uncomfortable or contradicts our values or goes against the root teachings that we are following, then we need the strength to question.
In the instance with Bikram Choudhury, it’s a shame that he used his position to take advantage of women. Does that mean that Yoga exercise is bad? Of course not. You need to look at the person’s actions and life activities, and say is this someone I want to emulate, learn from, or trust? Does he practice what he preaches? Do his teachings makes sense and feel right in my heart?

What you are saying here Tia seems right to me. We can't dismiss all yoga and spirituality as dangerous, can we?

The challenge is finding the truth and the sincere teachers and information in a sea of sharks! Tough stuff in this day and age.

Why do some people get deceived and pulled into dangerous cults and others don't. Surely it's not just about intellect. Because when it comes to seeking one's "spiritual path" it is more a matter of heart & faith than mind, it seems.