Just putting it out there: wondering about Anusara yoga, John Friend, Siddha Yoga, and Carlos Pomeda. They all seem closely connected.

I have done some Anusara yoga in an LA yoga studio recently and learned a lot as far as asanas go (really well facilitated, no doubt), but... then I noticed on the Anusara website that they have a link to Siddha Yoga and also to Carlos Pomeda (who did a weekend workshop at an Anusara yoga studio near me about a year ago). It seems that Carlos Pomeda and John Friend probably know each other from a Siddha Yoga ashram in India, both of them having spent many years there, and that Friend probably began to develop Anusara yoga during that time... I guess this is a long winded way of asking if anyone else has wondered about there being a connection between the Anusara yoga community and Siddha yoga and how strong that connection might be.

Anusara seems like a beautiful and very intelligent variety of yoga instruction, but ... I am concerned about its connection with Siddha yoga (given the information available on this website and others from former Siddha yoga members).

Thanks,

Atlas

This interests me.

I attend classes with a teacher who is trained in Anusara. Our studio seems to be very safe environment, but i do know there are some yoga nuts out there so I am careful about yoga.

The question you are asking needs to broken down into three parts. I should state that I don't know much about Siddha yoga and i should do some research here. So for me the three parts of the question are, and I am assuming there is a general danger with siddha yoga, what was the connection in the past, has that connection had an effect on the development of Anusara and is there a current relationship that anyone needs to worry about?

Personally I probably don't need to worry as I don't attend an actual Anusara school. What can you tell me about Carlos Pomeda?

One thing I can say for the Anusara philosophy is that seems to be about involvement and connection to life. Very well suited for people who want to be involved in the world and to me that seems to not be cult like. However a lot of this seems to be of John Friends creation and he has created for the western market.