Reviews for Get the Picture: You are M.O.R.E. Than Science, Religion, Philosophy, Self or Society Can De...

The average rating for Get the Picture: You are M.O.R.E. Than Science, Religion, Philosophy, Self or Society Can De... based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-06-25 00:00:00 Mark Jacob An anthropologist's view of how colonialism and post-colonialism has affected modern yoga in India. The author's stated goal is ambitious: "the purpose...is to question modern assumptions about yoga, and question assumptions about civilization, modernity, and nationalism." Unfortunately, the academic jargon put me off. I lack the vocabulary and the knowledge of social anthropology's conceptual basis and so found myself reading and rereading the same paragraphs to try and discern what exactly Professor Alter was saying. Someone more familiar with these things might have an easier time. This is unfortunate, because at some level the book struck me as necessary to understand modern yoga's disconnect or distortion of traditions that in some cases can be traced back at least two millennia. For more on the traditions, I would refer any reader to the recently released Roots of Yoga, which draws from the wide range of texts going back as far as the Bhagavad Gita and Upanisads up to about the 17th century. Alter has some interesting things to say about the "science" or "pseudoscience" of yoga and how it depends on cultural context (what is considered medically sound scientific investigations of yoga in India versus Western ideas about the same). I'll probably go back to this book, but in the meantime, I'll be learning more about the textual roots in Mallinson's and Singleton's excellent book.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-12-03 00:00:00 Yaron Deskalo Very dense chapters on Yoga, especially towards the middle of the book. Recommend the Yoga Alliance session that is on YouTube if you do not have the patience for this sort of academic writing on Yoga.