Saving Yogis: Spiritual Nationalism and the Proselytizing Missions of Global Yoga

Abstract

The portable practice of yoga first migrated through unidirectional networks that transported knowledge from India to the West in the early twentieth century. Today, yoga flows through multidirectional and reverse networks, exposing new forms of hypermobility. This chapter analyzes one of these reverse networks by focusing particularly on how North American yogis export yoga globally through proselytization, marketing, and yoga sevā (“selfless service”) tourism. It reveals how these modern yogis construct the practice as a universal good, and the benefits of “doing yoga” are often parsed with religious language. The author argues that the current hypermobility of yoga is more productively analyzed through missiological models of proselytization and conversion as opposed to economic models of production and consumption. Keywords: yoga, spirituality, secularism, proselytization, globalization, nationalism Introduction Many contemporary postural yoga practitioners believe that postural yoga is an ancient spiritual practice birthed on the Indian subcontinent approximately 5000 years ago. The Indian government has reinforced this common popular understanding by revitalizing and claiming yoga as a product of India through global extravaganzas, like the inaugural International Yoga Day (IYD) on 21 June 2015 (Associated Press 2015). In a speech at the United Nations leading up to the 2015 IYD celebrations, Indian Prime Minister (PM), Narendra Modi characterized yoga as “an invaluable…