What Is Yoga?

The stated intention of this documentary is to validate the yoga belief system in modern society and clear up some of the common misconceptions about its practice. For instance, those convoluted contortions most people associate with yoga is actually asana, one of many devotions performed by yogins to attain the Yoga State of Being (basically Nirvana with a Hindu twist). The video presents several yoga practitioners--including actor Willem Dafoe--passionately extolling the psychological and physiological benefits of this ancient metaphysical philosophy while demonstrating advanced asana positions to an accompanying sitar-ish soundtrack. Nebulous terms like "centeredness" and "interconnectedness" are frequently used by the video's yoga adherents to convey the transcendent allure of their ritual and to encourage the uninitiated to begin yoga practice. Curiously, amidst all the discourse on yoga's spiritual stuffing, there is scant mention of its unique archaic origin in the Sanskrit Upanishads (circa 800 BC), or of its cultural importance in the Hindu societies of India and Nepal. The video's main drawback vis á vis public libraries, however, is its lack of step-by-step yoga instruction--the expected main course of any video with "yoga" on its cover. Optional. Aud: P. (W. Pierce)