By Jamie Clarke
If you practice modern yoga today, wherever you are in the world, it would be an effort to not only notice its wide variety of styles, but also its wide spectrum of intentions and objectives. It’s clear that the West has McYoga’d the asana practice as only the West can, heralding an aesthetic, performing-art expression, worshipping form and beauty, rather than prioritising its spiritual objectives. In many cases the obsession with the physical practice has led to an increased ego identification, as opposed to the opposite endeavour, its dissolution. The different intentions and methods are of course completely personal in terms of the why and how, however it’s also clear that, more and more, the practices are being mis-used to distract away from their traditional purposes.