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Authors: William J Broad
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Federal centers tend to specialize in advanced kinds of esoteric research as well as pressing issues of public health, with their investigations typically carried out at institutes and universities. In short, modern science seemed to care little.
The exception turned out to be areas where yoga intersected other disciplines or made bold claims strongly at odds with the conventional wisdom. Such crossroads proved to be scientifically rich. For instance, scientists interested in sports medicine and exercise physiology had lavished attention on yoga’s fitness claims. So, too, physicians had zeroed in on yoga’s reputation for safety.
The limitations of the current literature sent me casting a wide net, and I immediately made a big catch. It was a very old book— A Treatise on the Yoga Philosophy —written by a young Indian doctor and published in 1851 in Benares (now known as Varanasi), the ancient city on the Ganges that marks the spiritual heart of Hinduism. It came to my attention because a few Western scholars had referred to it in passing.
I got lucky and found that Google Books had recently scanned Harvard’s copy into its electronic archive, so I was able to download the whole thing in a flash. Its language was archaic. But the author had addressed the science of yoga with great skill, illuminating an important aspect of respiratory physiology that many authorities still get wrong today.
The book surprised me because I had been told that Indian research on yoga—though pioneering—wastypically of poor quality. But I kept finding gems. A curious scientist, often working in India or born in India and doing research abroad, would address some riddle of yoga and make important finds. It happened not only with respiratory physiology but psychology, cardiology, endocrinology, and neurology. The scientists often acted with rigor, going against the day’s tide.
Intrigued, I traveled to India to learn more about these early investigators and eventually came to see them as a kind of intellectual vanguard. Their reports tended to predate the electronic archives of PubMed, making them all but invisible to modern researchers. But their findings turned out to be central to the field’s development.
As I widened my research, I had the great good fortune to sit at the feet of Mel Robin, a veteran yoga teacher and star of yoga science. Mel had worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories (the birthplace of the transistor, the heart of computer chips) for nearly three decades before turning to an investigation of yoga. His labor of love produced two massive books totaling nearly two thousand pages. What Mel did uniquely was roam far beyond the literature of yoga to show how the general discoveries of modern science bear on the discipline. His example encouraged the kind of independent thinking I had begun at the University of Wisconsin.
Over the years, the widening of my research brought me into contact not only with Mel but a wonderful variety of scientists, healers, yogis, medical doctors, mystics, federal officials, and other students of what science tells us about yoga. If science is the spine of this book, they are the flesh and blood.
My focus is practical. In places, the book touches on topics of Eastern spirituality—meditation and mindfulness, liberation and enlightenment—but makes no effort to explore them. Rather, it zeroes in relentlessly on what science tells us about postural yoga. I mean no disrespect to the Hindu religion or spiritual traditions that embrace the big picture. But if this book succeeds, it does so because it limits itself to a poorly known body of reductionist findings. Even so, I should note that I view the scientific process as limited and unable to answer the most important questions in life, as does any true believer. The epilogue explores what may lie beyond.
In the end, my examination revealed not only a wealth of findings but a remarkable lack ofknowledge among yogis, gurus, and
The exception turned out to be areas where yoga intersected other disciplines or made bold claims strongly at odds with the conventional wisdom. Such crossroads proved to be scientifically rich. For instance, scientists interested in sports medicine and exercise physiology had lavished attention on yoga’s fitness claims. So, too, physicians had zeroed in on yoga’s reputation for safety.
The limitations of the current literature sent me casting a wide net, and I immediately made a big catch. It was a very old book— A Treatise on the Yoga Philosophy —written by a young Indian doctor and published in 1851 in Benares (now known as Varanasi), the ancient city on the Ganges that marks the spiritual heart of Hinduism. It came to my attention because a few Western scholars had referred to it in passing.
I got lucky and found that Google Books had recently scanned Harvard’s copy into its electronic archive, so I was able to download the whole thing in a flash. Its language was archaic. But the author had addressed the science of yoga with great skill, illuminating an important aspect of respiratory physiology that many authorities still get wrong today.
The book surprised me because I had been told that Indian research on yoga—though pioneering—wastypically of poor quality. But I kept finding gems. A curious scientist, often working in India or born in India and doing research abroad, would address some riddle of yoga and make important finds. It happened not only with respiratory physiology but psychology, cardiology, endocrinology, and neurology. The scientists often acted with rigor, going against the day’s tide.
Intrigued, I traveled to India to learn more about these early investigators and eventually came to see them as a kind of intellectual vanguard. Their reports tended to predate the electronic archives of PubMed, making them all but invisible to modern researchers. But their findings turned out to be central to the field’s development.
As I widened my research, I had the great good fortune to sit at the feet of Mel Robin, a veteran yoga teacher and star of yoga science. Mel had worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories (the birthplace of the transistor, the heart of computer chips) for nearly three decades before turning to an investigation of yoga. His labor of love produced two massive books totaling nearly two thousand pages. What Mel did uniquely was roam far beyond the literature of yoga to show how the general discoveries of modern science bear on the discipline. His example encouraged the kind of independent thinking I had begun at the University of Wisconsin.
Over the years, the widening of my research brought me into contact not only with Mel but a wonderful variety of scientists, healers, yogis, medical doctors, mystics, federal officials, and other students of what science tells us about yoga. If science is the spine of this book, they are the flesh and blood.
My focus is practical. In places, the book touches on topics of Eastern spirituality—meditation and mindfulness, liberation and enlightenment—but makes no effort to explore them. Rather, it zeroes in relentlessly on what science tells us about postural yoga. I mean no disrespect to the Hindu religion or spiritual traditions that embrace the big picture. But if this book succeeds, it does so because it limits itself to a poorly known body of reductionist findings. Even so, I should note that I view the scientific process as limited and unable to answer the most important questions in life, as does any true believer. The epilogue explores what may lie beyond.
In the end, my examination revealed not only a wealth of findings but a remarkable lack ofknowledge among yogis, gurus, and
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