Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

There’s something refreshing about immersion in the unfamiliar. Whether it’s a different environment, a different language or a different culture, the absence of the familiar creates a vantage point to see yourself. Nowhere have I found this truer than in my travels in India. There are so many things we assume to be truths. We generally chew with our mouths closed, conceal particular parts of our bodies, and drive on the same side of the road. Because we have operated within this set of assumptions for so long, we presume these traits to be truths, when in fact, they’re rules that were made up by people at some distant place in history. We may have come to like these ways of being, though the people with another set of rules are quite attached to their view, too. How many comedies have been based on this human trait? We will laugh at the alien who’s landed on Earth and struggles to learn the customs, or the mother and teenage daughter who find themself in the other’s role. Because we’v...

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The human mind tends to default into duality. We tend to divide things into categories of good or bad, right or wrong, and ultimately, us or them. It’s easiest to see the faults of others, though our continued growth asks us to identify the faults within ourselves. There is plenty of judgment within the Yoga community. One teacher claims to be teaching the oldest and truest technique, while another lineage makes the same claim. Without waging all-out war, there’s a lingering judgment that festers just beneath the surface in the western yoga world. Interestingly, there is little historical evidence to support these judgments. The primary yogic texts, the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali , scarcely mention the physical practices of Asana and Pranayama. It wasn’t until much later that texts such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika described the physical practices. Even within these relatively modern texts, there’s insufficient information to assert whether a technique is right or ...