The Science of Yoga

reflections ran throughout the volume. But Sinclair kept the fundamentals simple, as with the opening lines of the collection:
     
    Beneath the surface of this world,
Invisible to the naked eye,
Exists an energetic framework,
The basis of both you and I.
     
    Over the years, a number of intriguing clues about the relationship between yoga and creativity have come to light. It seems like they now constitute a significant body of evidence. Still, the findings are relatively modest. Other topics more central to the discipline—health, fitness, safety—have received more attention.
    One reason for the comparatively slow advance is sheer complexity. By definition, creativity goesto deep issues of psychology and ultimately what it means to be human—areas that science has always had a hard time investigating. Science tends to do the easiest things first. It is nothing if not practical. This fact of scientific life suggests the magnitude of the challenge that investigators face.
    Even so, the importance of the subject and the potential richness of the returns make it attractive. Big risks can produce big rewards. It is the kind of topic that might flourish in the decades ahead.
    The cottage industry might grow into schools. Maybe cures would emerge for creative paralysis. Creative blocks might go extinct. Perhaps many people would learn how, as Menuhin put it so eloquently, to draw out their “maximum resonance.” Maybe world leaders would take up yoga as an aid to their deliberations, formalizing the kind of reflective calm that Larry Payne introduced at Davos.
    Maybe yoga would soar.

Epilogue
    R un the clock forward a century or two. What is yoga like? It seems to me that, based on current trends, two very different outcomes are possible. Both revolve around science, otherwise known as the pursuit of systematized truth.
    In one scenario, the fog has thickened as competing groups and corporations vie for market share among the bewildered. The chains offer their styles while spiritual groups offer theirs, with experts from the various camps clashing over differing claims. Immortality is said to be in the offing. The disputes resemble the old disagreements of religion. But factionalism has soared. Whereas yoga in the late twentieth century began to splinter into scores of brands—all claiming unique and often contradictory virtues—now there are hundreds. Yet, for all the activity, yoga makes only a small contribution to global health care because most of the claims go unproven in the court of medical science. The general public sees yoga mainly as a cult that corporations seek to exploit.
    In the other scenario, yoga has gone mainstream and plays an important role in society. A comprehensive program of scientific study early in the twenty-first century produced a strong consensus on where yoga fails and where it succeeds. Colleges of yoga science now abound. Yoga doctors are accepted members of the establishment, their natural therapies often considered gentler and more reliable than pills. Yoga classes are taught by certified instructors whose training is as rigorous as that of physical therapists. Yoga retreats foster art and innovation, conflict resolution and serious negotiating. Meanwhile, the International Association of Yoga Centenarians is lobbying for an extensive program of research on new ways of improving the quality of life among the extremely old. Its president, Sting, recently embarked on a world tour to build political support for the initiative.
    In short, I see the discipline as having arrived at a turning point. It has reached not only a critical mass of practitioners but a critical juncture in its development.
    Yoga can grow upor remain an infant—a dangerous infant with a thing for handguns. Traditionalists may find it loathsome. But growing up in this case means that yoga has to come into closer alignment with science, accelerating the process begun by Gune, Iyengar, and the other pioneers. The timeless image is a mirage. Yoga has changed many times over the centuries and needs to change again.
    The stakes are enormous—and not just for the millions of practitioners who expect a safe experience. The really gargantuan issue is helping the discipline realize its potential.
    I caught a glimpse of the future that Friday night at Kripalu when Amy Weintraub said, “It really saved my life.” Her testimony still rings in my ears, giving me hope for better ways of fighting the blues.
    In antiquity,