Talk:Modern yoga gurus

Ram Dass and drugs

I believe this "scandal" should be removed. This occurred in his role as Professor Richard Alpert at Harvard before he became Ram Dass. I don't believe there are any scandals after he became Ram Dass, so this is misleading. Skyerise (talk) 12:58, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Just saw this; I had already removed it for that reason. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:09, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Acknowledged Gurus

It is relevant in listing modern gurus that Bishnu Charan Gosh (contemporary of BKS Iyengar) and probably also Buddha Bose be included. BC Gosh’s guru was his brother, Yogananda (contemporary of Krishnamacharya), listed this article in acknowledged gurus. Gosh and Bose toured Europe and U.S. in the late 1930s in the first broad introduction of 84 hatha yoga asanas in physical practice outside India. BC Gosh was in turn cited by B Choudhury as his guru (a contested point). While Choudhury listed a specific sequence of postures in “Bikram’s Beginning Yoga” that sequence was derived from the foundations of Yogananda, BC Gosh, and Buddha Bose in Calcutta from 1916-1950. The lineage is best cited as Gosh Yoga or Calcutta Yoga. The source reference for the foregoing events can be found in the publication, “Calcutta Yoga”, by Jerome Armstrong, 2018: Webstrong LLC. ConanBC (talk) 04:40, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

There's no doubt that the bodybuilder Bishnu Charan Ghosh was Yogananda's brother, nor that he taught his own form of hatha yoga. However there's only weak evidence that he was seen as a specifically yoga guru (as opposed to a bodybuilder and physical culture guru). The connection to Bikram is entirely spurious, but for the fact that Bikram evidently saw Ghosh as enough of an authority on yoga to be worth citing as his supposed teacher. I'd say it was marginal, but perhaps someone will find some better sources. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:03, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a moment to provide more insight on your understanding of BCG and Yogananda. I still hold this article should include BCG as an acknowledged guru because of his important place in the evolution of a key lineage of modern yoga. In compiling this list of acknowledged gurus we have to ask two points: is BCG a guru and is he well-known with a large following. I agree Bishnu Charan Gosh was a physical culturist and bodybuilder. He was also a yoga teacher. The fact that Choudhury (who also started as a bodybuilder) acknowledges BCG as his guru, and that formed his base for "Beginning Yoga" already defines BCG as a guru. Whether Choudhury worked personally directly under BCG is not relevant because guru is also described here in the context where "Globalisation has extended the guru's reach into environments where they may be a stranger." On the question of BCG as guru we may also consider the published work of Buddha Bose from 1938, where Bose writes, "My love for a beautiful body had its origin in and was fostered by the encouraging words of my Guru (Master), Mr. Bishnu Ghosh." He goes on, "I have never doubted my Guru’s words but found it difficult to imagine such an enviable future. However, I wanted to possess a well developed body, so the practice of Yogic physical culture was begun at the age of sixteen under my Master’s guidance" (1938 "84 Yoga Asanas", Webstrong LLC, 2015). Here we have two renowned published yogis (BB and BC) both calling BCG their guru . We could also look at all the material outlined in the previously cited publication by Jerome Armstrong (2018 "Calcutta Yoga”, Webstrong LLC). Armstrong is a renowned academic and author. In his book, he provides source material and personal accounts for the work of BCG as yoga teacher over four decades with many people. The question may be, is BCG well-known with a large following? Given the many streams of "hot yoga" and the offshoots practiced around the world have come from the work of Bose and BCG I suggest there is a large following of their yoga. Any reference to 26 postures comes from work done by yogis in Calcutta, notably BCG, before 1960 and prior to Choudhury. This is similar to how most modern practitioners of the popular vinyasa yoga do not know K. Pattabhi Jois as a guru but he taught many people in 1940s-1950s who went on to become the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation teachers who changed the practice. Bikram's Beginning Yoga is still prevalent, but hot yoga is in a renaissance with many teachers and practitioners (in North America, at least) leaving out reference to BC, appealing instead to the yoga taught by BCG. I put it that these considerations stand to support that Bishnu Charan Gosh is a well-known yoga guru with a large following, and therefore should be included in a list of acknowledged gurus. ConanBC (talk) 20:06, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure that you're not missing the 'acknowledged' here. Rather than arguing about history and philosophy, the criterion on Wikipedia is whether there are multiple reliable sources, in this case that all say that he was a "yoga guru". Since that wasn't what he was primarily known for the matter is in doubt. That people who later did yoga called him a guru is with respect not the same thing, as they may have seen him as a personal, physical culture, philosophical, or spiritual guru --- or some unevaluated combination of those --- rather than specifically a "yoga-guru" [which is all we are concerned with here. I did look for sources that said that specifically and did not find anything usable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:54, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm not missing 'acknowledged.' I considered acknowledgement as guru by giving examples of important people who wrote that Bishnu Gosh was their guru. I compared Gosh to other people you have already placed in the list of acknowledged gurus. Can you provide the criteria you reference when classifying a guru as acknowledged? Is there a specific number of people who have to appeal to a guru for you to consider the person acknowledged? Some of the current list of acknowledged gurus currently have only one reference citing the person as acknowledged. In some cases that citation is a secondary source (not primary). For Gosh there are an abundance of past and current yogis who recognise him as a guru including Bose, Mukerji, Rakshit, Sundar Das, Gosh's children Bishwanath and Karuna, Bikram Choudhury, Rajashree Choudhury, Tony Sanchez, Muktamala Mitra, and Scott Lamps and Ida Jo (the latter two of whom have studied primary source and written far more on Gosh). Each one of these persons has written their association and consideration of BCG as their guru. The details for most of these are described in the single reference of primary source material by Armstrong given already (2018 "Calcutta Yoga”, Webstrong LLC). Do we need a page by page citation for each person who acknowledges Gosh as a guru? An abundance of hot yoga practitioners cite Gosh as the father of the lineage, and many have photos of Bishnu Gosh on their websites and hanging in their studios. Do we need a citation for each one? Are you the final judge on whether a person was a guru and was acknowledged? ConanBC (talk) 20:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

The one reference you give is a blog. which is not a reliable source. What you need is references to the subject primarily in books. And then there is the problem that 'guru' just means 'teacher', which is applied in all areas of life, including bodybuilding. So you'd need biographies or other substantial references that refer to him as a "yoga guru". What you can't do is cobble together a bunch of individual sources from the web. That's synthesis aka original research, which isn't allowed. Skyerise (talk) 20:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Many people could call him their guru for their bodybuilding or for their personal development, but that would do nothing at all to make him a guru of modern yoga. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:12, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello editors of this article, especially ChiswickChap. I see you have done a lot of work researching Hatha yoga and writing this and many other articles about yoga. I see that you also know some Sanskrit. My question is why there is no mention of any ISKCON gurus (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISKCON_guru_system) any vaishnav gurus, or any Shankara gurus? Is it because by the word "yoga" you are limiting yourselves to the modern definition of "yoga" as simply gymnastics, thus ignoring the original definition as connection with God? (Please excuse my newbie mistakes, this reply may already appear somewhere else!) MinuteSoul (talk) 01:41, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the question. No, the table has columns for meditational and devotional yogas as well as postural, so it is not limited in that way. Inclusion is however only for those widely acknowledged to be gurus of modern yoga, which means multiple mentions in independent publications. Thus ISKCON's own mentions of its gurus, for instance, would not contribute to notability as a modern yoga guru. Gurmukh, for example, is widely acknowledged but not for postural yoga. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 03:18, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar

Sarkar was recently added, but his article does not in fact even claim that he was a "yoga guru", let alone provide multiple reliable sources to prove that claim. I've accordingly hidden his entry from here for now, awaiting suitable evidence. I had a trawl with Google for "Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar" + "yoga guru" and found nothing usable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Kriyananda

You just placed at the very beginning of this page with your references, that some think Kriyananda is a yoga guru. This is very misleading. If you use the highly respected Swami Vivekananda as a guide - it clears up any confusion. He abused women sexually and emotionally as he pretended to be a celibate monk while using women for sex in his Ananda communities. Kriyananda let go of his swami vows to get married. At some point he decided he wanted to take the monastic vows again and no one would initiate him in their order so he created his very own order and initiated himself. So as not to mislead people the Vivekananda quote needs to stay there. Red Rose 13 (talk) 19:59, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I believe the request was for a page number. That's what's required to keep the quote there. Skyerise (talk) 22:14, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you - I found another book with this quote in it and added that. But Chiswick Chap still took out the quote with these words on the talk page. "I've removed an irrelevant quote from the lead. The lead is only a summary of the article body. It is no place to construct an editorial argument by assembling quotations that may seem to form an editor's point of view, something that is actually forbidden everywhere." My response is that I discovered this quote from the brilliant Swami Vivekananda that is not only perfect for Kriyanandas page and other guru pages but also with this Modern yoga gurus page. It is a definition of what it truly means to be a guru. Then you, Chiswick accused me of trying to push my POV. Chiswick moved his sentence that Kriyananda is a yoga guru to the very first sentence in the article rather than its origin which was at the bottom of the page in categories. Being in the very first sentence, an editor needs to balance the information, so the reader is not mislead. Red Rose 13 (talk) 22:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, he's right, quotes shouldn't go in the lead. It should be in the body and only summarized in the lead. Skyerise (talk) 22:32, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

So we can summarize what Vivekananda said in the lead and place the actual quote in the body of the page?Red Rose 13 (talk) 22:37, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

As long as a quotation is not overlong or given undue weight, I should think you could do just that. Skyerise (talk) 22:40, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I rewrote the intro to K's page and moved the words about him being a yoga guru down near the end of the article which keeps it in date order. It was misleading having it in the very first paragraph.Red Rose 13 (talk) 00:58, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Date order is often a splendid way of organising article text. However the "yoga guru" claim and its multiple citations are essential in the lead (not least, that's the test for appearing here). The claim does not imply saintliness, indeed nowadays far from it: it more likely arouses the sadly often well-founded suspicion of "feet of clay".

I have, by the way, not accused anyone of POV-pushing, just stated briefly that the presence of Vivekananda's essentially irrelevant claim in the lead of his article could be construed as such an attempt, if there was any logic to it (the alternative being that the insertion was simply a mistake); and that it was not appropriate for a lead section in any case. To be clear, the quotation would be relevant to an individual guru's article if a modern scholar was cited as applying Vivekananda's quote to that guru: otherwise the quotation's presence if intentional would certainly be original research by synthesis.

I will note in passing that the list entry criterion is that the person is widely acknowledged to be a "yoga guru", i.e. both things inseparably together, and that "widely" requires multiple reliable sources. Two sources is probably just barely enough, three would certainly be more convincing. The number matters because devotees and others may attempt to populate the list with their candidates, so we need to insist that "widely acknowledged" means more than "has a devoted following". As usual, multiple independent sources of good quality are the best available measure. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:57, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I am researching and found one that actually mentioned Kriyananda - Nelson's illustrated guide to religions: a comprehensive introduction to the religions of the world- this book referred to him as a swami who founded Ananda, no mention of guru. I will keep you updated as I do my research.Red Rose 13 (talk) 20:23, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I think you'll find he's quite well-documented, but the specific yoga guru claim will be harder to justify. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:25, 14 January 2022 (UTC)