It is interesting to see what new ideas are attracting people, but what path is being taught? Not much of a path at all, in my opinion.

At the same time, you never know where folks will end up once they have some exposure and are inclined to discuss yoga.

And why not serve prasadam? Too much renunciation is not conducive to bhakti either. If I look at this from a “many lifetimes” perspective, it seems like a pretty good start (with the prasadam).

“This is the hottest of all hot-button issues in yoga,” said Dayna Macy, a managing editor of Yoga Journal, who recently attended the slaughter of five steer at Prather Ranch, an organic, certified-humane cattle ranch in Northern California, in an attempt to resolve her inner turmoil about eating beef.

“Certified-humane” and “slaughter” seem pretty oxymoronic to me.

At any rate, I guess I’m a yoga purist, because to me much of what the article talks about sounds like rationalizations for people’s attachments. Of course practitioners need to acknowledge where they are on the path and not make lifestyle changes they aren’t ready for, but to say for example that pork is a yogic teaching tool is stretching it. Surely one can examine attraction and revulsion in oneself without having to eat pigs. And I find the statement that “I think that sometimes the yoga community is a little too austere” to be distinctly American, a reflection of a culture that tends to eschew sacrifice for higher goals in favor of short-term pleasures like tasty food and looking good in Lululemon pants. But in the end if chocolate and wine get people doing yoga–at least some vague form of it–that’s better than not doing it at all, as long as the people doing so understand that yoga is, in its essence, a radical path of self-transformation with the hefty price tag of one’s entire ego/attachment structure.