(MSNBC) Leave it to American business to twist a 5,000-year-old Hindu tradition into an emotional knot. In a matter of weeks, a steamy sex scandal has prompted the resignation of a world-class yoga "superstar," roiled the discipline’s trendiest branch, sparked a mass exodus…John Friend's "Anusara Yoga" in Tantric twisted sex scandal
Wisdom Quarterly
Leave it to an American finance major to humiliate a millenia-old Vedic philosophy of spiritual excellence through eight limbs centering on a still hub bringing the mind into profoundly absorbed states of heightened consciousness (samadhi) with one limb concentrating on the body, asana (the poses) strengthening the physical base.
The John (silver fox standing at center) developed a softer, gentler yoga focusing on alignment and being less about traditional instructions. He was moving away from strenuous exercise into developing an open heart. Where the heart goes, the body often follows.His students, many of them Jewish espousing a Buddhified Tantric Hindu philosophy, congregate around Los Angeles studios like Mission Street Yoga in South Pasadena and around many teachers trained personally by Friend in his new style.
Yogi Times Magazine often covered Anusara teachers and studios and worked closely with the founder of Mission Street Yoga. The goal was clearly making money more than spreading enlightenment or even samadhi. So a sex scandal seems minor by comparison. But what will John Friend's students say now?
It looks like another mission for Dev, our fearless street reporter. More to follow.
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