Not all yoga is created equal.

Yoga has become so popular and mainstream that it is often diluted to the point of tastelessness.

We all know why yoga is popular: it’s amazing. When practiced regularly, it helps us with every aspect of life. Even just practicing asana (yoga poses), pranayama (breathing exercises) and/or meditation results in a slew of overt benefits for the dedicated practitioner.

So, why are the powerful teachings of yoga so often diluted? Is yoga is New Age?

Technically speaking, yes—if “New Age” refers to spiritual teachings of the East fed to us here in the West.

This New Agey influence, in addition to the Americanized yoga industrial complex, is why so much of modern yoga is basically advanced calisthenics with some deep breathing and positive thinking thrown in.

“New Age” is a form of Western eclecticism that rejects religious dogma in favor of Eastern spiritual teachings.

It’s an amorphous cultural movement with no hierarchy, dogma, doctrine or official membership.

Its influences may include (but are not limited to) Oprah, astrology, “manifesting” via visualization and affirmations, Goddess worship, occult practices like Tarot reading and casting magic spells, vegetarianism and veganism, “positive psychology,” Taoism and/or self-help. New Age originates from a 19th century philosophical system called New Thought, whose founders were most influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, Oprah is their unofficial reigning queen.

Emerson, one of the foremost minds of 19th century America, was himself heavily influenced by Vedanta, the spiritual teachings of Hinduism, which originated in India. With regard to the concept of karma, for example, he wrote, “You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.”

Ralph Waldo was a transcendentalist who read the Bhagavad Gita and considered himself a yogi. (Albeit his lineage was more jnana than hatha; more about knowledge and wisdom than breath and movement.)

The “new” doesn’t refer to time but rather new as opposed to established Western societal beliefs. The “age” refers to the Aquarian Age (as in, ‘this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.’)

As far as I can tell, these are the four basic tenets of New Age-ism:

1. All is one. Everything is interconnected. Our separateness is an illusion. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.
2. There is a Divine and We are It. God is all and all is God. In other words, the Universe is everything and humans are actually divine or spiritual beings encased in physical bodies.
3. We are co-creators. Individual free will, character and choice mingle with universal energetic flow, or Life, or God in the act of co-creation. As Henry Ford famously stated, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, either way you are right.”
4. The meaning of life is to live. Life is a journey toward awareness of our true source.

What’s Wrong with New Age?

Many religious people criticize New Age thinking, because its tenets are in opposition to the belief that there is One True God, namely theirs, rather than, God forbid, a Goddess.

For New Agers, Jesus is a supreme spiritual teacher, an exemplar of compassion and wisdom and a master healer–but not necessarily the divine Son of God. Which is, of course, blasphemous to devout Christian believers.

The Roman Catholic Church published A Christian Reflection on the New Age in 2003, following a six year study; the document criticizes New Age practices such as yoga, meditation, feng shui and crystal healing.

Others criticize New Agey-ness as simply lite versions of older insights that ignore the context of the statement. This tendency is abundantly evident on the internet, especially Facebook and Twitter, where New Age memes go viral, when lots of people share catchy spiritual saying that are either misquoted or out of context.

Finally, the idea that we alone are responsible for creating our own reality is a New Age fallacy. The best-selling, so-called Secret represents the kind of pseudoscientific baloney that gives New Age a bad name. So does the 2004 docudrama, What the Bleep Do We Know?, which links quantum physics to human consciousness.

The reality is, we don’t control the universe. There is no secret.

How New Age Are You?

New Agey-ness, like most things, is a spectrum. Yoga, astrology, and meditation fall on the more mainstream, widely-accepted end of the spectrum. On the more, eccentric end, there’s stuff like crystal healing, Reiki, astrology, Wicca, magic and Tarot.

Where you fall along the New Age spectrum depends on your personality, religion and spiritual practice.

The truth is, whether you identify as New Age or not, and whether you buy the idea of ‘self-improvement’ or not, we all need and (usually) want to continually evolve into more balanced and well-rounded beings.

Maybe we were all born into this world for this reason.

Ultimately, it doesn’t so much matter what labels we create and use to categorize ourselves and others. What matters is that we drop the labels and live life as if we are all one, as if all beings on Earth, and Earth itself, are inextricably interconnected.

New Age or not—may we remember that without mindfulness, meditation, compassion and ethics, yoga is not yoga.

Do you consider yourself “New Age”? What do you think of self-help? Feel free to continue the conversation by leaving a comment.

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Ed: Bryonie Wise

Sculpture:  Oberon Zell