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Times Life
Times Life
Aishwarya Kapoor

What Gorakhnath and the Nath Yogis Knew About the Body That Modern Yoga Quietly Erased

The Body Was Never the Problem

Somewhere between the twelfth century and the present, the body got demoted. In the version of yoga that fills studios today, the physical form is a vehicle, something to stretch, align, and eventually transcend. The Nath yogis, the lineage that Gorakhnath shaped into one of the most rigorous spiritual systems the subcontinent ever produced, held the opposite position. The body was not the problem. The body was the point.

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