Yoga Accessories: Stuff (No Pun Intended) You Should Know
The first practitioners of yoga practiced their meditation and asceticism without any accessories of any sort, except perhaps a mat. In fact, the very idea of yoga accessories probably ran counter to the ideas of those who first started the practice of yoga over 5,000 years ago.
Yoga in the first place involved asceticism, which meant life for a devotee of yoga had to be one of austerity and frugality. Material or physical wealth was not at all important, what was important was the spiritual strength that one could develop.
Yoga, has of course, physical aspects to it, otherwise most of us would not even be interested in it. The poses and stances of yoga, called asanas, which are known worldwide for their seeming impossibility, come to mind as being the most well-known aspect of the practice.
These poses are meant to aid in meditation and the unlocking of the secrets of the self and perhaps the universe. The constant practice of the asana were said to grant the practitioners uncanny abilities as well. Yoga accessories available during this period included of course the yoga mat.
However, some Hindu yoga ascetics used yoga accessories such as barbs and spikes which they drove into their flesh in order to amplify their meditative state. Practices with these yoga accessories continue today in India.
The World Craze on Yoga
Yoga was mostly a thing for Hindus until the Victorian Era in the late 19th century and early 20th century, when the ultra-charismatic Swami Vivekananda, an Indian philosopher and yoga practitioner, delivered lectures all over Europe and the United States on topics concerning Indian philosophy and yoga. Audiences were electrified and many had lifelong interests on yoga and started practicing it.
However, yoga had a limited, though very devoted appeal in the west. The real kick in the backside that propelled the practice of yoga to prominence was the emergence of the counterculture in the latter half of the 20th century and the subsequent materialism that came after it.
Yoga classes and yoga accessories became a economic force with revenue reaching 3 Billion USD annually in the past decade. A whole plethora of non-scary (when compared to spikes and barbs) kinds of yoga accessories became available to people who wanted the physical benefits of practicing yoga without immersing themselves in the spiritual aspects and the asceticism.
Yoga accessories now include aids for helping the practice of yoga such as pillows, yoga chairs, balls, and mats. These things would probably be frowned upon by traditionalists but when someone just needs to enjoy the physical aspects of yoga, one needs to consider that these yoga accessories can help keep the modern yoga student from suffering from injury.
