Sometimes I’m really astonished by the statements of some people, who earned their academic degrees in the US or the UK. For example, by the one that Nathas do not practice “real yogic methods” for the last 400 years (i.e., “real” in the sense that they are understood by scholars and their beloved modernised and globalised yoga environment, despite the fact that they often deny it). They state that the real hatha-yoga is now easier to be found in the lines related to Dashanami.
But it does not occur to them that the Nathas began to spread widely in the West over the past 10-15 years – thanks to people like me, and not to the Gurus from Dashanami, who had long since left for the West. In my opinion, those Dashanami Gurus have long been adapted to the needs of Western consumers, lovers of fitness and New Age culture. Nathas simply did not have time to make it, and God forbid they do. It’s not Nathas to blame for not practising “real hatha” for the last 400 years, since the “real hatha” didn’t exist among Nathas or any other followers of the spiritual path either 400, or 700, or 1000 years ago. The fact is that both Western Indologists and Indian Gurus have long been susceptible to the ideas of Western consumerism, in which commerce supplanted the goal of yoga as a sadhana.
For the sake of business they are eager to recognise everything as traditional. Rather, they have already done so and integrated it into their Indian culture a long time ago. Yes, the Nathas did practice that yoga neither 400, nor 700 years ago, never. It is ignorance to seek confirmation of your own delusions in the Tradition, doesn’t matter who you are – a fitness trainer, a scholar or a Guru from India, who dreams of owning 200 cars in the US like Rajneesh.