“‘It’s no longer weird’ says a yoga teacher as athletes, executives, kids and cancer survivors bend and stretch into the postures of yoga.”

The Toronto Star is hosting a weekly web video series on Hatha Yoga called “Living Yoga“. Star writer and yoga instructor, Daphne Gordon, writes the articles and demonstrates basic poses in the videos. Gordon writes that Yoga has been growing and evolving ever since it originated about 5,000 years ago in northern India.

Whenever I think of these ancient practitioners, I visualize them thinly robed, meditating in cold, hidden caves in remote regions of the Himalayas. In fact, sages have practiced Raja yoga, in which Brahmacharya and other austerities were a central part of their practice for thousands of years. Hatha yoga is seen in the West as a physical exercise, yet it comes from disciplined roots of Hindu culture.

Today, Yoga and meditation have become household words. People can find yoga tips on YouTube while their kids are practicing yoga in daycare centers. Many practice it as part of physician-directed treatment programs or rehabilitation following surgery. Yoga can aid in healing injuries, help to manage pain, and is sometimes prescribed as part of a patient’s musculoskeletal therapy.

Yoga Journal sponsored a study in 2005, showing that about 16.5 million people, or 7.5 per cent of adults, practice some form of yoga in the United States. The trend is seen in urban yoga studios, where people can take classes in their own neighborhoods. The allure of yoga is spreading far and wide and has fast become a part of Western culture.

My own experience with yoga began while I was 12 and my father taught me basic asanas. From that age I began a lifelong passion of studying and practicing yoga, meditation and Hinduism. Living and practicing many types of yoga–hatha, karma, jappa and bahkti–lead to my decision to serve in a spiritual community for many years. The peace and strength I gained from my practice saw me through a recent trying couple of years of injury, surgery and illness.

So for me yoga meditation has been both a lifestyle and a lifesaver, and more than just an excursion into the latest trend of the popular culture. And I am glad it has made it to the mainstream, because many people are realizing the same thing: that there are subtle elements and layers of yoga that go far beyond physical poses and stretching. And anyone can benefit from the dramatic shifts in wellbeing that yoga offers without necessarily having to live on an ashram or study at the feet of a guru.