Biography of a Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda and the Origins of Modern Yoga

182 Epilogue

It is a well- known fact that in the twenty- first century, yoga has become big
business.^10 While the previous chapters of this study have suggested that Yogis—
and specifically American Yogis— have been deft entrepreneurs from the very
start, it is Choudhury who was arguably among the first to instantiate yoga as a
fully franchised, merchandized, and copyrightable product of consumer capital-
ism. He maintains that his efforts in this arena were prompted by MacLaine, who
advised him that “in America, if you don’t charge money ... people won’t respect
you.”^11 In 1994 Choudhury held his first open teacher training program at his Los
Angeles location. At their peak in the early 2000s, his training programs would
regularly boast upwards of 300 registrants.
Although his infamy had been steadily growing, Choudhury exploded into
the mainstream media in 2002, when he filed a copyright infringement lawsuit
against a group of yoga studios that were offering “Bikram Yoga” classes despite
lacking formal certification from his organization. It was in part these efforts that
prompted the Indian government to initiate the documentation of over 1,000
known yoga postures as part of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library.
Choudhury’s lawsuit, which was challenged by a consortium of schools (several
led by former senior teachers) under the title of Open Source Yoga Unity, was
settled out of court under a non- disclosure agreement.^12 Choudhury’s efforts
have been marginally successful and the extent of his copyright continues to be
contested. As Jordan Susman has observed at the culmination of a lengthy legal
analysis of Choudhury’s copyright claims:

Had Bikram been more modest in his assertions and in his ambitions, he

would have claimed that his sequence was an expressive dance and accen-

tuated its aesthetic value. Although this might not have attracted huge

throngs of followers, it would have afforded him maximum possible copy-

right protection. However, Bikram chose to be a savior— the man who

developed the cure for all known illness.^13

For Choudhury, it had to be both ways. He was both the owner of a commodity
and the conduit of a universal system of salvific healing. Although it may be based
on less than solid ground from a modern legal perspective, a closer examination
of Choudhury’s logic reveals something very interesting : his claim to ownership
and the invocation of the copyright can easily be read as attempts to control a
model of initiatory transmission through modern structures of economic and
legal power.
In a 2014 press release responding to the continued phenomenon of studio
owners offering something other than his authorized ninety- minute sequence,
Choudhury proclaims: