Epilogue 183
Taking part in a pseudo- Bikram class is like having a nurse perform brain
surgery. The only way to avoid unnecessary injuries is simple— stick to
methods handed down by an original master. My system is endorsed by
Bishnu Ghosh, my guru, who trained me in yoga’s purest forms. He wanted
to fulfill the mission of merging east and west begun last century by his
brother, Paramahansa Yogananda, author of the classic Autobiography of a
Yo g i. While the message of Yogananda and others like him dwindles, my
posture sequence has become part of the everyday lives of millions.^14This lineage is affirmed by the fact that the convocational meetings of Choudhury’s
teacher training programs take place in front of wreathed portraits of himself,
Bishnu Ghosh, and Yogananda. The appeal to a lineage reveals a dimension of
Choudhury’s claims to power that transcends personal hubris. It also sheds new
light on the logic behind his insistence that all of his teachers memorize a forty-
five- page script (or “dialogue,” as it is known in the community) that is meant to
be recited verbatim. Every Bikram Yoga class must take place in a room designed
according to a specific set of requirements, in a span of exactly ninety minutes,
and contain a series of postures that is instructed in the same identical way every
time. It is ritual action in its most basic form.
Moreover, it is my strong suspicion (though one that cannot be substantiated
for obvious reasons) that Choudhury’s twenty- six posture sequence may be the
very sequence prescribed to him by Ghosh following his injury. My reasons for
believing this are simple. First, the sequence is by no means holistic: it virtually
ignores the upper body and the hips. Indeed, if one were to identify a primary
focus— quickly corroborated by the effects on one’s own body after a few months
of regular practice— it is on the legs, and especially on the muscles surrounding
the knees. Second, it is a sequence that can be performed by nearly anyone. That
is its beauty. Even the weakest, the most unathletic, the most broken- down practi-
tioner can perform these poses to some degree. Even someone who cannot stand.
It would not be difficult to arrive at the conclusion that the reason Choudhury
believes this practice is the only thing necessary to save a life is because it saved his.
In this sense, every Bikram Yoga class becomes a reenactment of the sequence that
saved, rebuilt, and transformed its founder. How’s that for ritual?
The exact origins of the Bikram Yoga sequence aside, there is still something
suggestive about the mechanics of its transmission. In Choudhury’s own words,
the purpose of the dialogue is to ensure that taking a class in any Bikram Yoga
studio is in every way identical to taking a class from Choudhury himself. In
other words, Choudhury is practicing, in a very real way, the ancient yogic
superpower of tele- consciousness: through his dialogue, he very literally takes
over the bodies and minds of others as conduits for his teaching. Just as the