YOGA MAYA - Unveiling the Illusions of a Sacred Science

Yoga Maya is an exposé on how yoga is taught, practiced and marketed in America. It is a 77-minute documentary, featuring interviews with 12 senior yoga teachers in California, narration and confessionals by Arvind Chittumalla, producer and director of Yoga Maya.

Documentary Cast: Jai Uttal, Annie Carpenter, Mark Whitwell, Felicia Tomasko, Tracee Stanley, Swami Sri Atmananda, Arun Deva Daniel Stewart, Julie Carmen, Tej Khalsa, Lorin Roche, Chris Chapple.

Yoga has been relegated to mostly physical practices, due to a lack of proper understanding of yoga and lack of comprehensive yoga education. This documentary will clarify 4 misconceptions of yoga in America. It encourages the yoga community to expand their practice beyond the physical and embrace meditation, breath-work, morals and disciplines.

More than 20 million people practice yoga in America today. For most of these people, yoga means Asana, the physical postures. Not more than 20% of the yoga practitioners incorporate other aspects of yoga into their practice and lifestyle, namely: morals, disciplines, breath-work and meditation. It is good that so many people have an asana practice, yoga asanas (postures) do offer many health benefits. However, if these people expand their practice even marginally by embracing other limbs of yoga, they would benefit exponentially in all walks of life. An integrated yoga practice builds character, discipline, an appreciation for the eco-system in which we live and the resolve to face challenges more gracefully.

There is no better time than now for us to embrace yoga in its entirety. Most of the problems we face in this country today are the result of a lack of discipline, morals and holistic view of life. To name a few: We spend more than we earn, we suffer from illnesses due to poor diet and lifestyle choices, we spend money on wars instead of investing that money in the people who build our society and we are destroying the environment for short term benefits. The foundation of our country is crumbling and it is time for a fundamental change in the way we think and live. An integrated yoga practice can offer the transformation we badly need today.