This is thinking in public a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about

front-line theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Mola, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Alice Ershir is a cultural historian, specializing in India, especially Indian art and architecture,

as well as the religious history of Buddhism.

He studied literature at Cambridge University, did postgraduate work in Sanskrit at the University

of Lancaster.

In addition to his several published books and articles, he served as a lecturer in Asian

Art at the British Museum.

His latest book, The Story of Yoga, from Ancient India to the Modern West, chronicles the development of

religious discipline into what he describes as a global multi-billion dollar industry.

That book is the topic of our conversation today.

Alistair Shearer, welcome to thinking in public.

Mr. Shearer, given your own biography, how did you come to have this interest yourself in yoga?

What was the origin of an interest

that would produce a book of this magnitude?

I learned transcendental meditation just before leaving university, which was many moons ago back in the late 60s.

And I'd always been interested in India, I think probably because I had relatives out there.

I'd been brought up by people who had memories of India and Indian culture and households were full of objects that people are brought back from India.

So I had that general interest. objects that people are brought back from India.

So I had that general interest.

And I took to meditation and enjoyed it

...