Posts Tagged Baba Ramdev

Baba Ramdev, left, in orange

This week, the BBC ran a report about the North Ayrshire island of Little Cumbra which is being converted into an international yoga camp after a blessing from India’s most popular lifestyle guru Baba Ramdev.

The island was bought by two devoted Glaswegian followers of the Swami, and will be renamed ‘Peace Island’ for the project which will build the camp – and if the claims Baba Ramdev makes are to be believed, the £2m paid for the island was a bargain. If his claims are to be believed. Which, it turns out, is quite a big ‘if’ – considering the wild claims he’s prone to making.

In fact, the BBC report itself puts some of his wild assertions out uncritically, specifically regarding the healing powers of the Swami’s practice of yoga and pranayama. Pranayama, in case you’ve not heard of it, is a Sanskrit word meaning “restraint of the prana or breath”. In Yoga, it’s used to denote the control of breathing practiced throughout the stretching. But, as the BBC reports, it has other properties too Read the rest of this entry »