Search for “yoga” on Google Trends and you will find an astonishing pattern that repeats itself from year to year: the popularity of the word surges around Christmas, reaches a peak at the beginning of January, declines through June, grows bumpily through August, and then plummets till Christmas. Yearly patterns are nearly identical from 2004 to 2011, the range of years covered by Google. Which only goes to show that New Year’s resolutions are for the birds. Only the summer helps a little, but solely on account of the basest form of vanity. As far as the western world is concerned, yoga amounts to a hollow fantasy.

Addendum (August 31, 2016)

I just revisited Google Trends with yoga in mind. And here is the verdict. To begin with, the yearly pattern of searches is the same as before. That is, the interest in yoga peaks around the beginning of the year and the end of the summer, and for obvious reasons. More important, the interest in yoga is rising over the years. In terms of Google Analytics numbers, it was at fifty-nine when this piece was written, but it is at eighty-eight right now. And it was at one-hundred at the beginning of this year. In other words, the popularity of yoga has been growing the last five years, albeit for wrong reasons. Will this ever change, though? As far as the so-called western world is concerned, fat chance.