International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers

The International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers (ISYVC) are an organisation that operates yoga and retreat or training centres (ashrams) in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. These Centres are the trademark holder of 'Sivananda Yoga', which is, amongst practitioners, widely perceived as a distinct style of Hatha Yoga and they credit the ISYVC as the legitimate bearer of this tradition or ‘lineage’. The organisation prides itself in teaching ‘traditional yoga’ and propagates neo-Hindu teachings, referencing the guru- parampara tradition (guru lineage) of Swami Sivananda (1887-1963) and Swami Vishnu-devananda (1927- 1993). The main teachings concern the practice of the “4 paths of yogas” and the “5 points of yoga”, as well as a sequence of 12 yoga asanas (postures) commonly referred to as ‘Sivananda sequence or ‘Rishikesh series

Transforming Lives and Businesses: Spiritual Aspirations in Yoga Marketing

This article explores the aspirational marketing modalities promoted by “spiritual marketing coaches” (SMC) that target freelancers in the well-being and yoga sector. It focuses on the narratives of success applied in what is essentially a “marketing of marketing,” analysing the semiotic qualities, functions, and implications of these promotional strategies. Specifically, it investigates how SMCs engage in meaning-making and religion-making through aspirational narrations while using inbound marketing to promote the use of the same. I argue that “spiritual marketing” incorporates a semiotic shift towards language and narrations commonly used in contemporary spirituality. This has introduced modalities that combine marketing tools with spiritual and esoteric doctrines via algorithmic processes, the spiritual exercise of bringing forward a business idea with purpose, and inner transformation for the sake of signalling authenticity. Promoting the esoteric paradigm that thought controls matter, “spiritual marketing” inadvertently relies on the appeasement of online marketing algorithms to attract more clients