Feeling tired? Under too much stress? No time to exercise? Well, you may want to try yoga. It’s what more and more people have been turning to to ease the troubles of modern life. Practically unheard of in the West until 50 years ago, yoga has become one of the most popular health trends around.

　　累吗?压力太大吗?没空儿运动?那么试试瑜伽。已经有越来越多的人求助于瑜伽来舒缓现代生活的烦劳。实际上,50年前在西方几乎还没有人听说过瑜伽,可是现在它已经成为世界各地最流行的健康时尚之一。

　　Yoga has become so popular in recent years, it’s easy to overlook the fact that it is actually one of humankind’s oldest activities. Scholars think that yoga grew out of the methods used by shamans of the Indus Valley, more than 5,000 years ago.

　　近年来瑜伽如此受欢迎,让人很容易忽略一个事实:瑜伽其实是人类最古老的活动之一。学者认为瑜伽发源自五千多年前印度河谷里巫师们所采用的方法。

　　Shamans were the holy men of early human civilization. Their role in society was to communicate with the spirit world to find solutions to problems facing their people. Over time, these shamans developed a system of mental and physical exercises to expand their consciousness, and thereby give a new perspective on the problems of daily life. These exercises formed the foundation of modern yoga.

　　巫师是早期人类文明中的圣者。他们在社会上的角色就是要跟神灵世界沟通,为人们面临的困难寻求解决之道。随着时间更迭,这些巫师发展出一套心理与生理的运动体系来拓展他们的知觉,因而能用新的角度去看待日常生活中的问题。这些运动成为现代瑜伽的基础。

　　For thousands of years yoga was practiced mainly in India. The exercises of yoga were incorporated into three of the Indian religions: Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. Technically, yoga is not a reli-gion; it is a method that can be used by anyone to pursue their own religious (or non-religious) goals. Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism, practiced yogic meditation, and meditation is still a central part of Buddhism today.

　　几千年来,瑜伽主要在印度盛行。瑜伽运动整合到印度三大宗教中:印度教、耆那教以及佛教。严格讲起来瑜伽并不是宗教,它是任何人都可以使用的方法,用来追求个人的宗教(或非宗教)目标。佛教创始者悉达多,就做过瑜伽打坐,而打坐直到现在依然是佛教的一个重要部分。

　　Yoga was practically unknown to the West until the 1960s, when popular culture began to show an interest in Eastern religions. Pop culture icons, such as the Beatles, helped popularize yoga by showing interest in yogic meditation. People began to look at yoga as a way to find peace of mind in a world that was anything but peaceful.

　　西方世界对瑜伽几乎是一无所知,直到二十世纪六十年代才改变,当时的流行文化开始对东方宗教产生兴趣。流行文化偶像,像披头士,对瑜伽式打坐表现出兴趣,这有助于瑜伽的推广。人们开始将瑜伽当成一种在这个绝不平静的世界里寻求内心平静的方式。

　　Since the 1960s yoga’s popularity has grown steadily. Nowadays, Westerners practice all kinds of yoga. There is Bikram, or “hot yoga”, done in rooms heated to over 40 degrees centigrade. There is baby yoga in which infants copy the stretching poses of their mothers. There are even yoga classes for people in their 70s!

　　二十世纪六十年代以来,瑜伽受欢迎的程度一直稳步增长。现在,西方人做各种各样的瑜伽。有彼克兰瑜伽,又称“热瑜伽”,要在加热到摄氏40度以上的房间里头做。也有婴儿瑜伽:小宝宝模仿母亲做伸展身体的动作。甚至还有专为70多岁的银发族开设的瑜伽课程!

　　In fact, there are so many people who want to learn yoga that yoga schools across the United States are having difficulty keeping up with the demand. Judging by its popularity, yoga is as useful for solving the problems of today as it was for solving the problems 5,000 years ago.

　　事实上,美国有太多人想学瑜伽,以至于全美国各地的瑜伽学校供不应求。从瑜伽风行的程度来看,无论是拿来解决现代的问题或是解决五千年以前的问题,瑜伽一样管用。

　　(文/唐荣沛 英语辅导报高三年级普及版2004-2005学年第25期；版权归英语辅导报社所有，独家网络合作伙伴新浪教育，未经许可，不得以任何形式进行转载。)