The Yoga Manifesto: How Yoga Helped Me and Why it Needs to Save Itself

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Yoga has been a friend to Nadia Gilani through both the highs and lows of her life, and she believes wholeheartedly in its power to benefit and nourish our bodies and minds.

In The Yoga Manifesto, she investigates how the practice has evolved into a modern billion-dollar Industry and asks at what cost. Does yoga in the west shut out people of colour, working- class communities, or those who don't Identify with bendy, slim, able-bodied wellness gurus? From slogans like 'Namastay in bed' to pricey bum-sculpting leggings, has this enduring spiritual practice lost its way?

By turns poignant, funny and shocking, The Yoga Manifesto charts Nadia's own love story with the practice, shares how It helped her through heartbreak, grief and mental-health struggles, and explores how it can help you too. Looking ahead to a brighter, more Inclusive future, the book provides 'Eight Pillars for Recovery' on how we can work together to restore yoga and preserve its roots.

'The first yoga book I've read that has a punk rock attitude and does what it says on the tin. Nadia is a formidable storyteller taking us through the highs and lows of her personal journey. However, the most critical aspect is her fierce analysis of the appropriation of yoga' Sima Kumar, co-founder and CEO of The Other Box and founder of Sima Say.

Douglas W. Davis is a writer, father, husband and a constant spiritual seeker. He has a passion for Eastern and Western religions, particularly in learning how they are intertwined. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California, with his family and two poodles.

His lifelong goal is to unite all religious and spiritual seekers by revealing how they all stem from the same tree.

Viv Albertine, guitarist for 1970s British punk band The Slits told me how to write this book. Kind of. I met her on a creative writing course run by the Arvon Foundation in 2015. The course ran over five days and on the third day, a guest author was invited to join us and share their work. Viv was there for that. a break.

I had ended up on the course because I needed had decided to look upon it as a retreat and form of healing because after many years of troubles with food and alcohol and almost a decade of working as a news journalist, I was exhausted. I needed a rest but was also searching for some serious discipline in what had otherwise been a chaotic life for too long.

I didn't quite arrive prepared. Everyone else seemed to have come with a burning idea of what they wanted to write about - except me. But I wasn't worried. I had enough experience of living by the seat of my pants and assumed that some of Viv's genius might inspire and send me on my way. To a certain extent I wasn't wrong. On the course, we were put in groups that each took it in turn to cook dinner on different days.