Yoga: dialoguing with Collective Health

Abstracts

The ancient tradition of yoga coming from India provides individuals with self-knowledge regarding their possibilities and limitations, making them more autonomous in the search for well-being, healthier and more conscious. This theoretical essay, based on the literature review, analyzes the repercussion of yoga through some of its implications as a health practice within Western rationality. The appropriation of yoga by the Western culture implies an understanding of the capitalist system regarding the way of producing health in contemporary societies, and in the deepening of discussions about its philosophical and practical benefits in public health. This construction underlies the Brazilian National Health Sytem (SUS), and helped in the consolidation of an expanded concept of health, creating cultural bridges based on tolerance and respect for its tradition.

Yoga; Western world; Mediation; Health care; Collective Health