It’s increasingly common for a lawyer’s day to include a hushed room of people, dressed mostly alike, with someone up front using phrases from an antiquated language. Except here the language isn’t Latin, and it’s not spoken in court. It’s Sanskrit, the language of yoga, and it’s adding a note of calm to a notoriously combative and stressed-out profession.
Practitioners of yoga and law might seem strange bedfellows. After all, “I recognize the divine in you” (one translation of “namaste,” an oft-used yogic salutation) and “See you in court” send distinctly different messages. But the ancient concept of a link between body, mind and spirit is helping lawyers and firms cope with economic, health and emotional challenges.
