Yoga is Hindu. Period.

[Anonymous]

The fact that this poster keeps calling scholarly people that refute her absurd claims as "Hindu fanatics" and "Hindutva" is straight up disgusting and bigoted.

This would never fly if a Hindu person said they know more about Christian history than Christians or that they know more about Jewish history than Jewish people or if they said they know more about Muslim history than Muslims and then call the the Christians, Jewish and Muslims that refuted them as fanatical.


The privilege is real folks. Sad and real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fact that this poster keeps calling scholarly people that refute her absurd claims as "Hindu fanatics" and "Hindutva" is straight up disgusting and bigoted.

This would never fly if a Hindu person said they know more about Christian history than Christians or that they know more about Jewish history than Jewish people or if they said they know more about Muslim history than Muslims and then call the the Christians, Jewish and Muslims that refuted them as fanatical.

The privilege is real folks. Sad and real.

This. Exactly, this. 200000000% This.

[Anonymous]

And let me ask you something: if someone comes into a thread about the racist and white privilege dynamics of the cultural appropriation of yoga out of Hinduism, and then gets into it about the Aryan migration theory, and then INSISTS that his/her interest is purely on the "scientific", and then decides anyone that disagrees with his/her position is automatically "Hindutva", and then refutes scholarly studies, sociological studies and genetic studies as "not conclusive", and then quotes every non-peer-reviewed blogger that he/she can find but does admit that his/her own blogger's conclusions are "not conclusive"...what opinion am I to draw about the motives and biases of a person like that?

Exactly what the first PP on this page said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And let me ask you something: if someone comes into a thread about the racist and white privilege dynamics of the cultural appropriation of yoga out of Hinduism, and then gets into it about the Aryan migration theory, and then INSISTS that his/her interest is purely on the "scientific", and then decides anyone that disagrees with his/her position is automatically "Hindutva", and then refutes scholarly studies, sociological studies and genetic studies as "not conclusive", and then quotes every non-peer-reviewed blogger that he/she can find but doesn't admit that his/her own blogger's conclusions are "not conclusive"...what opinion am I to draw about the motives and biases of a person like that?

Exactly what the first PP on this page said.

fixed the bolded for typo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW, thanks for the link to the paper ABOUT the genetic study

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/drishtikone/2009/09/aryan-invasion-theory-myth-large-harvard-study/

Well gee, if you wanted the actual article so bad, all you had to do was ask: https://genetics.med.harvard.edu/reich/Reich_Lab/Press_files/Fountain%20Ink%20-%20December%202013%20-%20Cover.pdf

Let's get quoting, because you love doing that! It's so much easier to just quote random folks without making your own arguments or bothering to refute other people's arguments, right?

It’s hard to convert even the learned though there is increasing evidence that the Aryan invasions never took place. Most of it has come from archaeology and the hard sciences but it is only recently that historians have grudgingly started to accept the need to revise their accounts. The evidence comes from geology, hydrology, archaeology, remotely sensed data from satellite imagery, analysis of palaeo-waters, all of which call for rigour. Each study by itself may be inconclusive but if the conclusions are unimpeachable the cumulative evidence could provide a radically different picture.


Oh, did you catch the last sentence there?

Each study by itself may be inconclusive but if the conclusions are unimpeachable the cumulative evidence could provide a radically different picture.


When did the migration take place? According to genetic testing (which I know you hate, I know I know, science is bad, science is the evil tool of Hindu fanatics), around 12,500 years ago.

Metspalu summarises: “So the scenario at present seems to show that there were two populations colonising South Asia, one close to West Eurasian populations but not derived of them recently. These two populations lived in broad South Asia with little mixing for a long time before admixing quite abruptly relatively recently.” (If that ends up being confirmed, it would mean that both proponents and opponents of the Aryaninvasion/migration theories are in a sense simultaneously right and wrong—yes, foreigners entered an already inhabited India; but they did so so long ago that they might as well be thought of as original inhabitants too."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel the need to emphatically state this, after having my white, atheist friend insist to me that she was a "yogi" because she was a certified yoga structor and doing yoga help make her feel emotionally centered.

Um, no. You are not a yogi.

1. Yoga isn't a corporate fitness program where you can just get certifications like you're teaching fucking pure barre and Pilates. It's a religious practice, and the physical asanas are just one very, very narrow part of it. "Namaste" does not have a watered-down New Age meaning like, "I bow to the light within you." It means "I bow to the God within you." External yoga is useless without internal yoga - meditation, pranayama, etc - and the purpose is to achieve union with the Divine.

2. You feeling good about yourself does not mean you can appropriate a religious practice, strip the religion out of it, corporatize it, and repackage is at "wellness" or some crap like that. Also, Om symbols and malas aren't decorative, thanks.

3. Do not talk to me about how Yoga has its roots in a Vedic religion that pre-dates Hinduism and Buddhism. Vedic practices led to Puranic practices, and Vedic practices are still widespread in the Hindu community today. They are central, in fact, as the Vedanta comes straight from the Vedas, not the modern Puranic flavor of Hinduism. Yoga's explicit purpose is to achieve union with God also excludes it from being a vaguely Buddhist/Jain practice, since neither of those religions believe in worship or a creator deity (though they do have deities, at least Buddhism does, but they don't have a creator and they don't want union with a creator).

4. Playing semantics with the term "Hinduism" is grasping at straws. At this point, it definitely does not just refer to "people in this particular region", even if the name originated from that meaning, and the vastness and diversity in the Hindu religious complex does not preclude it being considered one religion. Westerners have no problem using the term "Hinduism" to define a single religion in polls, national surveys, news articles and any other writing...but when it comes to discussing yoga, then we have to argue about what Hinduism means.

I just had to get that off my chest. Thanks for reading!

I thought we could all self-identify as anyone or a part of any group we choose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel the need to emphatically state this, after having my white, atheist friend insist to me that she was a "yogi" because she was a certified yoga structor and doing yoga help make her feel emotionally centered.

Um, no. You are not a yogi.

1. Yoga isn't a corporate fitness program where you can just get certifications like you're teaching fucking pure barre and Pilates. It's a religious practice, and the physical asanas are just one very, very narrow part of it. "Namaste" does not have a watered-down New Age meaning like, "I bow to the light within you." It means "I bow to the God within you." External yoga is useless without internal yoga - meditation, pranayama, etc - and the purpose is to achieve union with the Divine.

2. You feeling good about yourself does not mean you can appropriate a religious practice, strip the religion out of it, corporatize it, and repackage is at "wellness" or some crap like that. Also, Om symbols and malas aren't decorative, thanks.

3. Do not talk to me about how Yoga has its roots in a Vedic religion that pre-dates Hinduism and Buddhism. Vedic practices led to Puranic practices, and Vedic practices are still widespread in the Hindu community today. They are central, in fact, as the Vedanta comes straight from the Vedas, not the modern Puranic flavor of Hinduism. Yoga's explicit purpose is to achieve union with God also excludes it from being a vaguely Buddhist/Jain practice, since neither of those religions believe in worship or a creator deity (though they do have deities, at least Buddhism does, but they don't have a creator and they don't want union with a creator).

4. Playing semantics with the term "Hinduism" is grasping at straws. At this point, it definitely does not just refer to "people in this particular region", even if the name originated from that meaning, and the vastness and diversity in the Hindu religious complex does not preclude it being considered one religion. Westerners have no problem using the term "Hinduism" to define a single religion in polls, national surveys, news articles and any other writing...but when it comes to discussing yoga, then we have to argue about what Hinduism means.

I just had to get that off my chest. Thanks for reading!

I thought we could all self-identify as anyone or a part of any group we choose.

Did you notice this thread is 18 pages long? This has been addressed so many times that reading the thread will be like studying for a "why telling people not to culturally appropriate is a defense of rights, not an infringement of them" quiz. Going by the thoughtfulness and intelligence of your response, I recommend reading each page of this thread 10 times before taking the quiz. Thanks for playing!

[Anonymous]

Cultural Appropriation 101: Cultural appropriation isn't the same thing as cultural exchange. Cultural exchange is when cultures share vital things with each other, like bronze and iron and spices and stone knives and so on. Sharing isn't always cultural appropriation. Shut the fuck up about spaghetti and wine because those products are not comparable to yoga.

Sharing becomes cultural appropriation when a toxic history of oppression and imbalance is either ignored, neglected, deliberately taken advantage of or otherwise perpetuated in a way that silences the voice of the oppressed culture and doesn't facilitate mutual exchange. This lovely lady describes it in great detail: [url="http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/09/cultural-exchange-and-cultural-appropriation/
"]The Difference Between Cultural Exchange and Cultural Appropriation[/url].

Salient points from the article:

Many a white person sporting dreadlocks or a bindi online has taken cultural appropriation to mean the policing of what white people can or can’t wear and enjoy.

Having considered their fashion choices a form of personal expression, some may feel unfairly targeted for simply dressing and acting in a way that feels comfortable for them.

The same can be said for those who find criticisms of the Harlem Shake meme and whatever it is Miley Cyrus did last month to be an obnoxious form of hipsterdom – just because something has origins in black culture, they say, doesn’t mean white artists can’t emulate and enjoy it.

And then there are people who believe that everything is cultural appropriation – from the passing around of gun powder to the worldwide popularity of tea.

They’re tired of certain forms of cultural appropriation – like models in Native American headdresses – being labeled as problematic while many of us are gorging on Chipotle burritos, doing yoga, and popping sushi into our mouths with chopsticks.

What makes cultural appropriation wrong?

One of the reasons that cultural appropriation is a hard concept to grasp for so many is that Westerners are used to pressing their own culture onto others and taking what they want in return.

We tend to think of this as cultural exchange when really, it’s no more an exchange than pressuring your neighbors to adopt your ideals while stealing their family heirlooms.

True cultural exchange is not the process of “Here’s my culture, I’ll have some of yours” that we sometimes think it is. It’s something that should be mutual.

Just because Indian Americans wear business suits doesn’t mean all Americans own bindis and saris. Just because some black Americans straighten their hair doesn’t mean all Americans own dreadlocks.

The fact is, Western culture invites and, at times, demands assimilation. Not every culture has chosen to open itself up to being adopted by outsiders in the same way.

And there’s good reason for that.

“Ethnic” clothes and hairstyles are still stigmatized as unprofessional, “cultural” foods are treated as exotic past times, and the vernacular of people of color is ridiculed and demeaned.

So there is an unequal exchange between Western culture – an all-consuming mishmash of over-simplified and sellable foreign influences with a dash each of Coke and Pepsi – and marginalized cultures.

Other great quotes from the article:

So as free as people should be to wear whatever hair and clothing they enjoy, using someone else’s cultural symbols to satisfy a personal need for self-expression is an exercise in privilege.

That doesn’t mean that cultural exchange never happens, or that we can never partake in one another’s cultures. But there needs to be some element of mutual understanding, equality, and respect for it to be a true exchange.

I remember that at my sister’s wedding, the groom – who happened to be white – changed midway through the ceremony along with my sister into modern, but fairly traditional, Nigerian clothes.


Even though some family members found it amusing, there was never any undertone of the clothes being treated as a costume or “experience” for a white person to enjoy for a little bit and discard later. He was invited – both as a new family member and a guest – to engage our culture in this way.

If he had been obnoxious about it – treated it as exotic or weird or pretended he now understood what it means to be Nigerian and refused to wear Western clothes ever again – the experience would have been more appropriative.

But instead, he wore them from a place of respect.

That’s what cultural exchange can look like – engaging with a culture as a respectful and humble guest, invitation only.

Is meditating cultural appropriation? Is Western yoga appropriation? Is eating a burrito, cosplaying, being truly fascinated by another culture, decorating with Shoji screens, or wearing a headscarf cultural appropriation?

There are so many things that have been chopped up, recolored, and tossed together to make up Western culture that even when we know things are appropriative in some way, we find them hard to let go of.

And then there are the things that have been freely shared by other cultures – Buddhism for example – that have been both respected and bastardized at different turns in the process of exchange.

I invite you to read the article in full; it's extremely good.