Breathing is Hindu.
Signed,
A Hindu

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 agree with you. But it's not Hinduism, it's yoga. I agree that it's been vastly oversimplified and stripped down and commodified, which is sad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The middle guy is hot. I'd like to study tantric yoga with him.

yes.

This thread is too much lol.
I mean really?
Really?

Interesting thread. I happen to agree with OP that yoga is being culturally appropriated out of Hinduism by most yoga studios, but many yoga studios do try to be mindful of the spiritual components of yoga.

I think there's a different problem with mainstream yoga that is FAR more worrying: most people don't realize that yoga can seriously, seriously fuck you up. I'm not talking about a sprained hamstring here, I mean it can induce psychotic states. When corporate yoga doesn't acknowledge the mystic Hindu and Buddhist practices, they leave you pretty vulnerable to all the intense spiritual and sometimes scary effects of yoga.

The dangers of yoga are clearly outlined in the scripture, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. In chapter 2 it says, "Just as lions, elephants, and tigers are tamed, so the prana [the divine force in the breath, similar to Chinese qi] should be kept under control. Otherwise it can kill the practitioner." (emphasis mine)

Pranayama is the breathing exercise that you're taught in yoga class. It can rewire your nervous system and really, really mess you up if you're not doing it under the close and careful supervision of an experienced teacher.

And most American yoga teachers are NOT experienced.

They go through about 200 hours of "teacher training" and that's it. That's their certification. They cannot protect you from out of control kriyas, they can't stop a spontaneous kundalini crisis and they can't tell you if you're doing pranayama incorrectly, frankly, because they have not been correctly trained in pranayama.

I'm speaking as an American yogi who was initiated by a guru and also trained in ashtanga yoga in India. This was decades ago before yoga became a big rage. I have seen the difference between people who were taught correctly and people who weren't.

People who went deep into advanced asanas just for the physicality and challenge and ended up in psychotic states.

People who had their nerves fired and fried by incorrect, badly taught pranayama.

People who used mudras that they were not supposed to use - but hey nobody told them that at their Lululemon-wearing yoga studio - and invited all kinds of problems into their lives.

Honestly, there is so much that is dangerously wrong with the way mainstream yoga is practiced, and the danger comes from stripping away the mystical parts of it and then still trying to teach beginner students how to do things like awaken their kundalini. That is very irresponsible. Nobody has any business awakening their kundalini without the supervision, guidance and protection of a self-realized guru. The kundalini is Shakti (the mother goddess), and she will fuck you up because she wants to burn away your blocks and limitations - but the issue is that you will either becomes self-realized or you will die...or you will develop symptoms of mental illness. I'm not joking. I've heard of people who have died.

Authentic yoga practitioners in India are extremely aware of the dangers of yoga, and nothing is watered down there or sanitized and packaged up nicely for profitable mass consumption. Yoga is literally a highly advanced and sophisticated superhighway to the cosmic consciousness and it's not meant to be casually dabbled with.

Anonymous wrote:These arguments are exactly why we no longer belong to a mainstream religious organization (We attend a Unity church). Seriously? You are arguing about which version of "God" is acceptable? First, if your God's ego is so fragile that he insists on worship, that's a problem. Second, all the words we use to describe"God" are just words. The loving, creative Source of all that is, is a little beyond language don't you think?

Many fingers point to the same moon. All paths towards spirituality are equally valid. Yoga practice is highly personal. No one owns yoga except the person on the mat.

Except God isn't the moon. God created the moon, and not all fingers point to Him.

Anonymous wrote:
Didn't you know - if you take anything out of its original cultural context these days, it is "appropriation" and a form of cultural aggression. Or something like that. It's part of our new culture of "being constantly offended by everything." My God it's exhausting.

OP here. I'm responding to this post for the benefit of others who are reading this and are tempted to write something similar.

Hi there PP. It looks like you took about 5 seconds to vomit your emotion into words, without seriously addressing anything I actually said. This tells me that you either didn't notice that this thread is 9 pages long, or you didn't care. It also tells me that you decided the subject at issue, my position on it, and the 9-page argument it has spawned, was only worth 5 seconds of your time.

So why should I give you anything but 5 seconds of my time?

If you read the thread, you would have noticed that a LOT of people tried to provoke me into a personal fight with ad hominem attacks or grossly mischaracterizing my position. I didn't give them that satisfaction, because my policy is to not feed the troll. And now I'm not going to feed you.

Anonymous wrote:I am married to an Indian Christian and am a middle eastern Christian myself. I agree that it should be clear that yoga arose in India in the context of the Hindu religion.

However - people use and appropriate things from other religions all the time. Indian Christians (some of whom are part of communities who have been Christian for nearly 2000 years) run a multitude of schools and hospitals in India. The truth is most of the students at Christian schools in India are Hindus who have zero interest in the Christian religion. In some cases, various accommodations have been made for them such as giving an analogue of prasad during Christian religious services since Hindus don't take communion. (Prasad is food eaten during Hindu religious services.). That could be viewed as a distortion of the Christian religion.

People admire things in other religions - take it as a complement.

Didn't you know - if you take anything out of its original cultural context these days, it is "appropriation" and a form of cultural aggression. Or something like that. It's part of our new culture of "being constantly offended by everything." My God it's exhausting.

Two issues here: first, your fellow Hindus don't all agree with you and think of yoga as only the religious experience. Therefore, you can't speak with authority for how Hindus feel. I believe that both you, I, and my Catholic friend do yoga - just getting different things out of it. Second, you run into an issue of closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. In English, yoga means religious/spiritual practices as well as non-religious practices and "hot body" practices. It is too late to demand a more narrow definition. The time to do so was when the word was coming into the lexicon and even then it might have been too late.

It's been nice chatting with you but I am done with this topic from my end. Best wishes to you.

I'm fine at this point with agreeing to disagree, and I think I'm also ready to drop the subject, at least on DCUM, for now! I do think that if I continue to feel strongly about this, I'd rather express my opinion in through a medium that could reach more people/affect change in a way that gets my message across but wouldn't hurt people.

NP.

OP, I think this is a very eloquent post (as many of them have been), and the first one where I've been able to totally understand your position. I've been following this thread closely.

I do a daily practice of hatha yoga, mostly for my health, but also to connect my breath, body, and mind, and slow things down. I don't chant, but I do breathe. I fully understand that this isn't the Hindu practice, and I certainly don't want to insult Hindus--I'm not a "yogi" by any means. My question, then, is since the practice has been adopted, changed, and morphed from its original religious intention, there's a shorthand for what I do, and that shorthand is "yoga." I go to vinyasa yoga classes. I follow yoga instructors on YouTube. And so while I might use another, more secular term for what I do, isn't it up to the "yoga community" of teachers, studios, and practitioners to make that change and find different words?

I hope that makes sense.

Hi! At this point, from a practical perspective, I'd say you're probably right. I'm also really happy that you derive benefit from your practice, and my original frustration in my OP was indirectly because of the attitude of the girl I know in RL and then attributing that girl's attitude to the wider yoga community. Some yoga practitioners do act like her, and some of them are more sensitive, like you. My position should not in any way be taken personally against one person or even a dozen people, but more against the wider movement that has led us to this point.

Anonymous wrote:

PP you were originally responding to here. I think your question 2 is the heart of the issue. If there is some practice of whatever sort that is shown to have positive benefits outside of its religious or cultural traditions, is it ok to appropriate? The answer in my mind is unquestionably yes. So if taking communion were shown to have positive health benefits, then I totally think a non-religious way to gain the health benefit would pop up and people of all sorts would partake in this type of communion. And in my mind, that would be ok.

The world is interconnected. It always has been. And that is a good thing.

OP here. I think you've correctly zeroed in on the issue with the question, "If there is some practice of whatever sort that is shown to have positive benefits outside of its religious or cultural traditions, is it ok to appropriate?" And it's indeed a difficult question, or else we wouldn't have debated it! Obviously you have your opinion on the answer to this question, and while I think you do have good reasons for your opinion, in my mind the objection keeps coming up, "Then don't call it communion."

I've just realized, while writing this, how beautiful the Christian concept of communion is (and I am not going off-track from Hinduism and yoga...I'm getting there). It's not just the physical acting of eating bread, it's a mystic ritual in which your soul enters into a relationship with Christ. And isn't that beautiful? I personally think it's sacred, holy and treasured.

So let's say, for example, the original communion ritual consisted of, I don't know, peony extract. Peony extract has a lot of health benefits - but Christians believe the peony flower is sacred (this is just a hypothetical) and directly linked to Jesus. Let's say a new health routine is developed by medically qualified people or nutritionists who are influenced by the peony extract exchange that is communion, and start advocating ritual peony extract eating sessions because peony extract will give all these health benefits.

That's not communion, that's just good, healthy eating.

Yoga is the same thing. Personally I practice bhakti yoga (devotional worship of deities) and asanas. When I do asanas (the physical, exterior yoga) I'm consciously meditating as I do it, feeling the prana move through my body, feeling my chakras open, and/or asking the Divine to enter through my crown chakra. I yearn for union with Shiva. I feel my Ego Self disconnect from my True Self. I get intuitive impressions of ingrained patterns of thinking that are holding me back, or other insights into my mind and my life that I know, personally, are coming from my Higher Self, which is God.

I don't do yoga to ease physical pain or "look hot". If you want to do yoga-like stretches or postures for those reasons, then go for it! But don't call it yoga. I don't think names are frivolous, because communion means something, yoga means something. To disconnect them from their original purpose is a shame IMO, and no matter how modified the practice becomes (because hatha yoga is quite different from bhakti yoga, as others have pointed out), the modified practice is still marketing itself based on the original practice, and in doing so it is not showing respect to the original purpose of that practice.

Mindful stretching is good. "Looking hot" stretching is good. (I used to do Pilates, and I freely admit that I did it for my figure and fitness.) Any kind of physical exercise that improves your posture, fitness, health and sense of well-being is good. You do not need religion to feel good about yourself or do exercises that help your emotional well-being - and that is GOOD.

But you're not doing yoga, and you're not a yogi. That distinction remains clear in my mind.

NP.

OP, I think this is a very eloquent post (as many of them have been), and the first one where I've been able to totally understand your position. I've been following this thread closely.

I do a daily practice of hatha yoga, mostly for my health, but also to connect my breath, body, and mind, and slow things down. I don't chant, but I do breathe. I fully understand that this isn't the Hindu practice, and I certainly don't want to insult Hindus--I'm not a "yogi" by any means. My question, then, is since the practice has been adopted, changed, and morphed from its original religious intention, there's a shorthand for what I do, and that shorthand is "yoga." I go to vinyasa yoga classes. I follow yoga instructors on YouTube. And so while I might use another, more secular term for what I do, isn't it up to the "yoga community" of teachers, studios, and practitioners to make that change and find different words?

I hope that makes sense.

Anonymous wrote:

OP here. I think you've correctly zeroed in on the issue with the question, "If there is some practice of whatever sort that is shown to have positive benefits outside of its religious or cultural traditions, is it ok to appropriate?" And it's indeed a difficult question, or else we wouldn't have debated it! Obviously you have your opinion on the answer to this question, and while I think you do have good reasons for your opinion, in my mind the objection keeps coming up, "Then don't call it communion."

Two issues here: first, your fellow Hindus don't all agree with you and think of yoga as only the religious experience. Therefore, you can't speak with authority for how Hindus feel. I believe that both you, I, and my Catholic friend do yoga - just getting different things out of it. Second, you run into an issue of closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. In English, yoga means religious/spiritual practices as well as non-religious practices and "hot body" practices. It is too late to demand a more narrow definition. The time to do so was when the word was coming into the lexicon and even then it might have been too late.

It's been nice chatting with you but I am done with this topic from my end. Best wishes to you.

PP you were originally responding to here. I think your question 2 is the heart of the issue. If there is some practice of whatever sort that is shown to have positive benefits outside of its religious or cultural traditions, is it ok to appropriate? The answer in my mind is unquestionably yes. So if taking communion were shown to have positive health benefits, then I totally think a non-religious way to gain the health benefit would pop up and people of all sorts would partake in this type of communion. And in my mind, that would be ok.

The world is interconnected. It always has been. And that is a good thing.

OP here. I think you've correctly zeroed in on the issue with the question, "If there is some practice of whatever sort that is shown to have positive benefits outside of its religious or cultural traditions, is it ok to appropriate?" And it's indeed a difficult question, or else we wouldn't have debated it! Obviously you have your opinion on the answer to this question, and while I think you do have good reasons for your opinion, in my mind the objection keeps coming up, "Then don't call it communion."

I've just realized, while writing this, how beautiful the Christian concept of communion is (and I am not going off-track from Hinduism and yoga...I'm getting there). It's not just the physical acting of eating bread, it's a mystic ritual in which your soul enters into a relationship with Christ. And isn't that beautiful? I personally think it's sacred, holy and treasured.

So let's say, for example, the original communion ritual consisted of, I don't know, peony extract. Peony extract has a lot of health benefits - but Christians believe the peony flower is sacred (this is just a hypothetical) and directly linked to Jesus. Let's say a new health routine is developed by medically qualified people or nutritionists who are influenced by the peony extract exchange that is communion, and start advocating ritual peony extract eating sessions because peony extract will give all these health benefits.

That's not communion, that's just good, healthy eating.

Yoga is the same thing. Personally I practice bhakti yoga (devotional worship of deities) and asanas. When I do asanas (the physical, exterior yoga) I'm consciously meditating as I do it, feeling the prana move through my body, feeling my chakras open, and/or asking the Divine to enter through my crown chakra. I yearn for union with Shiva. I feel my Ego Self disconnect from my True Self. I get intuitive impressions of ingrained patterns of thinking that are holding me back, or other insights into my mind and my life that I know, personally, are coming from my Higher Self, which is God.

I don't do yoga to ease physical pain or "look hot". If you want to do yoga-like stretches or postures for those reasons, then go for it! But don't call it yoga. I don't think names are frivolous, because communion means something, yoga means something. To disconnect them from their original purpose is a shame IMO, and no matter how modified the practice becomes (because hatha yoga is quite different from bhakti yoga, as others have pointed out), the modified practice is still marketing itself based on the original practice, and in doing so it is not showing respect to the original purpose of that practice.

Mindful stretching is good. "Looking hot" stretching is good. (I used to do Pilates, and I freely admit that I did it for my figure and fitness.) Any kind of physical exercise that improves your posture, fitness, health and sense of well-being is good. You do not need religion to feel good about yourself or do exercises that help your emotional well-being - and that is GOOD.

But you're not doing yoga, and you're not a yogi. That distinction remains clear in my mind.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am Hindu and must say I am a bit baffled by the OP and the subsequent agreeing posters. I have always been taught at home that Hinduism comes in many many different flavored and that there is good reason that the practices of my family of origin have little resemblance to my husband's family of origin (our family histories are from different geographic regions of India). And yet we both claim the title of "Hindu" for our traditions. Yes, we acknowledge both the universal God and the polytheistic pantheon without seeing any contradictions. But while you can reach moksha through learning and parsing out the meaning of things in this very brahman-y way, the act of practice or devotion also leads to the divine. Totally ok for someone to practice yoga without believing/caring about Hindu philosophies. If they are rigorous in their practice, they will become more divine-like. It might look different than an Indian yogi, but is no less true. And cultural appropriation? Totally the way of the world. I don't think Hinduism is being diluted even a little bit by Christians or Muslims practicing yoga - what an odd thought.

I do agree with you about those that try to patent tumeric, neem, or yoga poses. Weird, unproductive, and ned to be shut down.

OP here. I've highlighted the most important sentences in your post. The point is you associate yoga with the Divine in whatever form, and you consciously self-identify as a Hindu, again through whatever form.

I do self identify as Hindu but primarily for cultural reasons. I am not at all sure about the nature of the Divine and many days I lean toward atheism. Meditation is very powerful and can bring you to clarity but that can be a religious/spiritual experience or a new-Agey clearing of the mind. But one thing I do know - you don't get approval authority on my statement "I am a Hindu"

1. Meditation by itself isn't part of my argument. Yoga incorporates meditation, but the act of meditating alone isn't exclusively Hindu. The ancient Norse were very adept at meditating, and so were other cultures. So if you are arguing about your decision to meditate as an agnostic, then I don't disagree. If you want to use the term "yoga" to describe an atheist or agnostic practice, then we come to a disagreement.

2. Should a cultural Christian decide to take communion at church and then encourage all his non-Christian friends to take communion because it's going to really beneficial for their digestive system, whether they believe in God or not? That would be disrespectful to the religious purpose of taking communion, so no, I'm going to say that if you consider yourself culturally affiliated with a given religion and yet you don't think it's disrespectful to disassociate religious purpose from religious practice, I disagree with you. Can I handcuff you to prove my "approval authority" over your decision? No. Nobody in the entire world, from any religion, not even the Pope, has "approval authority" over an individual's religious identification (because the Pope can't stop non-Catholic Christians from identifying as Christian). But I can advocate for my beliefs, as HAF does.

3. Also, the yoga studios and the majority of the people who attend them do not either acknowledge that it's a Hindu religious practice or self-identify as Hindu.

OP - I don't know about all that, but I do know that I look HOT because of yoga.

This isn't depressing at all.

PP you were originally responding to here. I think your question 2 is the heart of the issue. If there is some practice of whatever sort that is shown to have positive benefits outside of its religious or cultural traditions, is it ok to appropriate? The answer in my mind is unquestionably yes. So if taking communion were shown to have positive health benefits, then I totally think a non-religious way to gain the health benefit would pop up and people of all sorts would partake in this type of communion. And in my mind, that would be ok.

The world is interconnected. It always has been. And that is a good thing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am Hindu and must say I am a bit baffled by the OP and the subsequent agreeing posters. I have always been taught at home that Hinduism comes in many many different flavored and that there is good reason that the practices of my family of origin have little resemblance to my husband's family of origin (our family histories are from different geographic regions of India). And yet we both claim the title of "Hindu" for our traditions. Yes, we acknowledge both the universal God and the polytheistic pantheon without seeing any contradictions. But while you can reach moksha through learning and parsing out the meaning of things in this very brahman-y way, the act of practice or devotion also leads to the divine. Totally ok for someone to practice yoga without believing/caring about Hindu philosophies. If they are rigorous in their practice, they will become more divine-like. It might look different than an Indian yogi, but is no less true. And cultural appropriation? Totally the way of the world. I don't think Hinduism is being diluted even a little bit by Christians or Muslims practicing yoga - what an odd thought.

I do agree with you about those that try to patent tumeric, neem, or yoga poses. Weird, unproductive, and ned to be shut down.

OP here. I've highlighted the most important sentences in your post. The point is you associate yoga with the Divine in whatever form, and you consciously self-identify as a Hindu, again through whatever form.

I do self identify as Hindu but primarily for cultural reasons. I am not at all sure about the nature of the Divine and many days I lean toward atheism. Meditation is very powerful and can bring you to clarity but that can be a religious/spiritual experience or a new-Agey clearing of the mind. But one thing I do know - you don't get approval authority on my statement "I am a Hindu"

1. Meditation by itself isn't part of my argument. Yoga incorporates meditation, but the act of meditating alone isn't exclusively Hindu. The ancient Norse were very adept at meditating, and so were other cultures. So if you are arguing about your decision to meditate as an agnostic, then I don't disagree. If you want to use the term "yoga" to describe an atheist or agnostic practice, then we come to a disagreement.

2. Should a cultural Christian decide to take communion at church and then encourage all his non-Christian friends to take communion because it's going to really beneficial for their digestive system, whether they believe in God or not? That would be disrespectful to the religious purpose of taking communion, so no, I'm going to say that if you consider yourself culturally affiliated with a given religion and yet you don't think it's disrespectful to disassociate religious purpose from religious practice, I disagree with you. Can I handcuff you to prove my "approval authority" over your decision? No. Nobody in the entire world, from any religion, not even the Pope, has "approval authority" over an individual's religious identification (because the Pope can't stop non-Catholic Christians from identifying as Christian). But I can advocate for my beliefs, as HAF does.

3. Also, the yoga studios and the majority of the people who attend them do not either acknowledge that it's a Hindu religious practice or self-identify as Hindu.

OP - I don't know about all that, but I do know that I look HOT because of yoga.

This isn't depressing at all.

OP - I don't know about all that, but I do know that I look HOT because of yoga.