Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 18:03     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I tried yoga years ago because my physio therapist said it was an excellent way to stretch. For me, personally there was nothing more to it.

There was no intent to insult anyone's religion, I just needed to stretch some damn tight muscles.


Fair enough, I have no problem with you tending to your health concerns. It's not about "You have to be Hindu to do yoga" or "Only Hindus can do yoga", it's about, "I'm a non-Hindu benefiting from a Hindu practice" and being mindful of that. Most people say, "Yoga isn't Hindu, so I can practice it without being Hindu." We're saying the attitude should be, "Yoga is Hindu, but I can practice it without being Hindu as long as I'm mindful of what it is I'm doing."

Tight muscles do need to be stretched; nothing wrong with that!


Yoga classes in the US are about as Hindu as the average Chinese restaurant is authentically Chinese or the average Mexican restaurant is authentically Mexican.



Which is the entire point of this thread.

By the way, American Chinese restaurants are still called Chinese restaurants. Same goes for Mexican restaurants. The food is still acknowledged as Chinese or Mexican.

Yoga is Hindu and should be acknowledged as such.


So thats all you want? An acknowledgement that its Hindu? Okay its Hindu. I'm still going to do it though.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 17:58     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Wait... I'm Buddhist and pretty sure my yoga teachers are too. I think we are practicing Buddhism, not Hinduism.


Haha! This is the funniest thing I've read in months.


Wow, you must have a really dull life.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 17:56     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
I'm going to share some insights that I learned from my master.

Yoga was brought west slowly by various Hindu monks, in stages, as was meditation. The most famous of these Hindu monks was Paramahamsa Yogananda, the man who founded the Self-Realization Fellowship and wrote "Autobiography of a Yogi", Steve Jobs' favorite book.

Yogananda had a daunting task when he came to America in the early 20th century. He wanted to teach the techniques of self-realization and yoga, but whenever he tried to teach it the authentic way that he had been trained in by his guru Sri Yukteswar, he found he wasn't getting any enthusiasm.

Traditional kriya yoga invokes the Hindu gods, especially Shiva and Shakti. Yogananda's own preferred conception of God was as the Divine Mother Kali.

He found a lot of resistance to this when he tried to bring authentic kriya yoga teachings to the US in the 1920s. He also got physically attacked by hostile fundamentalist Christians.

Slowly, he stripped religion away from his teachings. He stopped wearing saffron robes and rudraksha malas, cut his long hair, and deliberately, consciously, made a calculated effort to change his theological language from Hinduism to Christianity, invoking Jesus Christ as a supreme guru and avatar of God.

In many ways, Yogananda's efforts to "dilute" Hinduism for the West is where modern New Age thinking comes from.

In order to teach yoga, Yogananda even changed the mantras. For kundalini pranayama meditation, for example, the mantra "va-shee" is used to denote Lord Shiva. This had to be changed to "Ah-eee" to avoid offending Christians who viewed Shiva as the devil or whatever. Ancient kriya techniques were boiled down to "self-energizing" exercises, which is a pretty big (and inaccurate) simplification of how prana (or chi, as the Chinese call it) works.

This is kind of how we ended up where we are today.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 17:44     Subject: Re:Yoga is Hindu. Period.
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."

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.


It's especially appalling because modern "fitness" yoga tends to just produce narcissists, especially in some of the yoga teachers who have active Instagram accounts and hundreds of followers.

If these people were to meet an actual yogi - as my guru, a self-realized master, is - they would shit their pants.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 17:41     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Anonymous wrote:Wait... I'm Buddhist and pretty sure my yoga teachers are too. I think we are practicing Buddhism, not Hinduism.


Um, you do know the history of Buddhism, right? Or please say this is a sarcastic post.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 17:34     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Anonymous wrote:Wait... I'm Buddhist and pretty sure my yoga teachers are too. I think we are practicing Buddhism, not Hinduism.


Haha! This is the funniest thing I've read in months.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 17:34     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Anonymous wrote:Wait... I'm Buddhist and pretty sure my yoga teachers are too. I think we are practicing Buddhism, not Hinduism.


I would say yoga is dharmic. It's unique the core non-dual philosophy of the dharma religions, which would mean Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 17:32     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Anonymous wrote:
You also need to refresh on the outdated and no longer supported theory of the Aryans being some sort of invading group. That has long been debunked.


Oh please, we aren't going to start on that. It has only been debunked by Hindu nationalists. The accepted position among scholars of linguistics, etc is that IE speakers came from outside India.


Here's a paper from the University of West Florida debunking the Aryan invasion theory: http://uwf.edu/lgoel/documents/amythofaryaninvasionsofindia.pdf

Stephen Knapp refuted the Aryan invasion theory in his book, "Advancements of Ancient India's Vedic Culture" (look at that, a non-Hindu nationalist debunking the Aryan theory!). Here's the relevant excerpt: http://www.stephen-knapp.com/aryan_invasion_theory_the_final_nail_in_its_coffin.htm

Here's the BBC admitting that the Aryan invasion theory was a myth: https://web.archive.org/web/20060705184146/http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/history/history5.shtml

Genetic testing on South Indians and North Indians denies a historical migrational split: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Aryan-Dravidian-divide-a-myth-Study/articleshow/5053274.cms

Here's a Harvard study debunking the Aryan invasion theory and concluding that it was a myth: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/drishtikone/2009/09/aryan-invasion-theory-myth-large-harvard-study/

Doesn't it just suck when you can't justify your appropriation with "science" and can't scapegoat all the Aryan invasion theory dissenters as "Hindu nationalists"?
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 17:24     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Wait... I'm Buddhist and pretty sure my yoga teachers are too. I think we are practicing Buddhism, not Hinduism.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 17:06     Subject: Re:Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Whoops, the video didn't embed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBMc9s8oDWE&app=desktop


Hilarious!


I think that actor is a famous Bollywood actor.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 16:34     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Fun fact: the asanas ("poses") of hatha yoga are actually just one step out of 8 stages to God-realization. I realized I got the best benefit out of them when I used them just before my meditation practice. That got me reading the Hindu scriptures that explain yoga in much greater depth, like the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita. It's definitely a spiritual practice, not a fitness routine.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 16:01     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I tried yoga years ago because my physio therapist said it was an excellent way to stretch. For me, personally there was nothing more to it.

There was no intent to insult anyone's religion, I just needed to stretch some damn tight muscles.


Fair enough, I have no problem with you tending to your health concerns. It's not about "You have to be Hindu to do yoga" or "Only Hindus can do yoga", it's about, "I'm a non-Hindu benefiting from a Hindu practice" and being mindful of that. Most people say, "Yoga isn't Hindu, so I can practice it without being Hindu." We're saying the attitude should be, "Yoga is Hindu, but I can practice it without being Hindu as long as I'm mindful of what it is I'm doing."

Tight muscles do need to be stretched; nothing wrong with that!


Yoga classes in the US are about as Hindu as the average Chinese restaurant is authentically Chinese or the average Mexican restaurant is authentically Mexican.



Which is the entire point of this thread.

By the way, American Chinese restaurants are still called Chinese restaurants. Same goes for Mexican restaurants. The food is still acknowledged as Chinese or Mexican.

Yoga is Hindu and should be acknowledged as such.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 16:00     Subject: Re:Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Love this article from 2009. I'm sure the numbers are even higher now.

Go on ladies, even if you can't bring yourself to admit it yet. You are very likely (GASP and reach for your crosses) Hindu!

http://www.newsweek.com/us-views-god-and-life-are-turning-hindu-79073


Yep. You caught us. Going to yoga class convinced us that cows are sacred, reincarnation happens, and karma exists. I will immediately stop attending mass and proceed to pray to Shiva.

Thank you for educating me.



Your literalist interpretation of a gradual cultural phenomenon leaves me astounded by your mighty intellect.


YAWN

Your insults, anger, and bitter attitude demonstrates the depth of your spiritual practice.



*pats PP on the head for thinking that post was an "insult".
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 14:56     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
For me, yoga is a useful way to stretch and get time away from the kids. Period. My religious beliefs are totally separate.
Anonymous
Post 08/14/2016 14:50     Subject: Yoga is Hindu. Period.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I tried yoga years ago because my physio therapist said it was an excellent way to stretch. For me, personally there was nothing more to it.

There was no intent to insult anyone's religion, I just needed to stretch some damn tight muscles.


Fair enough, I have no problem with you tending to your health concerns. It's not about "You have to be Hindu to do yoga" or "Only Hindus can do yoga", it's about, "I'm a non-Hindu benefiting from a Hindu practice" and being mindful of that. Most people say, "Yoga isn't Hindu, so I can practice it without being Hindu." We're saying the attitude should be, "Yoga is Hindu, but I can practice it without being Hindu as long as I'm mindful of what it is I'm doing."

Tight muscles do need to be stretched; nothing wrong with that!


Yoga classes in the US are about as Hindu as the average Chinese restaurant is authentically Chinese or the average Mexican restaurant is authentically Mexican.