Is Yoga Religious?

 

 

Let us begin with a reading.

 

 

Basically: “I don’t believe in it, what does it matter if I do a culturally significant thing if I don’t believe in it?”

And then the text goes on to give a good answer to that question, I’ve got another one.

I’m not just picking on Christians here, I see this attitude in members of closed religions all the time, and it’s a level of cognitive dissonance I could not live with. You also see it in gurus who have wandered off the path they’ve committed to. In the latter case, it’s absolutely a behavioral red flag.

The reason given in the text not to follow this logic is that those seeing you, a Christian, participating in a non-Christian religious activity, don’t have the same conviction that you do, and may be led into doing something sinful by your example. Not a bad answer, but I’ve got questions, and I have thoughts on this entire thought process.

First of all. The entire line of thinking behind ‘I don’t believe in it so why does it matter if I do something that other people believe in?’ is gross and narcissistic. It’s rude as hell not to recognize things that people other than you consider sacred. There are definitely elements of xenophobia, cultural supremacism, and likely racism that need to be sat with in that. But seriously, what the heck are you doing? If your God tells you not to fuck with other religions, why are you doing it? What other, better reason are you waiting for? Stahp.

Now that’s settled, let’s get back to how fucked up this train of thought is with a little…

Analogy

Let’s imagine that there is a Christian church in Japan. A group of college students from a university near the church start to come to the choir and orchestra practice after classes. They are very polite and dedicated to the music, but never want to talk about Christianity. Everyone takes their interest in good faith and they get good enough to sing and play instruments in the church services. They bring their friends. They raise money to install a better sound system in the church. They start to wear cross necklaces, clothing emblazoned with bible quotes, and get tattoos of Jesus. They come to every service, adding more and more music and singing to the services, enriching them with their enthusiasm. They come to church meetings and advocate for the church’s music program. The church members welcome them into the congregation with open arms, only to be told: “Church is just for music practice. None of us are Christian, but we come hear to learn music. We thought it didn’t matter since we don’t believe in anything that the music or services are about.”

And then: “It’s fine though, since you’re bothered. We have our own practice space and just came back for our sound system. We need more space anyway because we have a bunch of people that want to learn ‘Church’ and we are going to share your amazing singing techniques with the world! Your hymns put all the notes and random noises together in such a challenging way, we love it! We’re angels now! Y’know, because we sing?” Pointing enthusiastically, “She did a version of Ave Maria that went viral!”

Now you spend your life explaining what Church really means, or listen to people constantly talking about it being singing practice.

Would you encourage your Christian friends to attend ‘Church’? Would you start using Church to mean music class just to stop arguing about it 24/7? How would you respond when someone who knew nothing about Christianity called you stupid for saying that Church was more than music practice?

How would it make you feel?

If how you’re feeling right now is mad and indignant and full of points about how wrong I am here, hold up. Let me tell you…

Why this is a Really Good Analogy

The word Yoga is used frequently in Hinduism and means a spiritual path. Krishna explains the 3 primary Yogas in the Bhagavad Gita, and body poses are not included in any of them. Krishna mentions a 4th Yoga but it is not well recorded until centuries later by a Hindu Saint named Patanjali. 8 limbs of Yoga practice are given for this 4th path. Body postures are one of them, considered the least important overall.

Jesus describes how Christians should meet to worship him in the Bible. It involves several things, music and singing are not a significant part of what he describes. Practicing one of the 3 primary Yogas is something that every Hindu is called to do, but a Christian can live alone in a cave without a church and still be a good Christian. When a Hindu goes to live in a cave, it’s to do the 4th Yoga.

Sanskrit is an ancient language considered holy in Hindu practice. Hinduisms oldest and most influential scriptures are written in it. Historically it functioned much like Latin for India, Southeast Asia, and parts of the Middle East, allowing for the exchange of ideas. It is still the primary language for Hindu hymns, blessings, and devotionals. That means that it is actively being spoken and sung in the majority of Hindu services and home worship in the present day. Sanskrit is also used frequently in Buddhist scriptures, hymns, and services.

Being the liturgical language of the Dharmic faiths, it is culturally equivalent with Latin in Christianity. And while it is also a dead language, it is still used every day by Hindus and Buddhists in their religious devotions. That is much less common for Latin in the many branches and sects of Christianity. Once again, the analogy is good but the part of Dharmic culture being dismissed is even more relevant and important than the Christian equivalents I use in this analogy.

Singing and body poses are both tangential to their respective religions.

Angels and yogis are seen as supernatural and holy in their respective religious scriptures. They informally have a demi-God like status within the practice of their religions.

Jesus, Shiva, Krishna, Ganesh, Durga, Parvati, these are all forms of the divine. Probably best not to put any of their pictures up in the bathroom. Perhaps a reason to reconsider slapping Jesus’ face on everything so casually. If a jerk Christian can buy a t-shirt with Shiva on it and wear it to a strip club, a jerk Hindu can do the same with a t-shirt with Jesus on it. I guarantee you it’s been done the same on all sides, and we should all quit.

TL:DR: Poses are no more all of yoga than choir practice is all of church.

 

 

One quick side note here…

Shiva, Parvati, Krishna, Dattatreya, and I’m sure at least a couple others, are Gods of Yoga. If all that means is poses then that means the Bhagavad Gita, a text which has inspired some of the most formidable intellects of the modern world, is about Krishna giving Arjuna a quick refresher on Surya Namaskara to cure his pre-war depression. It takes over 30 chapters for them to finish the yoga lesson, and somehow doing some yoga poses has inspired Arjuna to worship his childhood friend.

If yoga is just poses, then Shiva and Parvati, one of Hinduism’s more romanticized partnerships, have a relationship based on tricking each other into teaching poses they already learned in secret. It makes no sense and it’s a really sad flattening of their interactions.

 

How to Do Better

• Stop freaking saying that yoga isn’t rooted in religious practice. If that makes members of more closed religions not want to do it, that’s ok. There are other fitness systems that, honestly, are better fitness systems because they were made to be fitness systems and not a warm up for deep meditation.
• Educate yourself before using religious phrases like Namaste and Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.
• Make an effort to learn and use the Sanskrit. There are resources all over the internet that can pronounce it for you, there’s no excuse.
• Stop calling people yogis. Yoga practitioner or yoga student is more accurate and respectful.
• It is also more accurate and respectful to call a modern purely physical yoga style Modern Postural Yoga, or at least Hatha Yoga.
• Learn the actual definition of yoga in a Hindu context, and be able to explain it’s relationship with Modern Postural Yoga.
• Read a reliable translation of the Bhagavad Gita, and after that Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.

P.S.

Hindus aren’t mad. They’re glad you’re getting what you can out of yoga. It’s just confusing and a little disappointing when we see you’ve hung the original Mona Lisa backwards on the wall because you’re in love with the texture of the unpainted wood on the back.

And if you’re one of the westerners like me, who never even knew Leonardo DaVinci’s most famous painting was on the other side of that old board on the wall, welcome to the club.