But do we REALLY practice Yoga?
While I should have been focusing on my breathing this morning in my weekly yoga class, I was instead thinking about the religious aspects of the practice of yoga. To be completely honest I don’t know much about how religion and yoga intertwine, but I do know that it shares commonalities with traditional religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. As I lay on my $20 yoga mat, while wearing my $100 Lululemon yoga pants,
in a class that costs around $15 to partake in, I wondered when this religious practice stopped being religious and instead morphed into a commodity? I personally did not turn to yoga for any spiritual enlightenment; I was more attracted to the health and wellness aspect of the practice. My yoga instructor is just that, an instructor, she does not follow either of the above mentioned religions, yet she somehow has gained access to the sacred position as a yogi by completing instructional classes and becoming certified. I feel it is safe to say that yoga has been completely taken out of its religious context; its roots to Hinduism and Buddhism have been completely cut off by the powerful force we call capitalism, which has successfully taken a practice once free of charge to partake in and turned it into a multi-billion dollar industry.
An article written by Yogi Baba Prem brings forth the disconnect between yoga and its religious roots and the yogi discusses his appal at the sight of seeing an ad for Christian Yoga classes (2005). He goes on to explain that yoga is not in any way, shape or form a Christian practice and suggests that Christians are using the practice of yoga to acquire more followers or Christianity may be resorting to yoga as an attempt to regain their spiritual roots in Vedic civilization (Prem, 2005). So now, not only do we have the situation where yoga is cut off from its religious roots, but we now have other religions trying to assimilate the practice into their religious routines, likely as an attempt to gain more followers and in conjunction higher financial returns aswell. As expressed by Carrette and King, capitalist spirituality has successfully plagued our society by taking bits and pieces from different religions and turning them into individual practices and experiences, but still tries to pass them off as “religious” (2005).
Similarly Lawson’s article on yoga in America points to the reality that yoga is “only religious and spiritual when we want it to be” (para. 2, 2013). People can still have the personal satisfaction of calling themselves spiritual when practicing yoga because they genuinely believe that they are participating in a religious practice, but when stepping back you see that the capitalist spirituality has taken all of the true spirituality out of the practice. With common phrases like “meditate on things that bring you happiness” and “feel the stretch through your lower back”
it is clear that this once collective, religious practice has been reduced to nothing but a self-improvement, physical activity. In 2013 a group of parents in the state of California protested to have yoga removed from their children’s curriculum because of its religious connotations (Lawson, 2013). The judge ruled that though yoga has roots in Hinduism, “it is now a distinctly American cultural phenomenon” (para.4, 2013). How could this happen? What authority does a judge have in making the decision that a sacred practice such as yoga is now simply apart of American culture? Can this practice even still be considered “yoga” if it is not recognized as having religious connections? As Lawson mentioned in the article, America has once again won in taking a phenomenon and erasing the culture and history attached to it in order for it to fit into American societie’s needs. Can yoga ever become the sacred practice that it once was, or has its religious meaning been forever lost in our individual focus and desire to consume?
Reference List
Carrette, J., & King, R. (2005). Spirituality and the privitisation of Asian Wisdom Traditions. In Selling spirituality: The silent take over of religion(pp. 88–122). Canada and USA: Routledge.
Lawson, J. (2013, November 8). Yoga in America: Where bowing to god is not religious. HuffPost, pp. 88–122. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jill-lawson/yoga-and-religion_b_4230240.html
Prem, B. (2005). There is no christian yoga. 88–122. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://creative.sulekha.com/there-is-no-christian-yoga_184977_blog
