| |
The theft of
yoga
Washington
Post; April 18, 2010
Aseem
Shukla
Associate Professor in urologic surgery
at
the University
of Minnesota
medical school.
Co-founder and board member of Hindu American Foundation.
Nearly 20 million people in the
United States gather
together routinely, fold their hands and utter the Hindu greeting of Namaste --
the Divine in me bows to the same Divine in you. Then they close their eyes and
focus their minds with chants of "Om,"
the Hindu representation of the first and eternal vibration of creation. Arrayed
in linear patterns, they stretch, bend, contort and control their respirations
as a mentor calls out names of Hindu divinity linked to various postures:
Natarajaasana (Lord Shiva) or Hanumanasana (Lord Hanuman) among many others.
They chant their assigned "mantra of the month," taken as they are from lines
directly from the Vedas, Hinduism's holiest scripture. Welcome to the practice
of yoga in today's western world.
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Pagans, agnostics and atheists they may be, but they
partake in the spiritual heritage of a faith tradition with a vigor often
unmatched by even among the two-and-a half-million Hindu Americans here. The
Yoga Journal found that the industry generates more than $6 billion each year
and continues on an incredible trajectory of popularity. It would seem that
yoga's mother tradition, Hinduism, would be shining in the brilliant glow of
dedicated disciples seeking more from the very font of their passion.
Yet the reality is very
different. Hinduism in common parlance is identified more with holy cows than
Gomukhasana, the notoriously arduous twisting posture; with millions of warring
gods rather than the unity of divinity of Hindu tradition--that God may manifest
and be worshiped in infinite ways; as a tradition of colorful and harrowing
wandering ascetics more than the spiritual inspiration of Patanjali, the second
century BCE commentator and composer of the Yoga Sutras, that form the
philosophical basis of Yoga practice today.
Why is yoga severed in
America's collective
consciousness from Hinduism? Yoga, meditation, ayurvedic natural healing,
self-realization--they are today's syntax for New Age, Eastern, mystical, even
Buddhist, but nary an appreciation of their Hindu origins.
It is not surprising, then, that Hindu schoolchildren complain that Hinduism is
conflated only with caste, cows, exoticism and polytheism--the salutary
contributions and philosophical underpinnings lost and ignored. The severance of
yoga from Hinduism disenfranchises millions of Hindu Americans from their
spiritual heritage and a legacy in which they can take pride.
Hinduism, as a faith
tradition, stands at this pass a victim of overt intellectual property theft,
absence of trademark protections and the facile complicity of generations of
Hindu yogis, gurus, swamis and others that offered up a religion's spiritual
wealth at the altar of crass commercialism. The
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, under
whose tutelage the Beatles steadied their mind and made sense of their insane
fame, packaged the wonders of meditation as
Transcendental Meditation (TM)
just as an entrepreneur from here in Minneapolis applied the principles of
Ayurveda to drive a commercial enterprise he coined as Aveda. TM and Aveda are
trademarked brands--a protection not available to the originator of their
brand--Hinduism itself. And certainly these masters benefited millions with
their contributions, but in agreeing to ditch Hinduism as the source, they left
these gifts orphaned and unanchored.
The Los Angeles Times last
week chronicled this
steady disembodying of yoga from Hinduism. "Christ is my guru. Yoga is a
spiritual discipline much like prayer, meditation and fasting [and] no one
religion can claim ownership," says a vocal proponent of "Christian themed" yoga
practices. Some Jews practice Torah yoga,
Kabbalah yoga and aleph bet yoga, and even some Muslims are joining
the act. They are appropriating the collective wisdom of millenia of yogis
without a whisper of acknowledgment of yoga's spiritual roots.
Not surprisingly, the most
popular yoga journals and magazines are also in the act. Once yoga was no longer
intertwined with its Hindu roots, it became up for grabs and easy to sell. These
journals abundantly refer to yoga as "ancient Indian," "Eastern" or "Sanskritic,"
but seem to assiduously avoid the term "Hindu" out of fear, we can only assume,
that ascribing honestly the origins of their passion would spell disaster for
what has become a lucrative commercial enterprise.
The American Yoga
Association, on its Web site,
completes this delinking of yoga from Hinduism thusly:
"The common belief that Yoga derives from
Hinduism is a misconception. Yoga actually predates Hinduism by many
centuries...The techniques of Yoga have been adopted by Hinduism as well as by
other world religions."
So Hinduism, the religion
that has no known origins or beginnings is now younger than yoga? What a
ludicrous contention when the Yoga Sutras weren't even composed until the 2nd
Century BCE. These deniers seem to posit that Hinduism appropriated yoga so
other religions may as well too! Hindus can only sadly shake their heads, as by
this measure, soon we will read as to how karma, dharma and reincarnation--the
very foundations of Hindu philosophy--are only ancient precepts that early
Hindus of some era made their own.
The Hindu American
Foundation (Disclosure: I sit on the Foundation's Board) released a position
paper on this issue earlier this year. The brief condemns yoga's appropriation,
but also argues that yoga today is wholly misunderstood. Yoga is identified
today only with Hatha Yoga, the aspect of yoga focused on postures and breathing
techniques. But this is only one part of the practice of Raja Yoga that is
actually an eightfold path designed to lead the practitioner to moksha, or
salvation. Indeed, yogis believe that to focus on the physicality of yoga
without the spirituality is utterly rudimentary and deficient. Sure, practicing
postures alone with a focus on breathing techniques will quiet the mind, tone
the body, increase flexibility--even help children with Attention Deficit
Disorder--but will miss the mark on holistic healing and wellness.
All of this is not to
contend, of course, that yoga is only for Hindus. Yoga is Hinduism's gift to
humanity to follow, practice and experience. No one can ever be asked to leave
their own religion or reject their own theologies or to convert to a pluralistic
tradition such as Hinduism. Yoga asks only that one follow the path of yoga for
it will necessarily lead one to become a better Hindu, Christian, Jew or Muslim.
Yoga, like its Hindu origins, does not offer ways to believe in God; it offer
ways to know God.
But be forewarned. Yogis
say that the dedicated practice of yoga will subdue the restless mind, lessen
one's cravings for the mundane material world and put one on the path of
self-realization--that each individual is a spark of the Divine. Expect
conflicts if you are sold on the exclusivist claims of Abrahamic faiths--that
their God awaits the arrival of only His chosen few at heaven's gate--since yoga
shows its own path to spiritual enlightenment to all seekers regardless of
affiliation.
Hindus must take back yoga
and reclaim the intellectual property of their spiritual heritage--not sell out
for the expediency of winning more clients for the yoga studio down the street.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/aseem_shukla/2010/04/–
nearly_twenty_million_people_in.html
|
|
