In launching a campaign to "Take Back Yoga" from New Age gurus and fitness entrepreneurs, the Hindu American Foundation has generated a storm of controversy -- one that recently spilled from the blogosphere onto the front page of The New York Times. Nobody owns yoga, the targeted practitioners have replied almost in unison; how inflexible to portray the American fondness for yoga as cultural thievery. Let the new adepts keep their peace of mind, while turning their bodies into pretzels, so the defense goes.
A little more than a century ago when yoga was first introduced to the United States through visiting swamis and a small handful of upstart American teachers, few were rushing to claim it, let alone copyright or market it. Advocating yoga could land you in jail rather than in splashy magazines or swanky studios. There was a lot more grief in it than money or tranquility.
No one made that clearer than the American misfit Ida C. Craddock who set herself up in Chicago in 1899 as "pastor" of the Church of Yoga, only to die by her own hand three years later in Manhattan after being found guilty once again in federal court of blasphemous obscenity. "PRIESTESS OF YOGA A SUICIDE--Miss Ida Craddock, the Leader of a Peculiar Religious Sect, Kills Herself Rather Than Go to Prison," shouted one New York newspaper's headline.
Embracing yoga was costly for Craddock -- and not because of a gym membership. The greatest vice fighter of the day, Anthony Comstock, saw her as a terrible menace, depicting her as both disgracefully sacrilegious and "indescribably nasty." Craddock seemed hell-bent on corrupting American innocents with teachings that brazenly combined spiritual guidance about yoga with marital advice about sexual relations. Comstock only scoffed at the notion that she was the leader of "the Holy Church of Yoga." He was sure instead that she was primarily a "lecturer of filth."
Comstock's New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, a faith-based voluntary society with strong government backing, made her life miserable. In his obsessive worrying over obscenity Comstock could sound like a sanctimonious prude, but his power was very real: Imagine Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson with a badge. He and his allies spearheaded Craddock's arrest in Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and New York, and her writings were repeatedly banned as obscene literature. In Chicago, the famed lawyer Clarence Darrow kept her out of prison with a plea bargain. The condition: Craddock had to hand over all of her pamphlets to be burned. When Comstock put a book-burning reformer and a prison guard on the seal of his vice society, he meant the figures to be taken quite literally.
Few things demonstrate how much the American religious landscape has changed over the last century than yoga's transformation from feared and reviled import to integral spiritual and physical regimen. As the Hindu American Foundation's protest suggests, the enthusiastic buzz that yoga now generates has still left some skeptical. Religious conservatives particularly have their own reasons for lamenting this cultural shift. Taking yoga's popularity as exhibit A, the prominent Southern Baptist pundit Albert Mohler recently suggested that the United States was becoming crazily syncretistic. Yoga's attractiveness, Mohler concludes, is "a symptom of our postmodern spiritual confusion"; it is a sure sign that evangelicalism's cherished hope for a Christian America has finally come undone.
Craddock long ago got caught in the teeth of that Protestant ideal, Comstock's robust power to enforce his vision of a morally unified, pure and redeemed nation. So, for that matter, did Craddock's one-time collaborator Otto Hanish, a self-described Zoroastrian priest who was also arrested on obscenity charges and whose Chicago temple was ransacked by U.S. authorities looking for evidence of impropriety. (He did not help his cause by advocating nude sunbaths for their spiritual healthfulness.) One hundred years later, isolated and persecuted figures like Craddock and Hanish have gained some recompense in the greater acceptance of free expression for religious -- as well as sexual -- differences. Yoga used to make a Christian nation writhe; now it has become an embodiment of the country's religious and social elasticity. In that dramatically altered perception, there is much to find civic satisfaction.
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie: Ecstasy and the Future of Liberal Religion
Yoga has avatars in America - The Times of India
'The Story of Yoga in America' Author Interview on NPR
Hindu Group Stirs Debate in Fight for Soul of Yoga - NYTimes.com
It's already borderline when yoga teachers ask the class to chant some Hindu prayer, even a general one for peace. And that illustrates the contradiction facing some American yoga teachers - they want to present yoga as something more than just exercise, something deeply spiritual, while not wanting to associate it with an organized religion. In such cases the critiques raised by Hindus become all the more valid - you can't very well talk about something being a spiritual practice thousands of years old and then blithely ignore the very belief system which made it spiritual.
And that is perhaps the underlying problem. Before there were many immigrants here from the sub-continent, New Age Americans had a tendency to pick and choose from Hinduism, as if it was magically separate from organized religion. But now there are lots of real, educated Hindus living around them and they understandably are as dismayed by this co-opting of their religion.
Not that that keeps some Indians from taking yoga at their health club, mind you. :)
Instead of dogma, there instead appear to be several contradictory views, which are not really contradictory as they represent views from this or that epistemic avenue, all of which are considered valid from their pov and for the task at hand. This is a deep study not only due to the amount of material/views, but also because it genuinely asks that the unconscious habit of projecting the structure of a monotheism onto the Dharmas be put aside.
I've seen yoga practices and Buddhist derived meditation have a tremendous impact on so many populations. These are tools and practices that should be available to all.
When people distinguish between Hinduism and Yoga, they generally think of the Bhakti path within Hinduism as "Hinduism" and the rest, the "philosophy" and meditational praxis as "Yoga". Its a mucky distinction to say the least.
I don't care what anyone calls themselves, but credit should be given where its due.
Finally, when you say that "yogis" were outside the "rigid Hindu religious structure", you create another non-existent distinction. Also, "seeing for oneself" is not iconoclastic in Hinduism, it is the whole idea (Moksha), it is orthodox, however it is iconoclastic in the monotheisms.
Most Hindus experience Hinduism in a very integrated manner, much differently than most Westerners experience their religions (presuming that it is Christianity, for the majority of people. I mean).
Therefore, they may well perform morning puja prior to leaving their home for the day; possibly aarti at their local temple, etc. -- they celebrate Hindu holidays and festivals with their local community (Holi, Diwali, etc.) Everything from the clothing, jewelry and other adornments (tilaks, bindis, etc.) they wear, are an inherent an integrated aspect of their Hinduism.
Non-monastic, "non-Hindu" yogis, as I'm describing it, including myself, tend to adopt the practices that have direct connection with liberation -- pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana (meditation), samadhi, etc. - possibly kirtan/bhajan chanting, and so on.
... but we are not necessarily involved in the day-to-day immersion in Hinduism, in terms of ceremony, ritual, etc., that a formal Hindu may be.
Technically, this yogically-focused approach may be Hinduism as well; that's fine.
The main reason for any inference that may seem otherwise, is in the interest of clear communication to non-Hindus: you don't have to "become Hindu", in the way that many non-Hindus might perceive "becoming Hindu", in order to practice or benefit from yoga, even at the deepest spiritual levels.
From the "Hindu side", all of this is non-applicable, I'd say, yes?
http://www.swamij.com/hindu-word.htm
Speaking from many years of experience, one does not have to be Hindu to embrace yoga fully.
Yoga is simply a system of techniques for coming to know our own wholeness that is independent religion.
That's not to say that one has be a Hindu to practise Yoga. Being a Hindu, in so far as it is defined as a cultural identity, is not required to gain benefit from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and related texts and practises. But taking Patanjali's teachings as guiding steps towards Moksha is certainly "going native", call it being Hindu or not, I don't really care.
The purpose of my comments is a purpose I'm guessing you may agree with:
Many people say "yoga is Hindu" in the same breath with "and so, stay away from it."
I'm simply pointing out that yoga is ultimately, equally available for all; it operates based on principles of the full range of consciousness, and so, cannot be out of sync with reality.
If someone feels yoga is somehow at odds with their own religion, or with reality, they misunderstand it.
And, I agree, if I understand you correctly:
The framework of Hinduism is a framework, and therefore, a Christian practicing yoga is technically operating within a framework that Hinduism accepts ... but that much of Christianity might not.
I don't think we disagree, we're just emphasizing different points, it seems (and if we do disagree, no problem; it just doesn't seem to me that we do.)
How odd that the Hindu American Foundation wants to take back yoga. Sounds just like the fearful Christians who are always ranting about taking back Christmas!
And I think it's perfectly natural that America is becoming spiritually syncretistic--after all, either we have freedom of religion or we don't. The problem with Mohler and others who agree with him is that they want us all to stay in our own little spiritual camps, except when they're ready to convert us to their own religion.
There are many non-Hindus who practice complete yoga. By complete, I mean as an entire path to knowing our own wholeness, which comprises far more than just the body-postures that many people associate with yoga.
I hope you realize that if people decided to respect the Hindus then there would be no Baba Sthaganandas and no "Oneness through Yoga Project".
i say they should just go for gusto and take back numbers too. thankfully we still have a non-sanskrit alphabet, tho maybe they want to make a play for a few root words and later imports.
gotta love self-appointed defenders of culture.
I appreciate your presence in these blogs.
thanks, i like reading your comments too.
And I know that yoga is not Hinduism, if one is not Hindu.
I really know.
I'm a non-Hindu, and many of the participants and co-leaders at yoga/meditation retreats I have led, are Hindus.
What's your point in saying that yoga is Hinduism?
Why are you oh-so spiritual people so rude. missing your servants?
The issue seems to be what exactly deserves to be called "Yoga". In a way, its good that's everything is Yoga, because everything can be Yoga. I am pleased that the inventors and proliferators continue to innovate.
"Yoga" in the most pure sense is still present and available, but most people will not really be interested in going that far in exploration, but most people have never been anyway.
A good knowledge of Yoga includes its depth and breadth, including new innovations, and part of that includes the knowledge of the philosophy and worldview in which it arose and still inhabits in its deepest sense, and which is called Hinduism nowadays.
“Woe-is-a-me-bop
Om-drop-a-re-bop-om
Everybody’s doin' it
Please don't let them ruin it om”
Sorry, but when they start selling polypropylene yoga mats and lycra-spandex yoga outfits at Target and Kmart, and the yoga class becomes just another cliché for use in smart phone ads, it’s over folks.
Yes, I know, I’m just a grumpy old hippie.