Is Yoga A Peaceful Practice Or Product Of Cultural Genocide? - Newsy

[yuiyoshida]

[MynameisBlarney]

1. Oh it's cultural genocide, obvs!

I mean, how better to go about such a thing than convincing women to wear yoga pants while getting healthy!

So deviously diabolical!

Seriously though....yoga pants are the BEST THING EVAR!!!

[yuiyoshida]

4. "Seriously though....yoga pants are the BEST THING EVAR!!!"

This!

[jamzrockz]

2. The west have manipulated yoga they say

But they have done the same to Chinese, Italian and whatever types of food you can think about. The west manipulating an aspect of a culture is not news. In fact everybody does it and not just the west.

Sometimes I think these sort of protests are a big troll job and the organizers are secretly laughing at us behind closed doors.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Political correctness

The concept of political correctness began as a rebuke by left wingers to other left wingers who were carrying an argument beyond a logical extreme into nonsense. For example, a statement like "The only way a woman can find love, happiness and sexual fulfillment is in a lesbian relationship" would be met with a rebuke like "That's a little too PC for me."

I understand what some of the defenders of Hindu traditions are saying, but to suggest that non-Hindus shouldn't attempt to gain any benefit from practicing yoga in a secular setting is too PC for me. I may agree that a secular yogi isn't getting the full benefit of yoga unless he seeks a spiritual awakening, but that's no reason to ring alarm bells and tell somebody who takes only the physical benefits from the practice is evil, disrespectful or otherwise wrong.

[Dont call me Shirley]

5. Aren't there many types of yoga? Kundalini, Tantra, Hatha? Yoga simply put means spiritual

discipline. So couldn't anything really be a yogic experience, a connection with the divine? One could have an enlightenment experience anywhere, anytime. At a concert, walking through a ripened wheat field, driving your car, at work. It simply takes surrendering yourself fully to the divine forces, the universal whole. Sometimes that's spontaneous, sometimes it takes a lot of work.

Let yoga evolve as it does, life is ever-changing anyway. Peace.

Cute story, yuiyoshida, thanks for posting

[Jeb Bartlet]

6. How completely

Absurd.

[panfluteman]

7. The West Is Totally Corrupting and Bastardizing Yoga!

I agree wholeheartedly with the Indian student's observation that yoga should be just as much about spiritual awakening as physical culture, even more so. As someone who has studied yoga in Europe, India and America, and who has studied Ayurveda, Yoga's sister science as well, that is definitely happening. Western Yoga is what I call "sweatshop yoga" and is designed to give practitioners the washboard abs and tight little buns as quickly as possible. It could also be called Asana Yoga, or the yoga of physical postures, and this particular limb of Yoga's Eight Limbs - which are Yama (ethical prohibitions), Niyama (ethical observances), Asana (physical postures), Pranayama (control and cultivation of the breath and vital energy), Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from external objects), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation) and Samadhi (superconsciousness) - has attained the peak of its perfection in the West, as Western Yoga teachers micromanage these postures with painstaking attention to every minute anatomical detail. In addition, even though they aren't so important for giving you the gorgeous body you always desired, there are internal muscular locks and cleansing exercises, called Mudras, Bandhas and Kriyas, which are still important for cultivating true health and awakening of body, mind and spirit. These are largely glossed over or not given the attention they deserve by Yoga teachers in the West.

It is entirely possible that a popularization of Yoga in the West was a key part of India's independence strategy, and to do this, the promoters realized that Yoga would have to be tailored and streamlined towards what people were seeking in the West: physical health and beauty. And part of that streamlining process was minimizing or omitting all that other stuff that didn't quickly and directly contribute to the attainment of physical health and beauty. One of the key Yoga teachers of India in that pre-independence era, who took Yoga in this new direction, although he was a true master of all aspects of it, and lived to be over one hundred years of age, was Krishnamacharya. Although he is virtually unknown outside of India, his top disciples, like BKS Iyengar and Patabhi Jois, were very important and instrumental in the spread of Yoga in the West.