Is Yoga a Form of Hinduism? Is Hinduism a Form of Yoga? --- Sightings

One of the Big Issues of 2010 concerned whether Yoga was a Hindu practice and thus off limits to Christians.  Interestingly enough, there was agreement from both some Hindus and some Christians that this was true.  Al Mohler on one side said that Yoga was too Hindu for Christians, while a number of Hindus (Hindu American Foundation) said that American Yoga wasn't Hindu enough and therefore Christians should get their hands off the practice so that Hinduism can be put back into this important Hindu practice.  Well, maybe things are a bit more complicated than this, and Wendy Doniger, an expert on Hinduism at the University of Chicago, sorts things out for us!  I may not practice yoga, but if I did, thanks to Wendy, I needn't fear for my soul!  Take a read.

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Sightings 12/30/2010

Is Yoga a Form of Hinduism?

Is Hinduism a Form of Yoga?

- Wendy Doniger

Debates about these questions have been making headlines lately. Some American Hindus have argued that American yoga is not Hindu enough, that Hindus should “Take Back Yoga” (the label of a campaign by the Hindu American Foundation). Other Americans agree that the Hindus should take back yoga—but because yoga is too Hindu: R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, advises Christians to abandon yoga if they value their (Christian) souls, for “yoga, as a spiritual practice, runs directly counter to the spiritual counsel of the Bible.” The problem should not have been breaking news; a spoof in 2003, “Yoga: A Religion for Sex Addicts,” depicted a Christian minister who was asked, “Should Christians practice Yoga?” He replied, “Are we going to have to bring this whole thing up about Yoga again? I thought our Sunday school curriculum included lessons about the evils of everything Oriental, including Yoga!”

But the issues involved are not trivial. Is yoga, in fact, “a spiritual practice”? More particularly, is it a Hindu spiritual practice? The word “yoga” originally meant “yoking” horses to chariots or draft animals to plows or wagons (the Sanskrit and English words are cognate). Though many yoga practitioners, particularly but not only Hindus, insist that their practice can be traced back to the Upanishads (c. 600 BCE) and Patanjali (c. 200 CE), the word “yoga” in these texts designates a spiritual praxis of meditation conjoined with breath-control, “yoking” the senses in order to control the spirit, and then “yoking” the mind in order to obtain immortality.

Buddhist sources in this same period also speak of techniques of disciplining the mind and the body, and the word “yoga,” owing as much to Buddhism as to Hinduism, soon came to mean any mental and physical praxis of this sort. (Similar disciplines arose in ancient Greece and, later, in Christianity, a subject on which Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault had a great deal to say). This is the general sense in which the word “yoga” is used in the Bhagavad Gita, a few centuries later, to denote each of three different religious paths (the yoga of action, the yoga of meditation, and the yoga of devotion). But these texts say nothing about the physical “positions” or “postures” that distinguish contemporary yoga. The postures developed much later, some from medieval Hatha Yoga and Tantra, but more from nineteenth-century European traditions such as Swedish gymnastics, British body-building, Christian Science, and the YMCA, and still others devised by twentieth-century Hindus such as T. Krishnamacharya and B. K. S. Iyengar, reacting against those non-Indian influences.

So there is an ancient Indian yoga, but it is not the source of most of what people do in today’s yoga classes. Contemporary yoga traditions are a far cry both from the Upanishads and from Hatha Yoga. Most twenty-first century American yoga practitioners have more in common with a jogger than with a meditating sage; they want to relax after a hard day at the office, tighten up their abs, and reduce their cholesterol and their blood pressure; their yoga of relaxation and stretching may also involve regular enemas, a cure for back pain, a beauty regime, a vegetarian diet with a lot of yogurt (which is not etymologically related to “yoga”)--oh yes, and a route to God.

Is yoga, then, for the mind or for the body? Is it like going to church or like going to the gym? Is it a spiritual praxis or an exercise routine? To all these questions, the answer is: yes. For some people (both in India and in America) it has been one, for others, the other, and for many, both.

In his online column and elsewhere, the Reverend Mohler has objected to the frequent citation by yoga teachers of "the idea that the body is a vehicle for reaching consciousness with the divine," which he says is “just not Christianity.” But yoga is “not just Hinduism”; as we have seen, it has rich European (and Christian!) elements. Despite this historical evidence, however, many Hindus, such as those in the Hindu American Foundation, insist that meditational yoga—rather than temple rituals, the worship of images of the gods, or other, more passionate and communal forms of religion—has always been, and remains, the essence of Hinduism, their religion. Christians for whom a yoga class is simply physical exercise may offend such Hindus but should pose no problem for Mohler; and Christians who take the philosophical doctrines of yoga seriously should be no problem for a more ecumenical, not to say multi-cultural, pastor.

References

Landover Baptist Church, “Yoga: A Religion for Sex Addicts,” March 2003.

Dylan Lovan, “Southern Baptist Leader on Yoga: Not Christianity,” Associated Press, October 7, 2010.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “Yahoo, Yoga, and Yours Truly,” AlbertMohler.com, October 7, 2010.

Paul Vitrello, “Hindu Group Stirs a Debate Over Yoga’s Soul,” New York Times, November 27, 2010.

Wendy Doniger is the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago and has published translations of the Rig Veda, the Laws of Manu, and the Kamasutra. Her latest book is The Hindus: An Alternative History (Penguin, 2009).

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Editor’s Note: Sightings will break and return on Thursday, January 6. Happy New Year!

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.



..::Classic Mother, Lover, Goddess::.. Yoga and Mothering, My Personal Story

I wrote this a few years back during my Master's degree program and while I was also doing my Yoga Alliance Pre and Postnatal Yoga training. I had to cancel Mommy and Me yoga class today because we're snowed in and I can't get to the studio - so this is for my students who read my blog as well as any other mamas who groove with the yoga vibe! This is a reflection as well as a flowing vinyasa that can be practiced.

Yoga and Mothering, My Personal Story


Organic Inquiry, Spring 2006




My Childhood – Child's Pose – Pindasana


“...for you, gentle mother...”


Jeannine Paravati Baker

My relationship to the scared practice of yoga and it's relationship to it as a mother cannot be fully understood without some background on my own childhood and my divine relationship with my developing body. Rooted in my movement as a child I now enjoy the fruits of yoga.


All children move with grace. From their first kicks in the womb to their first steps and so on, children move simply to move. With crawling a baby begins to access powers from his previous experiences and the mental development is encouraging (Liedloff 78). Their bodies call out for exactly the right movement at the right time to strengthen their bodies. They move to release stress, and I have found with my son that impeding his need for movement can result in tears, screams of pain, terror and potential trauma.


I, of course, was also born with a natural need to move, in addition to a very vivid past life memory of being a dancer in New York City. I began tap at age five but my body in this incarnation didn't respond to choreographed movement as well as it did to the stretching and strength of gymnastics which I begun at age six.

At age nine I discovered figure skating and relished it until an ankle injury took me off the ice and out of competition at the age of fifteen. To this day one theme which reoccurs often in my dreams is that of figure skating - the ice, the concentration, the movement, the music – thoughts of bringing my body into perfect alignment to feel the highs, and gracious swooping that is my form on ice.




Adolescences – Bridge Pose – Setubandha Sarvangasana


“Yoga is not about self-improvement, it's about self-acceptance.” Gurmukh


My ankle injury corresponded to a time in my life in which I began to distrust and contort my body. As an adolescent I left the realm of feeling positive about my body. I was now in high school, watching MTV, reading fashion magazines, and going to movies. I no longer trusted my body, it not only had failed me in the one movement I loved more than any other (figure skating) but I now noticed it didn't “look right”. I had curves, large hips, and short legs. I was not the standard image of beauty (i.e. Cindy Crawford, Shannen Doherty, Christie Brinkley, Daryl Hannah etc.) and my mind took that to a teenage extreme that saw myself as nothing short of the creature form the black lagoon.


Movement became for me an obsession. To constantly move meant to burn more calories to achieve the “thin” body that would make me beautiful. Movement became something I battled, pushing myself further and further, just as I also restricted myself further and further with my food intake. I not only did not love my body anymore I was striving to make it disappear.


My first serious boyfriend, my now ex-husband, helped pulled me out of that cycle. I still didn't feel pretty enough (and on some days now I still don't, that's a battle we all face daily) but he loved me and that gave me the external validation that allowed my to come back from the brink of self destruction. Leaving the care of my abusive mother about nine months later at the age of eighteen was also my saving grace in that respect.




Adult – Sundance – Surya Namaskar


“I discarded my servile behavior and walked away from an existence previously controlled by societal pressure. What next? I felt free, but fragile. After all, I had not been conditioned to think for myself, to listen to my innermost voice, or to trust my instincts.” - Hygeia Halfmoon


When I was eighteen my friend Julie used the surya namaskar as a warm up for our dance class. I was intrigued and I had heard about yoga in different circles. By this time in my life I was involved in pagan spirituality and vegetarianism and the world of yoga had overlapped into my consciousness. Actually doing it for the first time was exhilarating and I went out and bought tapes and books on yoga.


I always liked doing yoga but it's transcendental nature didn't sit well with my earth Goddess perspective. I believed the body to be divine, our connection with deity, not something to escape. I didn't practice it as a religious or spiritual experience, I practiced it as an exercisers routine but still I did not practice very often, three times a week at best.


Then when I was in my second year of college I began having crippling panic attacks. The psychiatrist placed me on the prescription drug zoloft. I didn't like the zombied out feeling in my mind and body it produced. My body became numb and I knew drugs weren't the way for me. This inspired me to locate the source of the panic attacks myself, for my own self healing.


Stress, previous childhood trauma and abuse seemed to be the most likely culprits in my panic. A routine of meditation, St. John Wort, Kava Kava, and yoga returned me to functioning. After a while, as less stress and relaxed breathing became second nature, I dropped my formal yoga practice only to pick it up spontaneously when the mood struck.


When I was twenty-one I began studying midwifery at the Ancient Art Midwifery Institute. The field of yoga often over lapped that of natural pregnancy and birth. I began to study yoga more intently, more frequently and decided that becoming a certified teacher or engaging in intensive yoga study at some point in my life was a goal of mine. I wanted to use yoga to help the mamas I aspired to serve in the future. Yoga fit perfectly with my study of natural birth, fertility awareness, breastfeeding, attachment parenting, joyful mothering, intactavism, family nest, divine feminine spirituality, veganism/compassion, feminism, natural family healing and community.




Pregnancy – Squat – Malasana


“Healing begins at the moment of birth – the unity of the mother and babe is maintained as she receives into her arms the fruit of her labor and loving.”

- Jeannine Parvati Baker


When I became pregnant with my son the first thing I asked for as a celebration gift was a prenatal yoga video. I was given Crunch, Mama Yoga by my father. Doing prenatal yoga finally clicked in my brain. Yoga wasn't simply a serious of movements designed to calm my mind or increase my calorie burning it was connecting me, through movement and breath to MY body. It need not be viewed as transcendental. It took someone else actually inhabiting my body for me to truly begin connecting with it for the first time. I knew instictually that my child was sacred, and since he had come from my body, in turn, my body must be sacred too.


Prenatal yoga was my best connection to my body. I could quiet my mind, breath and feel my son inside long before I could physically feel him. It became a way for me to connect deeply, to actually communicate with this being I had waited so long to manifest.


Using meditation I had developed as part of my yoga practice I was able to sink my consciousness deep down. I would stay still, breathing fully and evenly while my minds point of reference dropped from my crown chakra, my head, into my womb, my sex chakra, descending steadily through my body. This is not as easy as it sounds. Few people understand how rooted their consciousness is in their head. The slightest thought or distraction would immediately shock my mind back into my head, like a bubble of air rising to the surface of a pond, and I would have to slowly begin all over again.


Once I had been able to root myself in my womb I used my minds eye to witness the physical and spiritual growth of my developing child. This imagery served to give me peace of mind. I knew my baby was healthy because I could “see” and feel that he was healthy. That imagery, for me, was more powerful, informative and healthy than any ultrasound machine.


I was also able to directly connect with his consciousness and sooth him and meet his needs based on what he was able to tell me directly through these moments. He was able to tell me when he could hear and what music and sounds he proffered. He was able to ask me questions that I could intuitively answer, connecting deeply to his acceptance of this incarnation before he was even born.


He was even able to tell me things about the path of his life that I didn't understand at the time. He would insist to me quite often that he had no father. I had at this point been married to his father for five years. I certainly knew he had a father and even if the relationship between his father and I ended for some reason, his father would still be his father. However, as of the time of this writing his father and I have been divorced for nearly two years (divorcing when Nykki was only eight months old) and his biological father is indeed not in is life at all.





Motherhood – Tree Pose – Vrksasana


“A tree will only grow tall if its roots go deep down into the earth.”

-Yoga for Children by Mary Stewart and Kathy Phillips



Motherhood is a constant balancing act, much like tree pose itself. I began my mothering in a comfortable situation. I didn't need to work, I had awesome resources to draw from such as Hygeia Halfmoon, author of Primal Mothering in a Modern World who was a friend of mine. I had a perfectly behaved baby who conformed to all my preconceived notions of correct mothering. I had wonderful, like minded friends from which to draw support. When my son was eight months old however that all fell apart. My husband and I suddenly divorced, he disappeared and my son and I moved to Utah. At this point my son soon began walking and his new mobility confronted me with mothering challenges I hadn't had to consider before when he was just a cute small bundle in his baby sling.


When I have been faced with challenges in my mothering life yoga has been my tool to heal myself. Yoga quite simply kept, and still keeps me, sane. Yoga helps me to eliminate my anger, calms and soothes stress in my life, tunes me into a compassionate way of living, helps me become more aware of my environment, connects me to my community and reminds me of my union with the feminine divine.


Being a woman and a single mother in this society can cause anger. Absent fathers, nonsupporting family and friends, insulting social service workers, hostile work places etc. so the first major thing I found myself contending with was the anger, the shadow side of my root chakra. After moving to Utah I started putting my son to bed earlier and began an hour and forty minute yoga routine every night that I self designed to, among other things, release the anger I felt with my ex-husband. I would dance out my postures in the fading light of the late evening desert sunsets of pink.


The movement of yoga gave me a way to eliminate the seeds of anger before it irrupted. I had been raised by a mother who took out her anger on her children physically. Beating her children was her release. This was my roll model of mothering and hitting was an impulse I suddenly discovered I possessed in moments of anger. Hiking, loud singing and yoga kept my angry body relieved of these thoughts. After calming down I was able to draw spiritually from the yamas and niyamas (ethical precepts for wholistic life which are one of the three foundations of yoga). Ahimsa, non-violence, is the precept that true harmlessness begins with ourselves. I try always to carry that in my heart.


Then there is the stress. Motherhood under even the most perfect conditions is stressful. It is quite demanding to be need so completely and consistently. Too much stress can increase ones risk of suffering from an illness or even an accidental injury. Many conditions can be linked to stress including, baldness, mental and emotional problems, high blood treasure, decreased immune system function, aggravated digestive track, muscle twitches, menstrual disorder, and irritable bladder to name a few (Caroll 178).


Common ways of controlling stress are regular exercise, relaxation, and taking small breaks through out the day (Caroll 181). Yoga provides all of these. So it was no surprise when I was able to use yoga during my divorce, as well as now, to alleviate stress and tension. I have found that the working of the muscles and the breath in union restores blood flow to areas of my body which have frozen or become blocked due to stress.


For me the physical pain of stress can cause me to be further irritated in moments when absolute calm is nesscary (so many of these moments are called upon in mothering). In the past I had been plagued by the pain brought on from stress and tension building in my joints and in particular between my shoulder blades and in my neck.


Often the pain in my neck, shoulders and back could only be controlled with intense massage, but I never had the opportunity or money to get regular massages. Yoga allows me to massage my own body with my breath, working out knots and soreness.

This translates directly a less painful and happy mama who relates better to my son thus serving my child better by truly meeting his needs as apposed to over ruling him from a place of stress-pain-response.


I have been a vegetarian since I was twelve and a vegan since I was twenty hence compassion is very important to me and I wish to pass that onto my child. The inner experiences of yoga helps cultivate that compassion for me. While holding difficult poses and during meditation I turn my reflections inward and try to experience sensation on a different level. This often leads to a sense of harmony between my self and the universe, a feeling of compassion extends from me into the world. After coming out of these states I am able to approach my relationship with my son on a more understanding level – to meet his needs with full compassion.


A good mother is not only kind, loving, giving and understanding but alert and vigilant as well. I have found that the discipline of yoga has aided in heightening my senses, and fine tuning my awareness of my environment. I can sense mood shifts in my son as they are happening. These skills help me stay one step ahead of any danger he may get into and I am better able to adjust our environment to more properly fulfill his needs on a daily basis.


I remember one day my friend and yoga teacher, Surya, saying “He's such a Buddha, you know? I mean his eyes.” referring to my son as we arrived for our weekly yoga class. Practicing yoga with other moms is a wonderful way to establish a friendly community which is a most needed outlet for moms and families.


Starting when my son was two months old we regularly attended local yoga classes. It was here that I learned about the wonderful practice of elimination communication which kept my dear son virtually diaper free and increased our nonverbal communication. At yoga class Surya and I gently guided other moms toward vaccine and circumcision alternatives. It was a give and take of support, information and sisterhood as we all relaxed and played yoga with our babies. Yoga was the union in our community whose result was wholistically healthy mamas and babies.


Spiritually our bodies are the the way we come to know and understand our connection with the Infinite (Gurmukh x1). I see the universe as being loved and nurtured by a divine power that, because I am a woman and because of the female-male balance in all aspects of nature, I personify as a Goddess. Yoga practice roots me to mother earth and expands though my chakras to my crown which is my connection to the divine. It awakens the Goddess energy, the Kundalini, the Shakti, in my natural and holy body. Yoga reminds me everyday that I am a Goddess and my son a God, it's hard to treat him as anything else when I constantly remind myself via my yoga practice.




Passing Yoga To My Son – Lotus – Padmasana


“Children are our guides to higher spiritual planes.”

- Ina May Gaskin


I cannot take full credit for yoga having helped me move into a space of positive motherhood. My son, as he is growing, has fallen love with yoga himself. It's his favorite thing to play, it's his favorite thing to watch and to talk about. He could do adho mukha svanasana (dog pose) before he could walk. His favorite chant is “Om nehma Shiva.” At two and half years old I cannot imagine trying to get him to settle down without his ability to take a deep centering breath through his nose and out his mouth.


Every benefit I have received directly from yoga as an adult he, as a child, has also received. He is calmer, more sensitive, very connected to the divine, compassionate, and stronger then he would have been without his daily yoga practice with mama - which he has shared in since his conception.


“As time went by, my experience with yoga led me to begin regular meditation, to change my diet, and to become calmer, less judgmental, and less caught up in the little dramas of life.” -Jane Goad Trechsel, A Morning Cup of Yoga


Acceptance, Release – Exhale of Breath - Pranayama


“Acceptance is an act of pure grace.” - Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa


My son is still young and I have not had to face the reality that he does not belong to me. He will grow up and slowly break away forming his own life. This is one of the hardest things on a mother – learning to let go. Even though it will be hard I know that the practice and philosophy of yoga will be there once again to guide me.


In breath work I inhale deeply through the nose filling my body with breath. Then I exhale all the air – every last molecule. Here it is that I learn to give everything away. Only when I have emptied myself of everything, given away all I have, can I truly receive. Our wonderful lungs remind us of this fact every second of the day. Through yoga, when I place my focus on my breath I can re-attune with inner knowledge, the wisdom of my body.


Conclusion – Lying Flat – Savasana


“...we need to engage our feminine power and enact change, beginning with our own family systems. To bring the feminine touch back to humanity is to bring humanity back to it's self.” -Hygeia Halfmoon


The power of yoga goes beyond momentary insights and continual practice. When you truly live yoga you live it with your full being in every aspect of your life. Bringing together your mind, body and breath in a series of gracious movements is a rippling effect that influences your mothering toward positive change and continual harmony. Happy healthy children come from wholistic, strong, and centered mothers, and the gift of that happy child into our society is the one of the greatest gifts any woman can give.









Works Cited


Baker, Jeannine Parvati. (1986). Prenatal Yoga and Natural Birth. Monroe, UT: Freestone Publishing.


Carroll, Stephen. (1995). The Complete Family Guide To Healthy Living. New York: Dorling Kindersley Publishing.


Gaskin, Ina May.(1990). Spiritual Midwifery. Summertown, TN: The Book Publishing Company.


Goad Trechsel, Jane. (2002). A Morning Cup of Yoga. Canada: Crane Hill Publishers.


Halfmoon, Hygeia. (1998). Primal Mothering In A Modern World. San Diego, CA: Maul Brothers Publishing.


Kaur Khalsa, Gurmukh. (2001). The Human Talents. New York: HaperCollins.


Liedloff, Jean. (1985). The Continuum Concept. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Books


Stewart, Mary and Phillips, Kathy. (1992). Yoga for Children. New York: Simon and Schulster.

Full Moon Yoga Class!

I've been teaching Mommy and Me Yoga since last July now. In this small town I've had a maximum of 2 students per class. It's been and up and down roller coaster ride for me. I really love teaching and I know I'm really good at it but some weeks no one would come and I would roll up my mat and head home finding happiness only in the fact that I was holding the space of mommy/baby bonding through the ancient practice of yoga in my community.

Yesterday was a full moon. I gathered together a Moon salutation and a mommy moon meditation expecting just my regular student to be there. Four students showed up!!! I was so happy I literally jumped up and down! We worked through two moon salutations and then sat with a wonderful meditation. We all felt so good afterward!

It's so inspiring to practice yoga with other mamas! When I practice at home it's rewarding but nothing compares to a community of mamas breathing together, stretching, getting lots of good oxygen into out muscles and feeling our bodies move with our breath in that groovyharmony called yoga!