This is not for those who don't like to read... it's long and a little painful!! But worth the read...
I'm not sure what to think -- i agree with a lot of it, but some of it stings --should only people who's ancestors practiced yoga be able to practice yoga today? (or any other spiritual practice that is not their ancestor's for that matter--not the exercise regime under the auspices of spiritual practice as it is mostly taught for sure). Not all South Asian's practiced yoga historically, and it is my understanding that Vivekenanda, Yogananda, Satcitandanda, and the others who brought yoga to the West all said that yoga would be reborn here; that it was dying in India, and they wanted to bring it to the larger world.... I'm sure they would roll over in their graves if they saw what parades as yoga practice today --and the commoditization of it, but is she actually arguing that we should remain locked into our own cultural heritage regardless of what that heritage offers us (or doesn't)?
What happens to someone who doesn't resonate with their spiritual/cultural heritage? --What are gay Catholics supposed to do? What if your cultural heritage doesn't speak to you in any way? Should Africans not be practicing yoga? Who gets to decide what cultural appropriation is in a system that is founded on adaptability and change --of both self and system? (And as a couple of my dear friends have pointed out --she's drowning in white guilt. Should I not eat pasta because I'm not Italian; can I not play the djembe because I'm not African?) Obviously not. All cultures shift and change and adapt, and this is not only no exception. Yoga is founded on change. That's what it's all about in a sense.
I'm not one who believes that asana is yoga --it's one very small part (which i know is rarely taught in the West) --but that said --i agree that we need to look at what we are teaching (as a yoga teacher and trainer of yoga teachers) --but the history of yoga itself is replete with upheavals in theory and change --that is one of the amazing things about yoga --it changes and shifts based on what people have needed from it over the centuries --it has changed and evolved and is not a monolithic entity.... the various schools of yoga exist precisely because everyone is different, and there are many doors in. Bhakti, Mantra, Raja, Hatha, Karma, Jnana.... they are all different paths to a similar end --freedom. I have no interest in going to a heaven where God is going to judge me for my sins... am i supposed to suffer through that system just because i didn't have the luck to be born on the sub-continent? She argues that everyone should research their ancestry and adopt a spiritual practice that is culturally appropriate. She points out that what we are doing to yoga is akin to what Christianity did to the ancient earth-based religions of Europe. What if that doesn't speak to you either? Are you really stealing something that was offered to you by those whose tradition it is? Vivekananda and company wanted to bring vedanta (his tradition of yoga) to the world:
Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or mental discipline, or philosophy—by one, or more, or all of these—and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details. (Jackson, Carl T (1994), "The Founders", Vedanta for the West: the Ramakrishna movement in the United States)
My yoga practice is what keeps me sane, and teaching as well --I think we need to ask the questions --for sure. But am not sure i agree completely with her answers... but then, that's me --a white yoga teacher. Maybe it's my inability to deal with the fact that i have no business doing what i do. Am i left with my ethnic heritage's spiritual practice or no spiritual practice at all? I hear that some South Asians feel the west has appropriated their religious/spiritual identity and has changed it in an ugly way. I cannot argue with that. But I would also offer that the nature of yoga is change.
Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or mental discipline, or philosophy—by one, or more, or all of these—and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details. (Jackson, Carl T (1994), "The Founders", Vedanta for the West: the Ramakrishna movement in the United States)
My yoga practice is what keeps me sane, and teaching as well --I think we need to ask the questions --for sure. But am not sure i agree completely with her answers... but then, that's me --a white yoga teacher. Maybe it's my inability to deal with the fact that i have no business doing what i do. Am i left with my ethnic heritage's spiritual practice or no spiritual practice at all? I hear that some South Asians feel the west has appropriated their religious/spiritual identity and has changed it in an ugly way. I cannot argue with that. But I would also offer that the nature of yoga is change.
In no way am i suggesting that the way things are today are they way they should continue ---and as a white-privileged woman, I certainly can understand that some South Asians are horrified by what is out there as yoga --but I've also heard from some Indian students that they found yoga here in the West, and feel that they have been given access to something they wouldn't have had access to at home --and that it's being re-introduced into their culture that was largely letting it go, or had been encouraged/forced to do so by colonial British rule. Vivekananda spent much time touring India teaching, and trying to reintroduce his interpretation of vedanta to his homeland. He was a tireless social activist who argued that we need to work to end poverty first and foremost. Mahatma Ghandi added that he was among the reformers "who have maintained this Hindu religion in a state of splendor by cutting down the dead wood of tradition" (Parel, Anthony (2000), Ghandi, Freedom, and Self-Rule)
This isn't the first time that yoga (which has its roots in vedanta) has had a reformation of sorts --when Patanjali codified the yoga sutras (if he was indeed one person, which is highly unlikely) --it was in response to the disassociation of spiritual practice from the people. The priests set themselves up in a system that birthed the caste system --which they were at the top of-- --then Patanjali (around the same time as the Buddha) came along and said that people do not need priests to communicate with God or Spirit --it is accessible to each and every one of us -and you don't even have to believe in God necessarily to be free of the confines of material existence... it is available here and now. That's "classical yoga"
Then later in time --it became clear that people were unable to sit still and meditate; --which is what classical yoga practice is (our minds were too busy and unsteady) --and someone came up with the idea that we access and train the mind via the body --so along comes Hatha Yoga --the yoga of the body and the codification of asana. Asana is at this time only a part of a larger system designed to train the mind to meditate... not an end in itself.
And here we are --yoga is not what it was during vedic times, medieval times, nor even at the beginning of the 20th century. (As a matter of fact, what we know as yoga dates from the 1930's) --so what? Are we to dismiss it completely because it has departed from its origins in the Vedas? If that is true --then no one should be doing yoga. The rishis (the vedic "seers") took psychedelic plants, and journeyed --and came back and sang the Vedas. In most countries of the world these plants are illegal, thus unavailable to the larger population --and i have a feeling that even if we had access to those plants and medicines, that we have devolved spiritually so much that we wouldn't be able to hear the songs... at least that is the theory. The practices have evolved to meet the needs of humanity --and we have become so gross, that we need to be hit over the head with the grossest aspects of the practice to find the more subtle ones.
So --i guess I would have to argue --yeah --we need to smarten up our yoga --we need to study the history and place it in context. And you're not necessarily to get that at your local vinyasa studio --or gym, or even in a 200-hour teacher training. (You will find a lot of enthusiastic, loving souls though!) We need to do the work --and part of that work involves recognizing that we have adopted an ancient system and changed it. It is rarely "traditional" any more --and i'm not sure that's entirely bad. Not everyone has the patience to study it in this way, in this depth... i know this because my classes are small, as are my trainings. It's difficult. It is not an easy path --but as to the cultural appropriation argument against my even attempting it --what in this world remains the same? Do we really want it to? These are questions i'm asking honestly. I'm not saying it's okay to take a 2-week teacher training after having attended a retreat in Costa Rica and go out there and claim to be able to teach yoga--that is arrogant and frankly dangerous in some ways. (ok, maybe you're qualified to lead a class that you've memorized a script for, but I would argue (and agree with Leslie Kaminoff here) that you're an instructor, not a teacher). Having spent a large portion of my life studying the different systems of yoga --in depth, and with much effort, I have to say --i'm not sure I agree with someone who barely has scratched the surface of the larger yoga lexicon --and i'm not sure it's okay for her to tell me that I shouldn't be practicing or teaching because it's inauthentic and appropriating another culture's spiritual practices and history, of which she is fairly ignorant. Though to her credit --she at least knows that!
She's right --she shouldn't be teaching yoga if what she knows as yoga is an exercise regime. To be fair --she acknowledges that her training was not all that --and has declined to further the illusion of yoga as exercise, which is good. But to stop practicing because she's afraid she's stealing someone else's spiritual practice is, in this instance, unfortunate. Vivekenanda and the others wanted to bring yoga to the world to help save humanity and integrate all religious and spiritual traditions. Again --i am in no way arguing that what we have today is what they envisioned. But I have to wonder if yoga is not more powerful and transformative than she is giving it credit for. In my experience, many people come in the door through the exercise regime (which makes sense --there is a vinyasa studio on every corner these days). But many of them become intrigued by something that goes beyond the physical. Yoga changes us. For the better. (Which is precisely why so many of us want to bring it to "underserved" populations!) I've seen its effects on kids in jail --it changes them, and I'm sorry, without going off on another tangent, it is our obligation as yoga teachers to offer this to whomever we can --whether in jails, in inner cities, or in countries where they've never heard of it before. You don't have to go into those communities with the attitude that you're going to "save" anyone --all we do is offer what we have. Breath, movement, and self-inquiry. That's it. I'm not telling anyone to believe anything. I'm not saving anyone. I'm sharing what has helped me to become a better person and what has saved my life. I don't imagine that I'm responsible for saving anyone else. But if I can offer another person even a part of the peace i have found through my yoga practice, then i have a hard time believing that's a bad thing. I believe that even if all one ever accesses is the physical practices, that person is going to find more peace. Part of the beauty of the system is its accessibility. All you need is desire and a body in which to work. Desire to see and feel things differently --and this is universally available to everyone. Though we bow to the traditions that have brought us this far (Vedanta, Samkya, Classical, Tantra, to name just a few), we also accept that change is part and parcel of the deal. The original codifiers of yoga never argued that it was a system that was static. The nature of the philosophy was based on heated debate and adapting to changes in the human experience.
There are some authentic yoga teachers out there who offer a full understanding of what yoga is. Admittedly, they are few and far between. But they honor the tradition from which they came --which they were offered by their teachers. Yes, there have been changes. Again --yoga is all about shifts and changes, and I am unsure if that qualifies as cultural appropriation, or further indication of yoga's universality. I'm not saying that we are not appropriating the spiritual practices --we are. I'm not Indian. But I think when we are talking about spiritual (or even religious) practice - - the idea of separateness is the problem. The idea that one way is okay for one group of people and only that group of people, further separates us from our 'brothers and sisters' (as Vivekenanda greeted the world parliament of religions in 1893). Until all religions understand the universality of Spirit, then we will continue to be locked in a world where innocents are killed in the name of religion and spiritual hierarchy. As Patanjali argued --it is the mistaken identification of the larger Self with the smaller egoic self that is the cause of suffering. Our inability to see that we are ultimately all Spirit --that this life we live is one created by the ego's attempt to define itself as "all that" is what creates the suffering. Yoga takes on the larger problem of consciousness --and that knows no cultural boundaries. Consciousness is a universal experience that cannot be bound by dogma --whether Hindu, Christian, Wiccan, Muslim, or non-denominational. And those who brought yoga to the West were all about dismantling the barriers that keep us from realizing the true Self.
We need to listen --listen to those teachers who are still alive --who still maintain a tradition of scholarship and inquiry. We need to read all we can and learn about the history of yoga and its philosophy. We need to make sure that what we are putting out there is not just yoga-speak, new-age mish-mash. Read the Sutras. Read the Pradipika. Read the Gita. For that matter, read the Mahabarata and the Ramayana and the Puranas and the Upanishads! Read the Bible and the Quran. And do your practice --whatever form that takes. Spirit --God, if you want-- cannot be confined by the human experience or mind.
She's right --she shouldn't be teaching yoga if what she knows as yoga is an exercise regime. To be fair --she acknowledges that her training was not all that --and has declined to further the illusion of yoga as exercise, which is good. But to stop practicing because she's afraid she's stealing someone else's spiritual practice is, in this instance, unfortunate. Vivekenanda and the others wanted to bring yoga to the world to help save humanity and integrate all religious and spiritual traditions. Again --i am in no way arguing that what we have today is what they envisioned. But I have to wonder if yoga is not more powerful and transformative than she is giving it credit for. In my experience, many people come in the door through the exercise regime (which makes sense --there is a vinyasa studio on every corner these days). But many of them become intrigued by something that goes beyond the physical. Yoga changes us. For the better. (Which is precisely why so many of us want to bring it to "underserved" populations!) I've seen its effects on kids in jail --it changes them, and I'm sorry, without going off on another tangent, it is our obligation as yoga teachers to offer this to whomever we can --whether in jails, in inner cities, or in countries where they've never heard of it before. You don't have to go into those communities with the attitude that you're going to "save" anyone --all we do is offer what we have. Breath, movement, and self-inquiry. That's it. I'm not telling anyone to believe anything. I'm not saving anyone. I'm sharing what has helped me to become a better person and what has saved my life. I don't imagine that I'm responsible for saving anyone else. But if I can offer another person even a part of the peace i have found through my yoga practice, then i have a hard time believing that's a bad thing. I believe that even if all one ever accesses is the physical practices, that person is going to find more peace. Part of the beauty of the system is its accessibility. All you need is desire and a body in which to work. Desire to see and feel things differently --and this is universally available to everyone. Though we bow to the traditions that have brought us this far (Vedanta, Samkya, Classical, Tantra, to name just a few), we also accept that change is part and parcel of the deal. The original codifiers of yoga never argued that it was a system that was static. The nature of the philosophy was based on heated debate and adapting to changes in the human experience.
There are some authentic yoga teachers out there who offer a full understanding of what yoga is. Admittedly, they are few and far between. But they honor the tradition from which they came --which they were offered by their teachers. Yes, there have been changes. Again --yoga is all about shifts and changes, and I am unsure if that qualifies as cultural appropriation, or further indication of yoga's universality. I'm not saying that we are not appropriating the spiritual practices --we are. I'm not Indian. But I think when we are talking about spiritual (or even religious) practice - - the idea of separateness is the problem. The idea that one way is okay for one group of people and only that group of people, further separates us from our 'brothers and sisters' (as Vivekenanda greeted the world parliament of religions in 1893). Until all religions understand the universality of Spirit, then we will continue to be locked in a world where innocents are killed in the name of religion and spiritual hierarchy. As Patanjali argued --it is the mistaken identification of the larger Self with the smaller egoic self that is the cause of suffering. Our inability to see that we are ultimately all Spirit --that this life we live is one created by the ego's attempt to define itself as "all that" is what creates the suffering. Yoga takes on the larger problem of consciousness --and that knows no cultural boundaries. Consciousness is a universal experience that cannot be bound by dogma --whether Hindu, Christian, Wiccan, Muslim, or non-denominational. And those who brought yoga to the West were all about dismantling the barriers that keep us from realizing the true Self.
We need to listen --listen to those teachers who are still alive --who still maintain a tradition of scholarship and inquiry. We need to read all we can and learn about the history of yoga and its philosophy. We need to make sure that what we are putting out there is not just yoga-speak, new-age mish-mash. Read the Sutras. Read the Pradipika. Read the Gita. For that matter, read the Mahabarata and the Ramayana and the Puranas and the Upanishads! Read the Bible and the Quran. And do your practice --whatever form that takes. Spirit --God, if you want-- cannot be confined by the human experience or mind.
When Krishna says to Arjuna,
You should know that My spirit is your soul. Your soul is the sprit of God in you... I am in everyone's heart, in everyone's memory, their wisdom and their thinking... the soul, the spirit of God in you, is real forever
he speaks to humanity --not just Arjuna. I'll keep teaching and practicing. To do otherwise would be disingenuous.
You should know that My spirit is your soul. Your soul is the sprit of God in you... I am in everyone's heart, in everyone's memory, their wisdom and their thinking... the soul, the spirit of God in you, is real forever
he speaks to humanity --not just Arjuna. I'll keep teaching and practicing. To do otherwise would be disingenuous.
