Is Yoga A Religion?

Is Yoga a Religion?

Wherein your fearless webmaster chases logic into swampy waters, searching for new answers to a suddenly more pertinent question.

“--- , Otherwise, it’s just gym” is a phrase heard too often in the mouths of yoga teachers. Presumably yoga class is higher and better than the aerobics class that plays loud music next door and disturbs our serenity. After all we address the person’s spiritual development; not just their butt line.

However, I like gyms. Teach at the YMCA, and think that this place acts on people very well – physically, mentally, and spiritually. In Montreal there are probably more people practicing yoga at Ys than in any 10 yoga studios combined.

But the “just” implies another dimension for yoga. Like, maybe… religion?

Hey no, man! It’s just a toolkit for self-improvement that addresses the entire human person. None of that coercive paternalistic tool of power and wealth for us! We left it behind way back in the hippie era!

Why pick away any deeper at this? Let the puppy chase its tail. But the question has become more than idle in recent months. When a BC public school had after-school yoga classes, a Christian mother objected. “Supposedly, we do not allow religion in schools — and yoga is a religion,” said the complaint to the Quesnel school board and the Education Ministry. Yoga turns kids’ minds toward Hindu gods, and “If you’re not seeking the God of the Bible, His power, then by default you’re in the other camp. The other source of supernatural power is Satan.” [link]

“what would God think of his children dancing with the false religions of the enemy?”

Surely her rhetoric is over the top, but there is a point to be taken here, a line that has been crossed. Their are indeed many religious sects who would wish to proselytize their various names for God and their diverse, wondrous, and mutually exclusive visions of the cosmos in the public schools. Our society, wisely, excludes them from doing this, and requires proof-based rather than faith-based curricula to be presented there.

And then, a little Mary comes home from school chanting to Shiva.

As for the school’s point of view, "the class was not part of the mandatory schools curriculum, and the yoga component focuses on stretching and breathing," said Education Minister Shirley Bond.
"There is not an intent to have a philosophic or religious intent for this... We're trying to deal with the issue of obesity. We're trying to find as many ways as possible to engage our children in healthy and active lifestyles."

Surely hatha yoga is a perfect choice for such a program. a physical practice that addresses the health of the human person at every level: for example, muscle stretching and motor learning, breath and balance; the nervous system, the immune system, mental state, and ethical development.

But yoga teachers who teach programs in the school must discern these lines and offer a practice which respects the institution and its parameters. If we come in through the door marked “athletics department” and if it feels like “gym” then we might just be on the right track.

Comments

[David Wegenast, RYT]

Similar to your story from BC, I heard of resistance to Yoga in the schools in rural Ontario, and a parent, after objecting to their perception of "religious" content in Yoga, going on to say, "we certainly don't want our children emptying their minds!", so there are may prejudices out there to deal with. Every Yoga Teacher Training program should address this question of spiritual discipline vs. religion so that the graduates will be able to sensitively handle questions and comments about it. I think the rise of Christian Yoga in the southern US is pretty good proof that Yoga is not a religion, but can help the practitioner go deeper in whatever spiritual path they follow, including no path. Namaste