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Yoga: Not As Old As You Think

Orphia Nay

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Orphia Nay
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"Hinduism, whether ancient, medieval or modern, has no special claims on 21st century postural yoga."

Came across this interesting article through the Butterflies and Wheels newsletter:

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/living/not-as-old-as-you-think

Some highlights:

...

Far from honestly acknowledging the Western contributions to modern yoga, we Indians simply brand all yoga as ‘Vedic,’ a smug claim that has no intellectual integrity.

...

The reality is that postural yoga, as we know it in the 21st century, is neither eternal nor synonymous with the Vedas or Yoga Sutras. On the contrary, modern yoga was born in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. It is a child of the Hindu Renaissance and Indian nationalism, in which Western ideas about science, evolution, eugenics, health and physical fitness played as crucial a role as the ‘mother tradition’. In the massive, multi-level hybridisation that took place during this period, the spiritual aspects of yoga and tantra were rationalised, largely along the theosophical ideas of ‘spiritual science,’ introduced to India by the US-origin, India-based Theosophical Society, and internalised by Swami Vivekananda, who led the yoga renaissance.

...
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I thought others might like to read the article.
 
Thanks Orphia Nay,.....I'm not one of these folks who like to tie themselves in knots,or mix in these circles,but I do find it interesting to learn something new....
 
MrBooglemaumau said:
Thanks Orphia Nay,.....I'm not one of these folks who like to tie themselves in knots,or mix in these circles,but I do find it interesting to learn something new....
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You're welcome, MrBooglemaumau.

I used to do yoga, thinking it was an ancient way to keep fit.

But it didn't really help my fitness, and now I find it's not really ancient. :)
 
To be fair most of the yoga that people learn is just learning stretching and flexibility. In so much that stretching is good for your health. A lot of the older yoga is very calisthenic and cardiovascular. Yoga traditionally is just a disciplined exercise system where you jump up and down and stretch and much like people have forgotten that the original reasons for most martial arts was to punch people senseless rather than find inner peace.

I kind of joined a yoga class here for a while. Only one of the instructors sold any "woo". The other guys were about running around, star jumps and push up routines hidden into silly names and endurance.
 
Avicenna said:
To be fair most of the yoga that people learn is just learning stretching and flexibility. In so much that stretching is good for your health. A lot of the older yoga is very calisthenic and cardiovascular. Yoga traditionally is just a disciplined exercise system where you jump up and down and stretch and much like people have forgotten that the original reasons for most martial arts was to punch people senseless rather than find inner peace.

I kind of joined a yoga class here for a while. Only one of the instructors sold any "woo". The other guys were about running around, star jumps and push up routines hidden into silly names and endurance.
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Ah, cheers. The yoga I did was only asanas - no aerobic exercises.

When I said it wasn't helping my fitness, I didn't say it didn't help my flexibility and balance.
 
Only peripherally related.... The Indians do have a rather extensive and unique martial tradition, with a wide variety of unusual weapons and styles, unarmed techniques, and training methods that are as different to Western eyes as were the Asian fighting arts 50 years ago.
 
Orphia Nay said:
Ah, cheers. The yoga I did was only asanas - no aerobic exercises.
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As Avicenna pointed out, it is a yoga myth that practising the asanas (postures) is not aerobic. I do Bikram daily and believe me, it is one of the most cardio-vascular and strength-building routines I have ever put myself through.

ETA: I've been practising Bikram yoga for over 4 years continuously, and although the asanas remain unchanged, I never really thought that what I was doing had much in common with ancient yogic practises from the Indian sub-continent because the reasons for doing it are entirely different. For me, it's always been a hard workout, with strong mental discipline common in many 'sports'. On this note, it's quite refreshing to read in the OP article that:

Moreover, what HAF calls the “rape of yoga”, referring to the separation of asanas from their spiritual underpinning, did not start in the supposedly decadent West; it began, in fact, in the akharas and gymnasiums of 19th and 20th century India run by Indian nationalists seeking to counter Western images of effete Indians.
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...because I've read many criticisms of Bikram by alleged yoga 'purists' who slate it as being 'not yoga'. Ditto competitive yoga, which some deem as the anathema of yoga, when in fact yoga competitions started in India, not in the West. I believe there were invented as a way to get young people interested in practising the asanas.
 
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Fnord said:
Tai Chi for Me!
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I learned tai chi from a "teach yourself" tape, really enjoyed it, and started looking around for a class. I liked the class I found, but the instructor did waffle on about chakras and chi and energy junctions and stuff. I just wanted to learn and practice the routines, not have to listen to a bunch of metaphysical discourse about things that have not been shown to exist.
 
Elizabeth I said:
I learned tai chi from a "teach yourself" tape, really enjoyed it, and started looking around for a class. I liked the class I found, but the instructor did waffle on about chakras and chi and energy junctions and stuff. I just wanted to learn and practice the routines, not have to listen to a bunch of metaphysical discourse about things that have not been shown to exist.
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Yeah, this seeping in of woo into places where it doesn't belong is a problem I have too. Bikram himself says "just do your yoga!" and requires adherence to the set dialogue. But my studio (which I love nonetheless) is not immune from woo, from the raw food talk that was held there a few weeks' ago, to every now and again a teacher referring to "sweating out toxins". :rolleyes:
 
The timing is interesting for this thread, since I recently saw a report on Al Jazeera about U.S. Hindus "not comfortable with de-linking of yoga from religion".

The video shows one studio that pretends at the "spirituality" (and none of those people are probably Hindu) and another that simply sticks to the exercising. The reporter also talks to some people who want the religious origins at least acknowledged. Hmmm....

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/americas/2011/03/20113920024262826.html
 
Orphia Nay said:
The reality is that postural yoga, as we know it in the 21st century, is neither eternal nor synonymous with the Vedas or Yoga Sutras. On the contrary, modern yoga was born in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
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Click to expand...

So, apparently it was born about the same time ancient martial arts were invented... :rolleyes:
 
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