Guest guest Posted December 14, 2000 Report Share Posted December 14, 2000 having beaten the movie thread to within an inch of it's life, time for more fertile pastures: religion!<br><br>as per MP's post, yoga is not a religion. as i have come to understand it, it is more of a way of life with many benfits, physical and mental, possibly spiritual. but, there is a common perception that yoga is a sort of religion in and of itself. perhaps secondary to the cultural associations with eastern religious sects that follow various swami's etc <br><br>what religion(s) are predominant in S. India? Hinduism, Buddhism, Muslim, Church of the Latter Day Saints? (don't get all religious huffy, just kidding on the mormon thing). What faith do SKPJ, BKS Iyengar, BNS Iyengar, Desikachar, etc follow, if any? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 14, 2000 Report Share Posted December 14, 2000 John, have you been sleeping in class or are you just being funny? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 14, 2000 Report Share Posted December 14, 2000 sorry John, that sounded mean. Yoga isn't a religion, but it has roots in Hinduism. All the guys you mentioned have roots in Hinduism too.<br>But don't dis the ubiquitous Mormon Church, when that great white towering structure looms over you like a bearded god in San Diego. They are watching us all... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 14, 2000 Report Share Posted December 14, 2000 no problemo. i'm used to being ignorant about many things. there is a difference between not knowing and not wanting to know though. they are usually confused as one and the same and called stupidity. <br>the point i was trying to find out was: for these guru type people, whether the yoga was so dominant in their lives as to supercede the religious beliefs of their local culture or maybe even function for them as a de facto religion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 15, 2000 Report Share Posted December 15, 2000 Hey you're just a lowly doctor, after all! ;o)<br><br>That's actually a great question. Religion and its many modes of expression and practice are fascinating subjects. But your question opens another Pandora's Box: how are you defining religion? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 15, 2000 Report Share Posted December 15, 2000 that is a problem. using western words, again, to try and understand the eastern concepts of spirituality and religion. is yoga distinctly separate from, or a part of religion for these yogis? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 15, 2000 Report Share Posted December 15, 2000 part of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 15, 2000 Report Share Posted December 15, 2000 it's not a problem of using western words to understand eastern concepts. it's that religion can be so inextricable from culture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 15, 2000 Report Share Posted December 15, 2000 when i took a class during my trip to orlando, they didn't give the invocation i was used to chanting prior to class. instead, the instructor had everyone give their own thanks mentally while he kind of reviewed what the intent of the invocation was.<br><br>when my wife was checking into classes in N Carolina, one of the teachers she talked to said that practice there was mostly the asanas. there was not much in the way of chanting, prayers or further exploration of the more spiritual arms of yoga. she implied that to do so, in that part of the country, might come across to some of the students as a challenge to their own religious beliefs.<br><br>so i was curious. to what degree is doing yoga viewed as a religious activity? how often is yoga modified to make it more spiritualy neutral and therefore more palatable to its students in some areas of the country or world? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 15, 2000 Report Share Posted December 15, 2000 Last September I spoke with some people who practiced Ashtanga at a ritzy health club in Mammoth Lakes in California's eastern sierra mountains. They told me that they were forced to eliminate the chant, pranayama, and sitting in padmasana not because it threatened their religious beliefs but because a group of fundamentalist christians who were members of the club complained to the management and threatened to boycott the club if the "satanic rituals" were permitted to continue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 15, 2000 Report Share Posted December 15, 2000 Great topic...I offer no words of wisdom, just wanting to learn and enjoying reading the posts. Who is the doc in our midst, and what kind of doc? Just curious...and respectful...Sandy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 15, 2000 Report Share Posted December 15, 2000 JOhn, re. North Carolina - if you are referring to classes in the raleigh-durham-chapel hill area, based on my experience, there is not much there in terms of an Ashtanga teacher - the people trying to teach are very new to Ashtanga and don't really, really know about much in the area you refer to, which is why you got such a semi-ignorant response. Even the asana practice was taught incorrectly. <br>Funky T. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 15, 2000 Report Share Posted December 15, 2000 << how often is yoga modified to make it more spiritualy neutral and therefore more palatable to its students in some areas of the country or world? >><br><br>Maybe to the same degree Christmas has been "modified to make it more spiritualy neutral and therefore more palatable." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 4, 2001 Report Share Posted January 4, 2001 According to the recent Stern article on KPJ, Jois is a Shaivite...his ishta devata (chosen favorite deity), Shiva. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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