Alabama lifts Yoga ban in schools after almost 30 years, still bans meditation.

[Sheilbh]

I do meditation and I find it tremendously useful to manage stress and be able to concentrate. The guys that taught me gave it no spiritual dimension whatsoever. Just a mental exercise.

Yeah - I meditate but I got into it through sessions at the local Buddhist temple. There weren't any spiritual elements in terms of teaching, but it was clearly part of their spiritual practice. I think there may have been more identifiably "Buddhist" sessions available and the one I went to was fairly secular.

[Valmy]

Some do.

The same people who think the culture of a great world power and huge economy is threatened by a kid wearing a Chinese inspired dress.

[grumbler]

The flip side to the Alabama argument that yoga can not be separated from the hindu religion, is the modern leftist belief that practicing yoga without those hindu principles constitutes "cultural appropriation".

Why are you appropriating ancient Indian cultural practices, grumbler?

Is that what modern leftists believe?

Some do.

https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/05/yoga-cultural-appropriation/

Please note Sign #1 - treating yoga as a solely physical activity

And look - I'm fairly dismissive of "cultural appropriation" except in some highly specific areas, so grumbler should feel free to do whatever he likes.  I think the smiley indicated it being somewhat tongue in cheek.

But yes - this is one of those areas where Horseshoe Theory seems to apply - that the far left and far right wind up making basically the same argument.


(and yes - I just googled yoga cultural appropriation and that was the first hit.  But i have definitely seen that argument made before)

That's an absurd article.  The British did not "violently persecute" anyone in India who didn't convert to Christianity.  Hindus and Muslims always outnumbered Christians by maybe one thousand to one, and the British weren't foolish enough to violently attack every non-Christian.  That would have ended in the death of every Brit in the country within a week.

I didn't take your comment seriously.  The ironic thing about the whole "cultural appropriation of yoga" think is that traditional Hindus (not the moronic "Hindu nationalists") believe that all religions are true and the the reality we perceive is an illusion.  So a traditional Hindu wouldn't think anything of people taking elements of Hinduism and using them outside Hinduism.  "All rivers lead to the same sea."

[Monoriu]

Yoga is reasonably popular in Hong Kong, and it is treated as just another sport, without any religious links. 

[Valmy]

Yoga is reasonably popular in Hong Kong, and it is treated as just another sport, without any religious links. 

I mean that is the way most people see it in the West as well. But among people who take certain flavors of religion very seriously they have issues with things like Yoga. And, at least according to wiki, Hong Kong does contain such people. Pentecostals. Church of Christ people. Various types of Adventists. I mean they are a small percentage of the population but they are there. Among those people they might not like the Vedic base of Yoga.

[viper37]

So a traditional Hindu wouldn't think anything of people taking elements of Hinduism and using them outside Hinduism.

Well, I don't know... Some Hindus did not take it too well, apparently