The Pointer UW-Stevens Point Student Newspaper
Yoga studios with names like, “Holy Cow Yoga Center,” located in Charleston, South Carolina, make light of Hinduism’s religious beliefs and traditions, while advertising as, “a unique studio dedicated to recovering what we believe to be the essence of yoga.”
Those from Western cultures who practice yoga may be looking for a strict definition of appropriation, but a non-subjective definition cannot exist. To approach yoga respectfully, it is important to understand the different perspectives surrounding this conversation.
In the podcast, “How Yoga Migrated from India to Your Local Gym,” Andrew Nicholson, Associate Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies at Stony Brook University, outlines the history and origins of yoga.
Nicholson explained that yogic practices developed simultaneously among many different religious groups of the time, one of these groups was Hinduism. “I would say, yoga is something developed by Hindu traditions, Buddhist traditions in India going back quite some time, but to say it’s just Hindu I think is not quite right,” Nicholson said.
It wasn’t until the 1960’s that yoga gained popularity in the United States. Yogis of the time, “understood these texts like the Upanishads and the Vedas to have universal truths that everyone could benefit from,” Nicholson said.
Many Hindus today feel as though Western practitioners of yoga are not only benefiting from these practices, but are moving away from the original texts and understandings of these universal truths. A campaign called “Take Back Yoga” started by the Hindu American Foundation seeks to combat misuse and misrepresentations of yoga by bringing light to Yoga’s Hindu roots.
Charles Green, Geographic Information Systems and Political Science major, yoga instructor at the Allen Center and President of the Yoga and Meditation Club, agrees that Western Yoga has moved from Hindu roots.
“I think the first door any person has to get through is just that that’s not it, that that is one of eight limbs of yoga, so is that yoga?” Green said. “That’s a small portion of it, that’s pretty much the definition of cultural appropriation, where you take a small bit of something that is a part of a culture and then claim it as something else, or as your own.”
Green is working towards changing the name of yoga classes offered at the Allen Center to from “Yoga” to “Yoga and Lifestyle Fitness,” in an effort to acknowledge that the yoga practice is only one of eight limbs of traditional yoga.
Triveni Shukla, active member of the Hindu Temple of Wisconsin, does not believe that yoga is cultural appropriation. However, Shukla believes that the Hindu roots of yoga need to be acknowledged.
“India’s property, Hindu’s culture being represented here in the United States as if it is theirs, that’s wrong,” Shukla said. “Saying yoga is a lifestyle, is kind of stretching the thing. Teach what it is, it is a particular mind and body training program of very old Indian religion.”
Shukla said, “A dress code does not define yoga, a particular title does not define, it is what you are teaching in that course, that defines yoga.”
Luke Whitmore, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies said, “This is a very important discussion that needs to be engaged by all serious practitioners of yoga today.”
“It is also of the utmost importance that this discussion include the voices of people who belong to the communities that have been, in specifically South Asian contexts, historically connected to yoga in its various forms: Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Muslims. Part of what yoga is about is learning to look deeply at yourself. Understanding your own location as a practitioner of yoga and the effects of your yoga practice on others should be a part of that process,” said Whitmore
Olivia De Valk
News Editor
odeva199@uwsp.edu
