{"id":6793,"date":"2022-10-03T17:27:58","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T17:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yogajournal.com\/?p=104212"},"modified":"2022-10-03T17:27:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T17:27:58","slug":"is-your-yoga-practice-stealing-from-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/03\/is-your-yoga-practice-stealing-from-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Yoga Practice Stealing From Religion?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Liz Bucar was concerned about her students. The Northeastern University religious-ethics professor<\/a> says they were using the term \u201ccultural appropriation\u201d without fully understanding the concept or its implications. As a result, they were shutting down complicated ethical conversations they needed to be having. When it came to the notion of religious appropriation, well, that was an entirely foreign concept for them.<\/p>\n

In her new book, Stealing My Religion<\/em>,<\/a> Bucar writes that \u201cthey never consider that forms of religious borrowing might be harmful in the same way\u201d as cultural appropriation. She wrote the book because she wanted them to think more deeply. Where better to explore that than in the murky realm of yoga. Or should we say yogas.<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Devotional yoga offers chanting, sutras, and traditions<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Bucar, who is also a certified Kripalu Yoga teacher, suggests that there are two kinds of yoga\u2014devotional and respite.  Distinguishing between them helps us understand the complex way we approach the practice in the West.<\/p>\n

Devotional yoga is rooted in Vedic study<\/a> and evolved out of Hinduism. Here lives the chanting, the mudras, the sutras, the Bhagavad Gita<\/a>. We may think of it as traditional or authentic because it seems more like what we imagine sages to have done in Hindu ashrams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen yoga first came [to the U.S.] it was very devotional,\u201d she says. While it did draw some adherents who were interested in the philosophy, it wasn\u2019t palatable for many Westerners. \u201cIt was too Eastern, too foreign, too brown, too challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

To make it more accessible to a broader swath of people, \u201cyoga advocates basically told people: you can pull out asanas and don\u2019t worry about the metaphysics and the cosmologies and the ethics,\u201d she says. They were promised a primarily physical practice that was safe and unchallenging to their worldview. That\u2019s the framework from which \u201crespite yoga\u201d evolved.<\/p>\n

Respite yoga promises better wellbeing<\/h2>\n

The practice Bucar calls respite yoga is all about physical health, stress reduction, and overall well-being. She describes it as \u201cfeel-good yoga, good-vibes-only yoga.\u201d It\u2019s the kind of secular practice we expect from a studio or a fitness center.<\/p>\n

The benefit of a secular yoga practice is that it can be accessible to more people, regardless of their religious or spiritual leanings. But eliminating the esoteric parts of yoga distills it down to little more than calisthenics and deep breathing<\/a>. And while medical research<\/a> confirms the physical and mental health benefits of such exercises, for some people, that just doesn\u2019t seem to have the same appeal as the practice we call yoga.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that makes yoga valuable is that it is sort of vaguely spiritual,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s something attractive to us about accessing Eastern forms of spirituality and wisdom and practice techniques that are ancient and meaningful.\u201d But we may feel more comfortable doing it if we can overlook yoga\u2019s religious origins, she says. And that\u2019s when we begin wading into religious appropriation.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s wrong with borrowing from religions?<\/h2>\n

Like cultural appropriation, which \u201cborrows\u201d from culture at large, religious appropriation involves cherry-picking aspects of various religious traditions and claiming them\u2014or dismissing them\u2014to suit one\u2019s own practice. Bucar says this tendency has evolved as increasing numbers of people describe themselves as \u201cspiritual, not religious\u201d<\/a>\u2014who tend to believe in a higher power, but eschew the specific commitments required by religions.<\/p>\n

People in this category tend to approach spirituality as something that can be \u201cindividually curated,\u201d she says. \u201cYoga is an example of that\u2014where you pick and choose the different practices you want to do. And then you get to assign whatever meanings you want to it. So you want your Sun Salutation to be a prostration to a god? Great. You want it to just be the thing you do in a hot room in the morning, and forget that cultural context from which that practice came? That\u2019s fine, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we can go to a yoga studio and sign in under the watchful eye of a Buddha statue, sit on a Mexican blanket wrapped in a shawl embroidered with Ganesha images, and meditate in a haze of sage smoke. We are taking appealing elements from various religious contexts and tucking them under the umbrella of what we call yoga.<\/p>\n

Yoga\u2019s evolution<\/h2>\n

This is not to suggest that there\u2019s any such thing as \u201cpure\u201d yoga. \u201cYoga itself comes from all sorts of traditions,\u201d Bucar says. In addition to Hinduism, she cites the influences of Jainism and Sikhism, aspects of Buddhism, as well as older Indian philosophies. It was influenced by colonization before it came West. Once it arrived in the US, it influenced and was influenced by Transcendentalism, the Harlem Renaissance<\/a>, bliss-seeking hippies in the 60s, and eventually monied White elites.<\/p>\n

Today, yoga is being claimed by marginalized groups representing various races, gender identities, body shapes, abilities, and circumstances. It\u2019s being reclaimed by South Asian practitioners calling for the acknowledgement of yoga\u2019s Indian roots<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The point is that yoga doesn\u2019t happen in a bubble, Bucar says. \u201cIt happens within a world that has inequities and injustices. It happens within whiteness and white supremacy in the US. It happens within a context of Orientalism. It happens within a context of capitalism. It interacts with those forms of structural injustice and, sometimes, makes them worse.\u201d As yoga practitioners, we have to grapple with where we stand on that.<\/p>\n

The approach to religious appropriation<\/h2>\n

Her answer to countering religious appropriation isn\u2019t to pull away, but to dive in more deeply.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis sort of [religious] borrowing by itself is not necessarily a problem. This is the way that cultures interact; the way religions interact,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s no way to avoid it, quite frankly.\u201d Bucar suggests that cultures\u2013including religious cultures\u2013evolve and change as a result of coming into contact with one another. Exploring various spiritual paths can be an opportunity for mutual understanding\u2014if there\u2019s respect, reciprocity, and a sensitivity to cultural context.<\/p>\n

\u201cCareful engagement with the religion of others has the potential to help us understand communities different from our own,\u201d she writes. \u201cBut it can also fundamentally change the way we see the world and provide ways for dismantling structures of privilege, inequity, and alienation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That engagement necessitates some self examination\u2014svadyaya<\/em><\/a>, if you will. For her, that has meant wrestling with whether or not there are ways to \u201cborrow\u201d religions respectfully and responsibly. Or whether being respectful means giving up certain practices altogether.<\/p>\n

Can I still do yoga?<\/h2>\n

Bucar says that whenever she talks publicly about this subject, \u201cthe first or second question is always from someone who raises their hand and says, \u2018Can I still do yoga?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you [are] asking that, then there\u2019s something about things you\u2019re doing that you\u2019re uncomfortable with,\u201d she says.  That discomfort is a signal that you may want to sit and grapple with the question, seeking the answer that\u2019s right for you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a question she\u2019s had to sit with herself\u2014examining the issue through the lens of her positions in society. She says how she approaches her practice depends on whether she is practicing privately at home or in a yoga class, where certain gestures might seem performative. \u201cThings become more difficult when I step into the role of yoga teacher. I have come to see that this role requires leading others through religious appropriation, and my opinion about how to do that is still evolving,\u201d she writes. \u201cWhen I teach, I still focus on a respite experience, but try to provide an opportunity to learn about devotional yoga as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s her personal decision. \u201cI don\u2019t want [people] to agree with me on where I come out on yoga and what I\u2019ve decided for myself,\u201d she says. [My decision came from] sitting with the discomfort, and thinking about my own privilege in the world. And that\u2019s not the same for everybody. But the point is to take that time and do it. It\u2019s not to come to the same answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

No right answers<\/h2>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t have it both ways,\u201d she says. \u201cWe can\u2019t say that yoga is special and different from other exercises because it\u2019s an ancient spiritual practice, but then ignore the fact that it comes from a devotional context.\u201d While she stops short of saying that yoga itself is a strictly Hindu practice, or necessarily a religion itself, she does acknowledge that yogic techniques are powerful and that they can change us\u2014even if we\u2019re not expecting that change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is hard stuff to figure out.\u201d she says. \u201cThere are no right answers. There\u2019s no-one-size-fits- all, but that struggle is what I want to encourage people to do and not be afraid of.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if the process leaves you with more questions than answers, that\u2019s okay with Bucar. \u201cIn religious studies and religious ethics, we\u2019re okay with sitting with discomfort,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that part of my job is to get students to sit a little bit with discomfort and let that anxiety be productive.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sounds just like yoga.  <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Is<\/figure>\n

In her new book, a religious-ethics scholar grapples with the implications\u2014and inevitability\u2014of religious appropriation.<\/p>\n

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