Theft of Yoga by Christianity threatens Sanatana Dharma heritage
In 5th century before common era (BCE) ancient Bharatvarsha, a sage named Patanjai discovered and composed in Sanskrit a collection named Yoga Sutras describing the theory and practices of Yoga.
The practice of yoga consists of 8 dimensions. They are Samadhi, Yamas, Niyama, Asana, Pranyama, Pratyahara, Dharana and Dhyana. The practice of Yoga aims to strengthen the body, calm the mind and purify the atma (soul) in order to achieve overall well being. When Yoga is supplemented with a nutritious and varied diet, it is likely to keep the practitioner healthy and gain positivity and harmony with the universe.
Like all aspects of Sanatana Dharma, yoga too has fallen victim to plagiarism by Christians. Christianity has a notorious history of documented appropriation and digestion of ancient cultures. Pre-Christianity cultures that underwent this process today are sadly a part of history.
Yahweh yoga
History of Christian piracy
In our previous article Christian Appropriation of Hindu Culture: Myth or Reality, we have examined the ancient pagan cultural origins of Christian festivals, how Sanatana Dharma is being digested and how Hindu festivals are increasingly being diluted under the garb of “secularism”. For example, a Christian website called Original Christianity and Original Yoga goes on to claim that Santana Dharma and its teachings were given to the world by Jesus Christ. However, the fact is Sanatana Dharma predates the mythical birth of Jesus by thousands of years.
Notwithstanding the increasing appropriation and digestion of Dharmic culture, there is a growing trend in the West to appropriate yoga by plagiarising and mutilating yoga to suit Christian agenda. Shreena Gandhi, a professor of Religious Studies at Michigan State University published an academic paper calling Western yoga industry “as a form of cultural appropriation” intimately linked to some of the larger forces of white supremacy. By detaching yoga from its ancestral spiritual roots the Western “wellness industry” is profiteering by denaturing yoga’s wellness and spiritual aspects.”
Many Western self-proclaimed practitioners talk about the health benefits of yoga but ignore the Hindu roots or worse, appropriate it as Christian. Often people with vested interests make statements like ‘Yoga has no religion’, ‘no one religion can take credit for yoga’, ‘religion is no barrier to practise yoga’ or ‘yoga predates any religion; Hinduism just picked it up’ to justify their actions.
New forms of yoga, like hot yoga, Bikram yoga, dog yoga, beer yoga, and even naked yoga are being sold to unsuspecting Yoga enthusiasts who sign-up thinking they are likely to benefit from the Vedic science. However, they end up getting no benefit or in some cases meet with physical injury due to incorrect instructions. Such negative experience due to self-styled wellness quacks brings Yoga in disrepute.
Recently a shocking video went viral that showed Yoga plagiarism by Kerala Christian coverts doing “Yesu Namaskar”:
Yesu Namaskar video
In the above video a nun is claiming, “Surya Namaskar is not Hindu. Rishis developed it in the ancient times through their tapas for entire humanity and not just Hindus. When I started doing Surya Namaskar many Hindu fringe organisations said it is has Hindu roots. So I developed Yesu Namaskar with verses from Bible instead of the original verses.“
This appropriation is not only offensive but is also insulting to Hindus. The Nun feels no remorse in explicitly copying Surya Namaskar and decoupling it from Sanskrit. To make it more Christian she is using verses from Bible. When Yoga was developed as a holistic health system no other religion existed. Such attempts to Christianise or secularise yoga is blatant theft of Indic knowledge and should be stopped.
What is ‘Christian Yoga’?
Christians who want to gain benefits of yoga but don’t want to chant Hindu mantras have cobbled together something called Christian Yoga. Some examples of the ‘pseudo yoga’ sold as Christian alternatives are WholyFit, PraiseMoves, Holy Yoga, Yahweh Yoga, Christ Centred Yoga, Faith Twist, Yoga Faith, etc.
The Christian pseudo yoga has appropriated Patanjali’s yoga by removing its Dharmic and Hindu aspects to make it compatible with Christianity. Christian pseudo yoga is performed using the same asanas (poses, stretches, bending, breathing etc) but using Christianised names for asanas, reciting Christian hymns, psalms or verses from the Bible and depiction of Jesus, cross and other Christian motifs. They have plagiarised the original Yoga by replacing Hindu symbols like Om, Sanskrit shlokas, Sanskrit names of asanas. Sometimes it involves removing the word yoga itself. Shouldn’t Praise Moves and Holy Yoga be sued for theft of vedic Indic knowledge?
Christian yoga aims to do away with all Hindu words, images and language that have connections to yoga’s historical connection with Sanatana Dharma.
Opposition from Churches
Christian church leaders have issued diktat to their members to stop doing Yoga and from lending out church premises for Yoga classes. Many pastors regularly give sermons about Yoga calling it “demonic”, “pagan,” “devil worship”, “anti-Christ”, “idolatry”, etc.
In a 2011 article “A Catholic Perspective on Yoga”, Fr Terry Donahue says “The problem with Yoga, and what must be rejected by a Catholic, are the spiritual beliefs… of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism that are incompatible with the Catholic faith…Practicing Yoga in order to reach self-fulfilment or spiritual enlightenment is to be rejected since it is contrary to the Catholic teaching that such fulfilment and enlightenment are found in Jesus Christ. Catholics should not participate in the spiritual practices of Yoga,” but that Catholics “could learn Yoga poses and stretches from a teacher who does not teach or promote Yoga’s erroneous spiritual and philosophical beliefs.”
President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Albert Mohler says “When Christians practice yoga they must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga.” Pat Robertson, tele-evangelist and founder of the Christian Coalition of America, while echoing the opinion of Albert Mohler says “But along with yoga, they have a mantra. And the mantra you say is in Hindu. You don’t know what the Hindu says, but actually it’s a prayer to a Hindu deity, and so it sounds like gibberish, and so you’re saying, you know, ‘Kali, Kali, Kali,’ whatever, but you’re praying to a Hindu deity… Stretching exercise is cool, praying to a Hindu deity is not too cool.”
After reading the above two viewpoints put forward by two different Christian leaders some Hindus may be tempted to dismiss it as a minority opinion. However, the reality is that such narrow-minded view comes from straight the Vatican. In a homily given by Pope Francis in 2015 he said: “Practices like yoga are not capable of opening our hearts up to God.” The Pope continued: “You can take a million courses in spirituality, a million courses in yoga, Zen and all these things but all of this will never be able to give you freedom.”
So is Christian pseudo-yoga a threat to Yoga?
Today Yoga has become a multi-billion dollar industry. In the western world, the Church is unable to keep their ‘flock’ together and as a result are facing financial crunch. So the Church is using its time tested tactic of appropriating pre-Christian cultural practice by packaging the Hindu Yoga as Christian yoga. The Christian pseudo-yoga, is expected to bring in much needed money to the Church.
While the Church has always been sceptical of Yoga, there are active attempts to divorce yoga from Bharat and Hindu religious identity. Elizabeth Gilbert in her her book Eat, Pray, Love pg.122, says “Yoga is not Hinduism….True Yoga neither compete with nor precludes any other religion. You may use your Yoga – your disciplined practices of sacred union – to get closer the Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, or Yahweh….”. Self-help guru Deepak Chopra believes “yoga belongs to the whole world” while Scroll.in goes a step further to insert Buddhism and Islamic Sufi influences.
Some “secularists” even go a step further to delink yoga from the Sanskrit word “Yuj”. In an article in DailyO, Madhavi Menon writes ““Yoga” is etymologically linked to the English word “yoke””. Yoke means union or to bind together. Western civilisations make fun of Vedic knowledge and Indic way of life which is increasingly being usurped by them but hastily turn around and judge Hindus as “devil worshippers” or proselytise us. Anti-Hindu voice get emboldened when prominent supposedly pro-Hindu voices from Bharat tweet time and again proclaiming yoga is not part of Sanatana Dharma.
When there are forces within Hindu community that is inimical to the interest of the country and our Dharma, ordinary Hindus have to step-in, take control and stay ahead of such malicious forces to claim and wherever necessary re-claim our ancient knowledge.
Way forward
During the colonial period, ancient Sanatana Dharma’s discoveries in science, geography, medicine, mathematics, astronomy were conveniently copied with no credit or recognition to the author of the original works. Westerners sought to do the same in 1997 the year of the great Turmeric war when University of Mississippi Medical Centre patented the healing properties of turmeric. The then Indian Government filed a complaint and the patent was revoked. Similarly, Bikram Chowdhary of the Bikram Yoga and Hot Yoga fame tried to copyright his yoga series but was ultimately declined. In view of explicit attempts by the West to digest ancient Sanatana Dharma knowledge, Yoga now is in threat of being de-linked from Sanatana Dharma.
Hindu American Foundation a US based Hindu Rights group had launched a campaign in 2008 called Take Back Yoga, which argued for recognition of Yoga’s Hindu roots. In 2014, the Indian government under PM Modi also joined the debate to reclaim Yoga for Bharat. Bharat successfully appealed to the UN to declare 21st June to be International Yoga day.
The attempts and efforts to create Christian pseudo yoga are blatant theft of Sanatana Dharma’s intellectual property, racist and continuation of cultural imperialism of the Christian West. Hindus need to unite and demand the current Government to protect the heritage of Bharatvarsh by enacting a strong Dharma IP law.
