Cultural appropriation of yoga…? …egad, the invading aryans stole the whole of yoga from the indigenous indics who were doing yoga in the neolithic (and not in vedic or sanskrit)
The confusions over yoga point to a larger issue: the globalization of new age movements and their rapid internationalization. The idea of yoga as some hindu resource has stretched to breaking point, as has the issue of hinduism itself.
We talked in a recent post of the need for a hindu reformation, in a context of the grotesque confusion by that name. Although this is at first sight something hindus must do for themselves the reality is also that in the process of globalization the whole game becomes everyone’s game and the only option is revolt, breaking up the older tradition, and finding some sanity in still another religious mess, next to the xtian and islamic.
The attempt at universalization was actually the historic task of buddhists, but that was long ago and the attempt to replace hinduism failed disastrously. There is a sinister side to the whole of this sordid history, on both sides.
The idea here that yoga is some kind of hindu property is typical of millennial muddle, and warfare, on this mass of stupidity.
Let’s state it: yoga is now a universal practice and can have no real connection with hinduism. A better criticism is that it is merely a phase of larger ‘eight limbs’ of yoga is very relevant, but at this point it seems likely that version of yoga is really an attempt to purloin the core idea of buddhism…
The great and sad irony here is that yoga is itself a cultural appropriation by the aryan invaders of the indigenous ‘santana dharma’ or primordial shaivism of the subcontinent.
It must deja vu all over again to see the absurd implication of some ‘hindu’ property rights over yoga in any form…
New Man, New Age, New Socialism 