Enter the Hindu American Foundation, which has taken umbrage at this recasting. It started the Take Back Yoga campaign in 2010 to educate people about yoga’s inextricable link to Hinduism. Their aim is not to establish proprietorship but to ask for respect. In effect, they say: Practice yoga for whatever reason or benefit, but acknowledge and honor its Hindu origins.
10. Practice yoga - Next time you do a downward dog, chant an om to Ruby Blue, aka Swami Neeladevananda. Blue was born Ruth Thaler in Poland and as a child immigrated to Washington with her parents. She was named a swami, the Hindu honorary title for master, in 2003 at age 86. Known for her inspirational lectures, tiny frame and ability to get everyone from naval officers to housewives into ...
The President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition promotes the White House's efforts to get American's to adopt healthy lifestyles. One of the Council's efforts is PALA+, part of the President's Challenge, which includes the Yoga PALA Challenge. Encouraging participation, the Yoga PALA Challenge website says:Yoga has become a universal language of spiritual exercise in the United States, crossing many lines of religion and ...
The US`s leading Hindu advocacy organisation, the Hindu American Foundation, is rightly exhorting its followers to 'take back yoga and reclaim the intellectual property of their spiritual heritage'. This is entirely in order — an ancient tradition cannot be vulgarised into a callisthenic routine or stretched till it becomes devoid of meaning. The only way out is to accept and embrace its Hindu spiritual roots while opposing its crass vulgarisation.
Many Hindus argue that authentic yoga is inseparable from its philosophical roots in Hinduism. To underscore this point, the Hindu American Foundation launched a “take back yoga” campaign in 2010 to remind people of yoga’s Hindu origins.
I feel sorry for the kids whose parents are allowing their unfounded fears of "the other" to get in the way of their well-being. These parents may want to consider that Hindus do not proselytize and that a Hindu child stands a far greater chance of being converted to Christianity than the other way around.
A ROW has erupted over a priest banning yoga from a church hall because the class was “not compatible” with the Catholic faith.
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) has weighed in on the debate as well. The organization launched an awareness campaign called "Take Back Yoga—Bringing to Light Yoga's Hindu Roots." The goal was not to convert yoga devotees to Hinduism, according to the organizers, but rather to have them acknowledge the connection.
The term yogi and yoga are amongst the most commonwords from the Hindu tradition to penetrate the western vocabulary. But, it is still somewhat rare that one gives thought to what these terms actually mean, their proper application and what they are referring to; as yoga is [...]
Lending another dimension to the controversy is Dr Aseem Shukla, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota medical school and co-founder and board member of the Hindu American Foundation, who feels strongly about the "theft of yoga" and yoga practitioners' lack of acknowledgment to Hinduism as the core of its existence.
Shukla, 41, contends that yoga owes a "debt" to Hinduism and laments that the discipline is increasingly being ...
A couple of years ago, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) launched their “Take Back Yoga” movement. It was sparked by the realization that the word “Hindu” was habitually absent in a premiere yoga magazine. “A few of us at the Hindu American Foundation were avid readers of [the magazine],” says HAF’s senior director, Sheetal Shah. “We noticed that our sacred texts, philosophical ideas, and deities were consistently being referred ...
Bikram Choudhury himself, who developed and subsequently copyrighted the sequence of poses, has taken heat (and gotten significant press play) in the past few years over his decidedly un-yoga-like approach to the practice. One vocal critic is Dr. Aseem Shukla, cofounder of the Hindu American Foundation, who, in a Details profile on Choudhury, said: "Call it exercise. Call it a good workout. Call it what you like ... But don't ...
Sheetal Shah, senior director at the foundation, says the group started the campaign after noticing the words “Hindu” and “Hinduism” were rarely mentioned in yoga magazines.
“We noticed our sacred texts, philosophical ideas, and deities were consistently being referred to as ‘yogic,’ ‘tantric,’ ‘Indian,’ etc.,” Shah told the Daily News.
Almost one year later, NPR invited me back to their studio here in NYC to record another segment on the ongoing debate over yoga’s Hindu roots. The piece, by Margot Adler, was featured on NPR’s Morning Edition today. It also includes interviews with New York Times writer William Broad and yoga teachers, Alison West and Genny Kapuler. You can hear the piece online at http://www.npr.org ...
This recent article from the New York Times about divisions in the Muslim community in Queens about the practice of yoga was notable to me, though not for the obvious reasons. What I found interesting was that this was the first article I had seen in a long time that laid out in a straightforward manner the basic facts about Yoga’s Hindu roots - the foundation of HAF’s Take ...
But some Hindus are taken aback by how so much of the yoga practiced in the United States emphasizes only the physical.
One group, the Hindu American Foundation, has launched a "Take Back Yoga" campaign to address what they see as a fundamental disconnect between yoga and Hinduism.
Sheetal Shah, senior director at the foundation, says the group started the campaign when it noticed that while "Vedic," "tantric" and many ...
About 20 million people in the United States practice some form of yoga, from the formal Iyengar and Ashtanga schools to the more irreverent "Yoga Butt." But some Hindus say yoga is about far more than exercise and breathing techniques. They want recognition that it comes from a deeper philosophy — one, in their view, with Hindu roots. Many forms of yoga go back centuries. Even in the U.S., the ...
“Yoga Rave is a party like none other in the world, a new concept in fun where the body responds only to the stimulation of music, yoga and meditation,” according to its parent organization, Art for the Living. The group was founded by Hindu spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and focuses on developing peace and relieving individual stress.
Yoga Rave performers, Nicolás Pucci, 32, and Rodrigo Bustos, 28, were ...
For most people, yoga is a way to promote physical and mental health through stretching, postures and breathing techniques. Attaining moksha -- the Hindu ideal of liberation from worldly suffering and the cycle of birth and rebirth -- isn't usually one of the goals. In fact, many yoga practitioners might be unaware of its ancient religious roots.
That is something the Hindu American Foundation would like to change.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar may be the last emissary the Taliban expect, but the spiritual guru would love to teach inner peace to the world's most notorious Islamist insurgents.
Visiting Pakistan for the first time in eight years, he basks in the diplomatic rapprochement that made the trip possible but his dreams of harmony couldn't be further removed from the suffering of millions worldwide.
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BANI GALA, Pakistan — An Indian Hindu guru may be the last emissary the Taliban expect, but Sri Sri Ravi Shankar would love to teach inner peace to the world's most notorious Islamist insurgents.
Visiting Pakistan for the first time in eight years, he basks in the diplomatic rapprochement that made the trip possible but his dreams of harmony couldn't be further removed from the suffering of millions worldwide.
(CHAKRA) An elaborate “Hanuman Festival” of yoga and music will be held at Boulder (Colorado, USA) from June 8-10. “VIP Pass” for this “three-day celebration of yoga, music and community” costs $1,099 and it claims to offer “world-class yoga instructors, mind-blowing music, inspirational experiences and a nourishing community” at the foot of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. “Immerse yourself in body, mind and heart as you relax and rejuvenate, dance ...