NYTimes
Yoga is practiced by about 15 million people in the United States, for reasons almost as numerous — from the physical benefits mapped in brain scans to the less tangible rewards that New Age journals call spiritual centering. Religion, for the most part, has nothing to do with it.
But a group of Indian-Americans has ignited a surprisingly fierce debate in the gentle world of yoga by mounting a campaign to acquaint Westerners with the faith that it says underlies every single yoga style followed in gyms, ashrams and spas: Hinduism. [...]
Yoga is practiced by about 15 million people in the United States, for reasons almost as numerous — from the physical benefits mapped in brain scans to the less tangible rewards that New Age journals call spiritual centering. Religion, for the most part, has nothing to do with it.
But a group of Indian-Americans has ignited a surprisingly fierce debate in the gentle world of yoga by mounting a campaign to acquaint Westerners with the faith that it says underlies every single yoga style followed in gyms, ashrams and spas: Hinduism. [...]
The beliefs? How could they not be?
ReplyDeleteThe exercise detached from the philosophy? I know many poseqim are lenient, but I don't see how. An excercise developed around AZ would be prohibited as following derekh Emori (loosely: pagan customs), no?
-micha
If the beliefs are, I don't see how one can practice the exercise detached from the philosophy that is avoda zora.
ReplyDeleteThe Lubavitcher Rebbe said Yoga is avak avoda zara and assered it for his followers.
ReplyDeleteRav Belsky has said that anything from Eastern religions used to summon koychos might not be avoda zara but is still assur altz kosem kesomim.