NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/soc/culture/usa/9376

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-28 | 2.8 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Jim Haynes)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Why is Yoga considered an occult practise?
Date: 28 Dec 1992 20:48:28 GMT
Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gerry Palo) writes:
>The problem with yoga is that it is much more difficult to draw the separating
>line with yoga, between where it is simply a method of physical and psycho-
>logical culture and where it becomes a real path of spiritual development.
I've argued that this is something we are especially touchy about in the U.S.
because of the constitutional separation of church and state.  (Others have
argued against me, saying that in their countries there is a state church
but no real expression of religious belief in governmental functions, and
objecting to the practice of U.S. officials about expression their religious
beliefs so openly, but I digress...)

It seems to me that yoga developed in the culture of India with the religious
environment that is part of that culture; karate developed in Japan likewise,
and other things in other countries.  In the U.S. we kinda want these things
pulled apart so you can do yoga and still be a good Presbyterian or do
karate and still be a good Baptist (or Catholic or atheist or anthroposophist
or anything else).

I remember reading an advertisement for the opening of a karate school in a
Bible Belt town, saying quite pointedly that they would teach it without
the foreign religious aspects.  Now when we talk about Christian fundamentalists
and yoga, I imagine that they imagine yoga to be inseperable from all the
things that they imagine "India" to be: reincarnation and strange gods and
sacred cows and everything that in their minds is part of the concept "heathen."
Similarly they imagine karate to be part and parcel of buddhism and ancestor
worship and emperor worship and everything they have ever been told about
Japan.  And they are the kind of people who would prefer to live in a
community where everybody believes exactly as they do, who have no desire
to live among people who do not accept their version of Truth.
India conjures up in their minds
--
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"Ya can talk all ya wanna, but it's dif'rent than it was!"
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