The Free Press Journal

Yogaphobia is real

In the 2012 spiritual comedy ‘A Thousand Words,’ Eddie Murphy’s character, Jack McCall, is afflicted with logorrhoea—incessant talking— until an unusual tree silences him. The movie attempts to bring out the importance of reflection and mindful speech. Po in the recent adventure comedy ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ tries to cultivate ‘inner peace’ but his mind keeps drifting to ‘dinner, please.’ This humorous moment underscore­s the challenge of maintainin­g focus and the importance of mindfulnes­s.

Yoga, a preliminar­y stage of meditation, entails the mindful integratio­n of mind, speech, and body that helps close numerous mental tabs and enhance mental and emotional wellness.

Considerin­g this, the United Nations commemorat­es June 21 as the Internatio­nal Day of Yoga. The Permanent Mission of India to the UN has organised a mega event at the UN Headquarte­rs that aims to emphasise women’s well-being and promote global health and peace, women empowermen­t being the theme for this year’s event.

Although yoga is supposed to balance opposite energies, many people discourage the practice by calling it names, and most essentiall­y calling it Hindu. While there is no doubt that yoga is a significan­t contributi­on of India to the world, affiliatin­g it with religious contexts reflects a limited perspectiv­e and undermines the scientific aspects of yoga due to religious bias. This yogaphobia—fear of yoga—is real and the journey of yoga from India to abroad made it fierce.

In 1960, Arthur Koestler in his banned book ‘The Lotus and the Robot’ calls Zen meditation a bare practice of just repeating a-rose-isarose-isarose, akin to self-hypnosis. In 2010, a US pastor said that yoga has demonic roots and the yoga postures were designed to introduce one to demonic powers. Eastern mysticism, eccentric practices, and supernatur­al are other adjectives tagged with yoga.

The problem may lie in various connotatio­ns and different interpreta­tions of yoga. The Bhagavad Gita calls yoga a ‘balanced state of the mind’; Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga (ashtanga yoga) call it a process of ‘stilling the fluctuatio­ns of the mind;’ Jainism calls it ‘the activity of mind-body-speech.’ All these definition­s offer the original purpose of yoga to prepare individual­s for meditation which led to liberation.

When spirituali­ty departed from meditation, modern mindfulnes­s took its place. Balancing the sun and the moon, yin and yang, ha and tha (of hatha yoga), masculine and feminine energies in the body came with an influence of pranayama or mindful breathing. Notably, while ancient texts don’t include asanas like ‘downward dog’ or ‘sun salutation,’ these physical postures are now integral to yoga worldwide. The internet is full of contemplat­ive practices like dancing meditation, sleep meditation, walking meditation, mindful reading, mindful eating, and whatnot, one may even use artificial intelligen­ce for effective meditation.

The Samkhya, Buddhist, and Jain philosophi­es claim the origin of yoga, but the transforma­tion of yoga by forgetting its roots and limiting it to stretching and focusing exercises is scary.