c



c
 
  

c
2



 

2


 


2


 
 



 


 

 




One of the first things Connecticut-born, Florida-raised DrAseemShukla learned in his very early years
from his mother was to do the a

. He did the series of yoga exercises before he went to
school; he did it during the vacations or when traveling with his family. It was his introduction to yoga and
his interest in it grew as the years passed; it became
firmer with the family visits to Gujarat and other Indian
states.

Shukla, an associate professor in urologic surgery at the

University of Minnesota medical school and co-founder
and board member of the Hindu American Foundation,
created quite a stir a few months ago when he wrote an
article in

complaining about the
'theft of yoga.'

2 

£oga at Times Square

Shukla, 41, bemoaned that it had become quite fashionable to present yoga without any reference to
Hinduism. Soon, that morphed into the HAF's Take Back £oga campaign.

The controversy over who can lay claim to yoga continued to grow, drawing in bestselling writers,
Christian thinkers, Marxist professors, and reporters from dozens of newspapers and television channels.

An estimated 16 million (1.6 crore) Americans including agnostics and atheists practice yoga, which
generates according to the £oga Journal $5.7 billion annually in class fees, books and video sales, sale
of mats and other accessories. There are an estimated 100,000 yoga instructors in the United States,
including two men in New £ork City who offer yoga to taxi drivers.

Arguing by Shukla's side was Sheetal Shah, a New £ork-based HAF leader who has an MSc in development
management from the London School of Economics. She came to America with her parents at age 3 about two
decades ago, and learned yoga first watching her father, businessman Dhiru Shah, do difficult stretches at their
Atlanta home.

Even Indian gurus and yoga teachers have often offered yoga without acknowledging its Hindu roots, Shukla and
Shah complain.

"£oga, meditation, Ayurvedic natural healing, self-realisation -- they are today's syntax for New Age, Eastern,
mystical, even Buddhist, but nary an appreciation of their Hindu origins," Shukla wrote in the .
"When I said Hindus must take back yoga and reclaim the intellectual property of their spiritual heritage," he
told   
, "and when I insisted that Hindus not sell out for the expediency of winning more clients for
the yoga studio down the street, I was not talking of any copyright on yoga. I did not expect a huge controversy
either."

As a child studying in America, he -- like Shah -- felt that Hinduism was not properly presented in the classrooms or in
many textbooks. "It was to many people a religion of the monkey god, of cow worship and many other stereotypes,"
Shukla said. "Even those who loved yoga had stereotype notions about Hinduism."

The controversy ballooned when New Age guru Deepak Chopra, author of over a dozen bestselling books and a
devotee of yoga, asserted that nobody can own yoga.

"The whole point of yoga," wrote Chopra, who was raised a Hindu but who insists he stopped calling
himself a Hindu over two decades ago, "is to achieve enlightenment, and that the most revered
practitioners, whether known as yogis, swamis or mahatmas, transcend religion In fact, even if yoga were
granted a patent or copyright by the United States Patent Office, there is no denying that enlightenment
has always been outside the bounds of religion. That's where the spiritual path leads, not into the arms of
priests or yoga instructors. Before Hindu Americans complain about hatha yoga (what is regarded as
exercise-based postural yoga) being deracinated, they might want to promote the ideas that are the very
essence of Indian spirituality, which preceded Shiva, Krishna, cows and castes."

Marxists and liberals also jumped into the debate.

"All the

 classics are the works of
 
,"
wrote Meera Nanda, a visiting professor of history of science at
the Indian Institute of Science Education and Reserach, Mohali,
Punjab, in an essay recently calling the siddhas "grassroots
alchemists, sorcerers,  and 
 who sought immortality in
their own bodies and in this life The

they
developed were meant to make the body strong and immune
from death -- not to still the mind to realise the pure soul, or
purusa, as the £oga Sutra teaches."

2 

£ogacharyaShameemAkhtar

Even Swami Vivekananda criticized


, she asserted.

"In his lectures on , delivered before admiring audiences in New £ork, Vivekananda interpreted
Patanjali's a 
 as providing a 'scientific' method for 'seeing god,' -- indeed, 'becoming god' and
acquiring 'absolute power' over all of nature," Nanda wrote.
"His interpretation of a 
 by no means reflected the mainstream of Hindu thought in India at that
time, but was tailor-made to provide a practical guide to Western seekers of spiritual wisdom. Very much
in tune with the scholarly fashions of his day, Vivekananda looked down upon

, calling it
'nothing but a kind of gymnastics' which can help 'a man live long, but only (as) a healthy animal," she
wrote.

Nanda's article, widely attacked and challenged by the HAF, also argued that 'modern postural yoga has
borrowed key movements, rhythms and sequences from the Western traditions of body-building,
gymnastics, drills and dances.'

She went on to say that "modern yoga was, of course, put together in India, by Indians, but with a whole
lot of Western input. So let us not be so touchy and such purists about its Vedic-Hindu origins. Let us
enjoy the mongrel that this thing called modern yoga is."

Even if yoga has borrowed from the West, Shukla argued, one cannot deny that it is a part of the Hindu
religion. Adding to the controversy were evangelical Christians who denounced yoga -- even sans
mention of Hinduism -- as the devil's tool. They even condemned the fast-growing 'Christian yoga'
concept that combines physical yoga with Christianity -- similar to bhakti yoga postures with Christian
chants.

"It's everywhere," fumed former New Age practitioner and yoga follower Laurette Willis who is now a
born again Christian and leading a popular movement to wean people away from yoga in America. She
offers an exercise regime with Christian chants and meditative thoughts.

"In ads for everything from IT to ice cream, meditative supermodels sit cross-legged in the Hindu Lotus
position, contemplating 'nirvana'. There are yoga videos for pregnant mothers, senior citizens, toddlers
and babies -- even yoga for you and your dog," she said.

Not long ago, Reverend Mark Driscoll of Seattle's Mars Hill Church is reported to have told followers, 'If
you sign up for a little yoga class, you're signing up for a little demon class Satan doesn't care if you
stretch as long as you go to hell."

Albert Mohler, president of the Louisville, Kentucky-based Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argued
in an essay that yoga's spiritual and physical dimensions can't be separated. "When Christians practice
yoga," he insisted, "they must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the
contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga."

Stories on yoga controversies continue to appear in publications across the US. In April, the Religious
Life Office at Princeton University is holding a debate at which Sheetal Shah will assert that yoga is
rooted firmly in Hinduism.
The opponents will question the claim or at least argue that yoga can be practiced with no reference to
Hinduism. Shah could hear arguments like the ones offered by Amanda Gregg, who instructs yoga class
at Georgia's Northside Drive Baptist Church.

In a recent î feature on yoga controversies, Gregg, who said she is respectful of Hinduism, argued,
"Although Hinduism and yoga grew out at the same time of the Indian subcontinent and there are
references to yoga in the Upanishads and in the 
 , that doesn't mean that Hinduism has the
exclusive hold on yoga. Sort of like Jews don't have the exclusive hold on prayer."

Considering tea-sipping America's fascination with South

Asian curry and Bollywood films, the debate over yoga is
likely to return, Eric Rothgery, an expert on South Asian
religions, told a Virginia newspaper recently.

"It's a question of how we define Hinduism, how we define

yoga," Rothgery, professor of religion, Roanoke College,
Salem Virginia, reportedly said.

Shah argued that she and others in the HAF do not claim
that Hinduism should have a right over yoga.

"We feel that yoga is everywhere, it is very cool," she said. "We want Americans, especially the kids, to
know that it not only came from India but from the Hindu religion. Hinduism often gets short shift in
schools It is often associated with caste, cow worship, and with millions of gods, with idol worship. We
think if people realise that yoga is part of Hinduism, they can feel good about the Hindu religion."

Shah attends a yoga studio in New £ork and is at peace with people who learn yoga as a physical
discipline. "I will never say that they should think of Hindu spirituality while they do yoga," she said. "But if
people want to think of Hindu meditation and use it along with yoga, it would be wonderful."

The debate is also about the Hindu identity in North America, Diana L Eck, Harvard University professor
and founder of the Pluralism Project, has said.

While there are many groups fighting for Indian-American interests in business and politics, Shah,
AseemShukla and the HAF have emerged as 'the first major national advocacy group looking at Hindu
identity,' Eck told

 .

Shukla hoped the debate would bring pride not only to the first two generations of Hindus in America, but
also the third.

"When our children are in school," he said, "wouldn't it be wonderful if their classmates and teachers
share their pride in Hinduism and acknowledge that Hinduism gave the world yoga?"