Yoga: what it is not...a word of caution on the International Yoga Day 2020

The world is observing, rather celebrating, the International Yoga Day today. The idea of an international day devoted to yoga was mooted by the Indian Prime Minister Modi in 2014. Recognizing its universal appeal, 175 member nations of the UN adopted the resolution. The day is being observed since 2015 on 21st June every year.

The following part of Indian Prime Minister's speech in the UN General Assembly in 2014 correctly tells what yoga is, though with some high-sounding verbiage: Yoga is an invaluable gift of India's ancient tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and the nature. By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help in well being.

That was too esoteric, isn't it. Nobody thinks of yoga that way, not most of yoga practitioners and fans, I bet.

Yoga has traveled far. It is contributing to public health.

Yoga is 'to join' in Sanskrit, and that goes much beyond the exercises with which yoga is usually equated. The yoga that we see all around is the physical exercise part of it. Not too bad, because asanas (physical exercises) and pranayamas (breathing exercises) are two basic, yet important, ingredients of yoga. In fact, these exercises - popularised in recent years by Baba Ramdev in India and by yoga teachers throughout the world - are helping millions of people in attaining and maintaining good health. The Yoga Day further makes people aware of this outstanding system of health and healing.

 

In a way it is good that all procedures recommended as part of old Hath Yoga (neti, etc) are not being practised by common people, because those were meant for yogis, not for people at large. In fact - as I elaborate later - people have taken even asanas to stupid levels.

Yoga has been proven through scientific/ medical studies to be beneficial in a number of ways, the prominent being

• improving overall health and fitness
• reducing stress and calming nerves; helping in sleep-related issues
• improving muscle flexibility; curing spondylitis
• strengthening lungs
  
• correcting imbalances of hormones and metabolism, thus curing diabetes, high blood pressure, immunity-related issues, etc

Yoga has grown really big. It has now become part of even military drills, sports practices and school games. Hundreds of celebrities from all walks of life say, they regularly do yoga to remain fit.  It is reported that more than 130 patents have been granted worldwide to some form of yoga, though after intervention of the Indian government, no more patents are being granted. [I may not be precise on this data; corrections invited.]

Yoga also is big business. A 2019 estimate says, just yoga mats is nearly $20 billion market today. Yoga clothing (especially yoga pants), classes, workshops, trainings, tours... there are dozens of ways yoga is being milked.

The yoga that is practiced and taught today sometimes takes hues ranging from what can be called non-yoga to anti-yoga. I do not intend to play the role of a 'minder' or be a 'spoiler', yet I feel duty-bound to caution my friends against doing yoga the wrong way and thinking of yoga as what it is not. This post tries to do that.

Yoga: where does it fit between regular exercises and occult

Can yoga exercises be mixed with other exercises?

Yoga is a stand-alone system of body-mind-spirit health, but it can be mixed with many other types of exercises. Yoga pairs well with meditation. It also gels well with walking. Sportspersons do yoga in between warm up and strenuous exercises, and it is found to boost their flexibility and stamina.

Yoga is to be done in moderation [maybe, except by expert hatha yogis]. So, it will not lead to 'six pack abs'. For this very reason, mixing yoga with rigorous gym workout is waste of yoga. If you want to do yoga while maintaining a 'macho' body, do yoga separately [better if you do muscle building exercises in the mornings and yoga in the evenings].

Is yoga an occult practice?

Genuine yogis will never recommend mystical/ metaphysical practices either as a part of yoga or separately.

Spiritual practices may have their benefits or powers, but unlike what is advised on many websites, one should do such practices that do not stand to common sense only under supervision of a master and after understanding their consequences. Mixing them with yoga is not a good idea except when permitted by genuine yoga experts or when such practices intrinsically gel with a yoga pose/ practice [eg. doing meditation with gyan mudra].

We should take with a pinch of salt if someone

• claims that he got supernatural powers by doing a very hard yoga practice,
• shows how he will permanently cure a serious ailment (e.g. cancer) through a few asanas daily for a month (and asks for a huge fee for recommending those asanas),
• shows photos/ video of yoga poses with twisted spine and entangled limbs, to explain what yoga is, and tries to convince that your body will become as flexible after some asanas,
• advises you to do asana X or pranayama Y for an ailment because he or his patients got completely cured of the same ailment by doing X/Y, or
• talks in confusing alien language, chants incomprehensible mantras, asks you to stare at a complex geometric design or makes you do scary occult things and then tells that it is all ancient 'science' from India.

Stupid yoga!

Yogis knew it. Not that they have supernatural powers, but they knew that Bikram Chaudhury of Hot Yoga would one day invite trouble for himself. But it has come a bit late, like most karmic penalties.

If you don't know about him, let me recap: Bikram popularised a form of 'yoga' in the west in 1980s and now has more than 600 yoga 'studios' in different parts of the world. Following some lawsuits in the US, Bikram fled to India in 2017. His fans include many celebrities. In Bikram Yoga, deformed varieties of asanas are performed at a fixed temperature and humidity. In 2011, Bikram even tried to patent yoga but could not succeed in doing so.

The way Bikram twisted yoga for earning money from the gullible western audience was a remarkable marketing feet indeed. But that too was not unpredictable; people are known to believe all sorts of half-truths and magic potions especially for pleasure, fitness, looking good or getting rid of chronic diseases - and self-styled yoga gurus promise all these.

Bikram thus led a type of yoga movement in the west in which yoga was seen as something with magical powers if done in a particular way. Seeing its success, many more yogapreneurs took birth with their own forms of yoga that titillates more than it heals. The list of stupid types of 'yoga' is increasing by the day. We have dog yoga, kitten yoga, noga (nude yoga), poga (a type of water yoga), beer yoga, cannabis yoga, tantrik yoga, acroyoga (yoga with acrobatics), flying yoga (bumping off the ground while sitting), aerial yoga (being suspended from above while doing yoga poses), laughter yoga, yoga raves, superbrain yoga, and what not. There also is goat yoga in which a goat or piglet is made to sit on top of guys twisting their bodies like bonsai. 

Asanas and pranayamas are for health (forget cleansing the system for higher level of practices with the aim of yoga (=joining) with nature and the ultimate truth). How can these be practised with beer or being nude or making a dog/ goat sit on top of you?

Yet, how easy it is to fool people with ugly mixtures of bodily pleasures, myth and fraud - all in the name of yoga!

Yoga is a Hindu concept, goes against Islam and Christianity. No?

Not many things arouse passion more than convincing people that their religion is in danger. So, while yoga is being made into a fad, it is also being used as a tool to score points on the court of religion.

Many religious leaders and opinion makers gain popularity/ following by calling yoga a purely Hindu religious practice that goes against the tenets of other religions, especially Islam and Christianity.

The Indian yoga teachers and those trained by them into yoga teaching have helped this sentiment to grow. For the sake of spicing the product called yoga, they add myths and include chanting of curious mantras, etc in their yoga recipe. They weave ancient philosophy into their talk, and recite Sanskrit verses to display the depth of their knowledge of ancient Hindu scriptures. They put tilak (dot) on their forehead, wear saffron robes, carry a garland of beads and copper pot with them, and have long hair.  This gets them more buyers but the rooting of Hinduism into yogic practices puts off many non-Hindus.  Insistence of some yoga teachers on chanting aum or Sanskrit mantras also makes some suspicious of yoga as some form of Hindu occult practice.

Some Christian preachers and thinkers have sought to interpret the higher forms of yogic practices (e.g. cleansing chakras) through Christian scriptures and to prove that these go against Christianity. One prominent preacher has called kundalini (nervous plexus in/ along the spine) as the pool of dark powers that needs to be eliminated.

One Father Jeremy Davies has written a book in which he says, yoga puts people at risk from devils and 'the occult' is closely associated with the scourges of 'drugs, demonic music and pornography'.

One prominent Muslim body in India has issued a dictat that chanting aum and doing surya namaskar are un-Islamic.

It is also a fact that millions of Hindus do not associate yoga with religion, though they feel proud that it originated from their scriptures. Chanting of aum or some mantras may look natural to them but they don't take yoga as a religious rite.

There is a need to emphasize that the common forms of yoga (asanas and pranayamas) are nothing but exercises. Even the higher/ next forms of yoga are for progressively cleansing the body (then mind, then spirit). Hindu scriptures talk of karm yoga (doing the right deeds), bhakti yoga (surrendering oneself to the God by devotion), etc as ways to unite with the God, but these have nothing to do with the yoga we are dealing with.

Yoga can really hurt you!

When I say yoga can hurt, I am only reminding that you can hurt yourself even when you bend to lift a bag or turn to a side when your child calls you.

Sprains and strains actually happen to thousands of people everyday as the nerves/ligaments/pads in various joints are pulled/torn/misaligned/damaged due to a slight pressure or jerk. So, it is natural that  you can hurt yourself while doing yoga. But such hurts will be in the form of sprains and aches, no more, if you do yoga with due caution.

I have seen a news item reporting that nearly 5000 people ended up in the emergency room after yoga injuries in a recent year in the US alone. Scores of people have recounted their tales how even very meticulously done yoga had damaged their spines, wrists and nerves, and bones and they had to be hospitalised to come back to normal life. That number is too big, and shows that yoga is not being practised correctly.

It has been found that unusual injuries that are attributed to yoga happen due to an inexperienced teacher, doing a complicated asana after seeing it on the web (and being carried away by the benefits attributed to it), being more aggressive than what the age or health conditions permit, or ignoring an existing injury/ medical condition.

Long back, a reputed yogi held yoga classes in a university in which I was a student. He asked the university to arrange a competition and a closing ceremony. Some students got carried away by the public applaud when they started doing asanas on stage, and they twisted themselves too much to impress the gathering. One of my friends, who received first prize in a set of asanas, developed back pain soon after and suffered from it for many years. You might find many dramatic examples of such injuries if you do a ‘google search’ on the web for injuries caused by yoga.

I recently came across this anecdote shared by a yogi: Our friend told us, he had been doing sarvangasana, halasana and surya-namaskar besides a couple of pranayams. On further prodding, we came to know that he had been trying unsuccessfully to do halasana and his posture and speed of doing surya-namaskar poses was all wrong: his breathing sequence was the opposite of what it should be.In fact, going by his age (45), history of chronic ailments and not having done exercises for a long time, he should not have tried sarvangasana at all. While he blamed the TV show for his problems, later we also came to know that he read on the web of the many benefits sarvangasana could get him and decided to do it for five minutes twice a day as was prescribed by the website. It is good that this guy has not harmed his body beyond repair and has finally understood where he went wrong. He does yoga daily - a regimen of mild exercises - and is enjoying its benefits.

I also came across a research roundup on the web, which says that unsupervised and wrongly done kapalbhati pranayama can lead to hernia, raised blood pressure, even cardiac problems. This, when a yoga guru is seen often on TV channels in India claiming that kapalbhati can cure almost all types of diseases if done regularly for 10 minutes a day.

Genuine yoga gurus advise that

• yoga must be done very moderately,
• all pains during/ following yogic exercises should be taken as a warning sign,
• only those asanas, pranayamas and other procedures should be performed as are suited to one’s age, sex and overall health condition,
• yoga must never be overdone and never be experimented upon mindlessly, and
• yoga should be done as a set of actions for overall health rather than a particular asana/ pranayama being done to cure a particular disease.

What yoga is and is not, in short

• Yoga is not mystical-looking exercises in which you must bend your body here and there in unusual ways or breathe artificially. It should guide you towards natural body dynamics.
• Yoga is not a one-day, one-week or one-month curative; it is a life-long healer.
• Yoga is not about bragging that you know an oriental fad; it is better done with humility.
• Yoga is a rejuveneting regimen, not an entertainment.
• Yoga is not a cure-all. It is a set of body movements/ breathing exercises. These may have extra-ordinary benefits to human health, but they are not miraculous.