Lisa Miller

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Do Yoga’s Hindu Roots Matter?

May 15, 2010 By Lisa Miller

I don’t care much for bland spirituality, so at yoga class I generally tune out the prelude, when the teacher reads aloud—as is the custom—an inspirational passage on which to meditate. Recently, though, I was startled to attention when the teacher chose a paragraph on compassion from the Dalai Lama’s bestseller The Art of Happiness. Hold on a minute, I thought. Isn’t the Dalai Lama a Tibetan Buddhist? And isn’t yoga a Hindu practice? And haven’t Buddhists and Hindus been at war over land and gods for thousands of years? The Dalai Lama may be regarded throughout the world as a holy man, but downward dog is not his expertise.

Sixteen million Americans practice yoga, according to Yoga Journal, and in 2008 we spent nearly $6 billion on classes and stretch pants. Yet aside from “om” and the occasional “namaste,” Americans rarely acknowledge that yoga is, at its foundation, an ancient Hindu religious practice, the goal of which is to achieve spiritual liberation by joining one’s soul to the essence of the divine. In its American version, yoga is a mishmash: Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, 12-step rhetoric, self-help philosophies, cleansing diets, exercise, physical therapy, and massage. Its Hindu roots are obliterated by the modern infatuation with all things Eastern—and by our growing predilection for spiritual practices stripped of the sectarian burdens of religion. Americans’ naive but characteristic conflation of Eastern religions isn’t new; in 1845 Ralph Waldo Emerson called the Bhagavad-Gita (which is Hindu scripture) “the much renowned book of Buddhism.”

Filed Under: Newsweek, Religion Tagged With: Bhagavad Gita, Dalai Lama, Eastern religions, Hindu scripture, Lisa Miller, Ralph waldo Emerson, Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist, yoga, Yoga Journal

Lisa Miller

Lisa Miller

Lisa Miller is a staff writer at New York magazine. She is a former columnist for the Washington Post, former senior editor of Newsweek magazine, and author of "Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife."

About Lisa Miller

Lisa-Miller-Headshot

Lisa Miller is a staff writer at New York magazine. She is the former religion columnist for the Washington Post, former senior editor of Newsweek magazine, and author of "Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife."

In 2014, Lisa Miller was nominated for the National Magazine Award and featured in Best Magazine Writing of 2014.

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NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARD

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