Recently I was chatting with a fellow Mom as we waited to pick our children up from school. She was interested to know how things were going with my book and what I was up to. I invited her to join the Wednesday morning Yoga Sampler class I teach as an introduction to the many styles of yoga so she could begin to enjoy the benefits of the practice. She graciously declined saying yoga wasn’t for her because it turned the attention away from God and onto the individual. I was surprised by this misconception and tried to explain the more spiritual, meditative side of yoga but we were interrupted by kids as they came streaming out of school.
Since then I’ve been mulling over the relationship between yoga and religion. Personally I’m active in my religious community and find that my yoga practice supports and enlarges my beliefs in divinity, morality, and spirituality. I agree with Christy Turlington when she said:
Any spirituality can be enhanced with the practice or study of yoga.
However, I know that there are many teachers who do not book yoga sessions in their classrooms because of perceived conflicts with religious beliefs. In fact, for years my son’s class did not include yoga in the curriculum for precisely this reason. For all of you whose jaws have dropped to the floor in amazement you need to understand that many people erroneously believe that yoga is a religion.
For the record – Yoga is NOT a religion.
Yes, yoga has a relationship with Hinduism as they both use the same lexicon and originate from the same geographic region. Yoga, however, is not Hinduism. That is like saying prayer is Christian. Yoga is universal. Each person who practices yoga has their own personal yoga journey. The path they take is up to them.
Whenever I teach in schools I am careful to concentrate more on the physical sides of yoga. Yes, there are aspects of yoga which do delve into the spiritual realm, making yoga a truly holistic life practice. However, the school environment is not the place for this instruction, and you can ensure parents that the focus will be on hatha or physical yoga. That doesn’t mean that I don’t use meditation or incorporate the yamas andniyamas, quite the contrary in fact (check out the Character Education page for examples).
My goal is to introduce yoga to as many children and teens as possible, showing them through first hand experience the benefits and joys which come from the practice. As individuals become interested in their personal yoga journey there are numerous resources available for them to pursue outside of the school setting.
My purpose is to open the door to yoga. To play yoga with kids. To challenge teens. To provide life long tools of health and vitality which will empower our youth to discover their unique voice, to know themselves, to make the world a wonderful place one individual at a time.
What is your goal when teaching yoga in the classroom? How do you deal with parents who have an objection to teaching yoga to their children? What is your experience with individuals who see a conflict between yoga and religion?
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As you know there was a lot of discussion about this recently on our facebook page,so I appreciate this post. Over time, the misconceptions will fade away as more and more folks try out the ancient practice of yoga and mindfulness (it’s already happening!)and realize it positively informs everything in their lives, including their own unique belief system.
Our Yoga 4 Classrooms program is a total health and wellness program for children, specifically designed for the school environment. It is yoga education – including mindfulness, physical asana, breathing, loosen up activities, visual imagery, and education on a variety of topics including having alone time, nutrition, and various other social/emotional ed points directly reflective of yogas yamas and niyamas, which of course are universal principles. Having said that, Sanskrit is not used, and the program has a special focus on assisting the learning process. Is is still yoga? yes. Will we change the name of the program to something else to make it more ‘palatable’ for some. Nope. Our goal is to ensure ‘yoga’ becomes so mainstream that it’s simply known as a powerful, beneficial program for total health & wellness – mind, body and spirit. Who can say ‘no’ to say?
Well said!!
Yoga is not a religion.
Before people start making such a statement like Yoga is against their religion they should educate themselves as to what yoga really is. Take a yoga class and experience it. There are many ignorant people in this world. Due to ignorance, fear and lack of information on certain topics is how many horrible things have happend throughout history. The Salem Witch trails is one example of how people’s ignorance, fear and lack of knowing created a world of horror, death and destructution for many innocent people.