Since 50 years, West/Americans have Digested / Appropriated Hindu yoga from India,now branding it as “American Yoga” and deliberately disconnecting from original Hindu/Indian Yoga source! (See 2 clips below)
But, in accord with typical US Materialistic Culture, American Yoga is also highly commercialized and looked upon only as Fame/Business/Money making machine ($10 billion annual market, over 20 million daily practitioners in USA alone & growing very fast) rather than its true blissful Intangible benefits.
Western/American Civilization approach toward life is very OBJECTIVE and MATERIALISIC (external) based…so anything you teach them they will make it quick MONEY/ FAME oriented or business related! More as Career than (Internal/Eternal Hindu way) Knowledge source, Mental Peace, Consciousness, Spiritual or Self-less Service/SEVA!
Many crazy westerners join few months of Hindu Yog training from Hundu/Indian teachers and then open some ‘XYZ Yoga” studio in America/West, claming one as Expert/ Guru / Yogi/ Yogini, etc to mint money by fooling ignorant/innocent people.
Thus, American Yoga became just name, not TRUE 6000+ years old Hindu Yoga practice!
YOG, an integral Hindu way of life in 12000+ years old Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism) civilization in India.
Hindu YOG lifestyle, exactly opposite to western thinking, is Scientifically & Systematically designed by our Hindu Rishis/Sages – Kapil Muni, Maharshi Patanjali & others to get rid of BHOG (Materialism) and ROG (Diseases).
Read post :6000 years History of Yoga
Thus, Many Yoga teachers in America made their Yoga practices totally worthless as per true Yoga principles! It has become just substitution to Aerobics or Gym, without inner benefits of Body-Mind-Soul-Cosmos (BRAHMAN stage) Union, which is core of Hindu Yog-Sutras.
You may not find many authentic Hindu/Indian Yoga studios in USA, because Hindus knew since start that Americans doing Yoga wrong!
Recently, CBS This Morning show has raised this issue in small story to realize what’s wrong with American yoga practitioners, how they are doing yoga wrong!
Why Indians say Americans are doing yoga wrong
How West/Americans trying to Digest/ Appropriate/ Colonized Yoga
– Keynote lecture by famous Indian American Author/Scholar Mr Rajiv Malhotra, writer of best seller book “Being Different : An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism” (2011), on the occasion of 6000 years of History of Yoga DVD launch in Mumbai-26th Jan 2014. He is tracking western civilization and impact on India since last 20 years and wrote several other best selling books.
Here Mr Malhotra exposed how west is trying to Digest / Appropriate yoga practices and claming as if their own inventions as Mind Scinces, Mindfulness, Holistic Lifestyle, etc.
Correction- Its YOG not YOGA, westerners have pronunciation problem with Indian Sanskrit words. They add extra “A” to Indian names. e.g. Ram became RamA, Krishn became KrishnA, Dharm became DharmA, Karm became KarmA, etc.
Similarly, western civilization Digested/Appropriated many cultural practices from other non-western civilization like African, Native Americans, Old Native Europeans , Asians, etc but arrogantly propagated as their own culture and later finished the original source (competition) by claming it uncivilized/ Satanic/ Demonic!
Even many western festivals are from ancient non-western civilization, they copied/digested/appropriated and claimed monopoly over that!
Hindu color festival -“HOLI” is now celebrated in west (again wrongly) without giving credit or true information about its Hindu/Indian roots.
Read post: Holi, Colours & Hari OM across the world
Western Hypocrisy – West will hit heavily on other country if anyone uses their Patent, Copyright, Trademark etc but same thing shouldn’t be applicable on them when they shamelessly copy and brand it as their own??
Westerners who understood True Hindu Yoga:
See Mr. Adam Carney from USA, who learnt Yoga from Hindu guru, is urging US people to learn authentic Yoga which is nice humble, non-materialistic and healthy way of life.
Bring a Humble Indian Yoga Teacher to America
Ms Stephanie Quirk, a New Zealander-qualified as a psychiatric nurse in NZ, is Pune India based BSK Iyengar Yoga student/teacher since 1987. Listen her experience of Indian/Hindu Yoga. She quotes “..before coming to Yoga…the Unimportant things were too Important in my Life and actual fact those thing lost their meaning…those things lost their importance (after Yoga)..”
Yoga gives Purpose and Meaning to Life..”Yoga is Philosophy, Science and Art – BSK Iyengar”
It seems, no matter how many hours of authentic training and lectures you give to such Materialistic /Self-centered/quick fame oriented westerners; very few will understand the importance of YOG in life as Inner Intuitive connection, Consciousness, Body-Mind-Soul-Cosmos Union!
Will they ever show some curtsey to Respect/Give credit to original authentic Hindu source??
Indian bloggers and readers voted this post as “Top post on IndiBlogger” Site! Thank you 🙂
Image credit: screen shot from CBS clip
Sources: History of Yoga, Rajiv Malhotra lecture, CBS news, google search, youtube, twitter, and all links in the post.
GLOBAL INDIAN BLOG 