Is yoga a religion? First, I'd say it depends on how one defines "religion." If one defines "religion" very broadly to include any set of basic beliefs that any individual can use to guide his or her life, then yoga is a religion, insofar as many yogis do use the yoga practice and the ethical precepts of yoga as basic guides with which to conduct their lives. But by this definition, many other things that we do not normally consider to be religion would also qualify as religion. For instance, if I believe that making a lot of money is the most important thing in life to the exclusion of everything else, then we might say that money-making is my religion, in this sense. Or, to use another example, if I passionately believe that football is the most important thing in life, to the extent that I believe that my life wouldn't be worth living if I miss Monday night football, so that I arrange everything in my life around Monday night football, then one might also say that football is my religion.
But I'm sure that the people who claim that yoga is a religion (and a Satanic one, at that) do not mean religion in such a broad sense. For these people--and, I suspect, for most people--for something to be a religion is for it to have a certain public organized aspect: In order for a religion to be a religion, it must espouse a publicly proclaimed set of beliefs involving adherence to a specific power or agency beyond the physical. It must also have an organized hierarchy, which typically involves some type of clergy, or at least some kind of formal organizational structure with a clear chain of command.
Yoga, as many of us know, does not fit this narrower, organized sense of "religion." Ishvara Pranidhana, the fifth of the niyamas, does prescribe some kind of surrender to a power greater than oneself, but it does not specify exactly what that power is. All it says is that some form of acknowledgement and devotion to something greater than oneself is needed if one's practice is not to degenerate into an ego-building exercise. Ishvara Pranidhana does not specify exactly what that greater power must be, leaving the practitioner free to practice yoga in tandem with his or her existing religious beliefs. Since yoga, unlike religion in the organized sense, does not specify the higher power or agency that one must surrender to, it is quite possible for one to simultaneously be a practicing yogi and be a practicing Protestant Christian/Catholic/Buddhist/Hindu/Jew/adherent-of-whatever-other-organized-religion-is-out-there.
So yoga is not a religion; at least not in the organized sense. In fact, if everything I said above is true, if somebody were to come into the yoga practice with a pre-existing religion, Ishvara Pranidhana would probably help that person cultivate the traits that would enable him or her to become a more effective practitioner of his or her pre-existing religion. So at least in principle, it looks like we should have a win-win situation: Somebody takes up yoga, enjoys the yoga practice, and becomes a better practitioner of his or her religion at the same time. Problem solved, right?
Well... maybe. If the problem is simply that the people who believe that yoga is a Satanic devil-worshipping religion believe this because of sheer ignorance or misinformation about the nature of yoga, then we can easily solve the problem by simply educating these people; perhaps we can get all these people to read this blog (and then my stats will shoot through the roof overnight, and I will finally get closer to my life-long dream of becoming a yoga bum ;-)).
But something tells me that the problem is not that simple. I mean, think about it: If a nobody like me can know about all the things that I just wrote above, why should we think that all the religious leaders who spout such anti-yoga propaganda are genuinely ignorant about what yoga really is? To be sure, some of them may be genuinely ignorant (if so, direct them to my blog: I will happily enlighten them, free them from the bounds of conditioned existence, and, in the process, make them better practitioners of the religions they profess to lead :-)).
But what if--just what if--at least some of these religious leaders actually know the truth about yoga? After all, it is not inconceivable that at least some of these religious leaders may have at one time or another "infiltrated" a yoga class in order to find out just what this whole yoga thing is about. Sidenote: Yoga teachers beware: You never know whether that over-eager brand-new student in the front of the room may actually be a "religious spy" sent over from some big religious organization/mega-church... hmm... actually, this may make for a great future post: 32 Tell-tale Signs That Somebody in your Yoga Class is Actually a Religious Spy :-) Maybe Claudia should write this post one day. She's good at these "32" posts.
But I digress. What I'm trying to say is, it is quite possible that at least some of these anti-yoga-propaganda-spouting religious types know the truth about yoga: That it is not a religion in the organized sense, but is really a set of bodily and spiritual practices whose goal is to, in Kiki's words, enable us to "have a calm, clear collected mind so that we are able to view the world around us with a sense of objectivity, rather than looking on the world, and be subjected to all of our psychological and emotional colors."
But if these people know the truth about yoga, and know that yoga is not an organized religion that is out to "compete" with them for followers, then why are they still spouting all this propaganda? Why are they still threatened? I think the answer is quite clear if we think about Kiki's words again. Yoga, as Kiki says, enables us to "have a calm, clear collected mind so that we are able to view the world around us with a sense of objectivity, rather than... be subjected to all of our psychological and emotional colors." Having a calm, clear collected mind and viewing the world objectively enables us to function more effectively as human beings in the world, allowing us to see everything in our lives in a wholesome perspective. This includes the religious beliefs and worldviews that we have held up to this point. When we can see our religious beliefs and worldviews from this vantage point of objectivity, we are able to see which of these beliefs work for us and enable us to live fulfilling lives, and which do not. We will then naturally keep those beliefs which work, and discard those which do not. In so doing, we come to realize that religion should exist (if it should exist at all) to serve individual human beings and further the human condition, not the other way around. It is in this way that yoga makes us better and more effective practitioners of our previously-existing religions. As such, the purpose of yoga, as I understand it, is not to supplant religious belief. Indeed, taken in its best sense, yoga enriches and gives renewed meaning to the religious impulse which seeks to make sense and meaning of human finitude in the face of a seemingly meaningless cosmos.
But could it be that these religious leaders do not want any of this to happen? Could it be that the last thing they want is for their followers to have a calm, collected mind which enables them to see the world (and them) objectively? Could it be that they would rather keep their followers in the throes of their own psychological and emotional colors, so that they can use these colors against them, and continue to manipulate them from a place of fear and control? After all, if everyone were to see the world objectively, everyone would see that there is no reason to believe that there is any sky-cake or sky-baklava or sky-anything. Oh, wait: I forgot that you may not have seen the Patton Oswalt standup skit below. Well, in this case, I guess I'll end my post with a video, since I started with one. Enjoy!
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