Namaste Lostontheway,
Yoga is a vast term, and not all that comes under the term is being practiced by people in west. Majority of them practice the physical postures. But ancient Indians were not the only ones who did body exercises. There are many cultures who have stretching as part of their physical culture. For example contortionists of Europe and Americas do so many postures similar to what is done in Yoga postures. Kung fu and other martial art practitioners also do similar things. The balle dancers and gymnasts from all over the world do such things. Hindus do not have any exclusive rights on such physical culture.
If this was the case then gymanstics, Kung fu andcontortionism would be a hundred billion dollar industry + and not Yoga. If people could get the same benefits from these disciplines, then Yoga would not be so sought after. Yoga obviously offers something more desirable hence why it is sought after.
The difference between asanas in Yoga and other physical exercises is the asanas are designed to stimulate certain glands of the body. In Yogic speech they open up certain pathways of energy, clear blockages, leading to better flow of energy. The breathing exercises are designed to balance the solar and lunar energy channels(ida and pingala) and to manipulate prana and apana to cause the Kundalini energy at the base of the spine to rise. Hatha Yoga which focusses primarily on asanas and pranayama is designed to faciliate the rise of the Kundalini energy.
If one is doing nothing other than asanas then they are not even doing Hatha Yoga.
[B]Yoga postures in themselves are not spiritual or religious[/B]
Yoga postures never held any high place in Hindu religion either. The postures were a part of a small branch of Hatha Yoga and their main aim was NOT religious but to simply keep the body healthy. The word Asana in Patanjali Sutra does not refer to the numerous postures being done today. The role of asana in Patanjali sutras is to sit in a position so that a person that properly concentrate his/her mind. This is also written in Geeta in which it is told that a practitioner should sit and concentrate on the tip of his nose. That was all that Lord Krishna had to do with an asana. To practice concentration on the tip of one’s nose one did not have to do either splits or inversions.
You are making several false statements here. If you read the Hatha Yoga Pradipika it makes it very clear its goal is spiritual. The practice of asanas in India has been going on for thousands of years, and it was done not to just keep the body healthy, but for spiritual purposes. Yoga has always been a spiritual culture, it has never been a physical culture.
[B]Modern Day Yoga Practice was packaged for the west[/B]
The modern day Yoga practice largely consists of yoga postures and has been packaged for the west by Sri BKS Iyengar and Sri Pattabhi Jois. They have built it into a beautiful system and the west in its part has proven to be EXCELLENT students of yoga postures. This is amply proven by so many certified Iyengar, Vinyasa and other yoga-styles teachers. India does not have any culture of doing yoga postures to perfection. This culture is no longer Hindu in flavour.
Sri BKS Iyengar has never called it Iyengar Yoga, he called it Hatha Yoga. His followers to honour him called it “Iyengar Yoga” He never claimed to have created a new Yoga, but what he did do was create routines on how to do Yoga. Yoga had already reached a high degree of perfection in India, that is why you find so many Hatha Yogis, Nathas in India. Again, this tradition has been going on for thousands of years. The Western person is not practicing Yoga with the same zeal Hatha Yogis praticed it with, because most of them are concerned only with the physical benefits, one of the main ones being weight loss 
[B]West is much more body aware, they are better students[/B]
Majority of citizens of Western countries are much more aware of body-culture than most Indians. There is a long tradition of gymnastics in their schools. Small school girls can do beautiful forward and back bends! And that too without anything to do with yoga or India. I am yet to see any housewife of an Indian household who can do a split. On the other hand in a single city in America or Canada you would find not but many.
We don’t really know what the physical fitness of Indian people was like prior to the British coming India. Since, the British came to India, India became a poor country, within the period of British rule India suffered several major famines which killed tens of millions of people a go, and the vast population became poor and has to resort to rural occupations. Traditional knowledge systems were outlawed so Indians became illiterate and jobless. Then this was replaced with the British education system to educate an elite few. Since then India has not been a Hindu country, but it has been a Western country. Its education, healthcare, legal system and political systems are all Western. Thus Indian people today are not representative of Hinduism.
You know it is actually quite ironic I am having to tell you this. All black people know what the West did to them. All Chinese people know what the West did to them. None of them have forgotten and still today remember the atrocities inflicted on them. Western history books have been forced to tell this history because of the stand they have made. Indian people, on the other hand, have made no stand, and because of this Western history books do not teach their history. This is a big shame on Indians.
A civilisation is nothing if it does not remember its history. One way to erase a civilisation is to erase its history.
[B]Modern day Yoga is Buddhistic[/B]
Almost all of the Hindu meditations consist of concentration of mind at one point. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are also about concentration. Simple concentration of mind which is by and by developed to a great degree. This is known as ekagrata or one pointedness. Swami Vivekananda in his Raj-Yoga lectures discusses this in detail.
BUT while modern day popular practice of Yoga postures does NOT consist of one-pointedness of mind. It consists of a spread out awareness of the body. It consists of mindfullness not concentration. This is very important yet subtle difference. And this mindfulness is inspired not by hinduism but by Buddhism. The Vipassana meditation as taught by the Theravada school of Buddhism, by the teachers such as Sri Goenka is all about this only. Gautama Buddha attained the Truth using this meditation only. Mindfullness. And this is THE MOST pervasive and popular approach towards meditation and spiritual development being used both in and outside Yoga practice all over the world. and this practice is NOT Hindu. It is Buddhist.
I am not sure where you got this nonsensical idea from. Buddha learned all his meditation techniques from Hindus. These meditation techniques were not invented by Buddhists. Breathing meditation, which is essentially what Vipasana is, is one the oldest forms of meditation in the world. There is even evidence that the mystery schools in Egypt practiced it. The oldest description of any meditation technique is found in the Upanishads.
[B]Effect of the likes of J. Krishnamurti[/B]
Other modern teachers like J. Krishnamurti and more recent Eckhart Tolle teach similar things. They have a large global influence and it shows in the common people’s approach to spirituality. People talk about mind awareness in everyday talk. Its all over hollywood movies too. You can see this approach or philosophy in films like Star Wars! All this is effects of Buddhism as well as these modern teachers. This is also the case with Yoga practice in west.
No it isn’t. J. Krishnamuriti, Eckhat Tolle and many other modern teachers borrow from the Eastern religions: Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. Not just Buddhism. In fact the vast majority of new age spirituality borrows from Hinduism more than any other religion. “Higher self” for example is the teaching of Atman in Hinduism. Thervada Buddhism has no Self. The ideas of physical, astral, mental and causal body are Hindu(Buddhism teaches anata) The proliferators of new-age religion are all Hindu gurus. Swami Vivekananda, Swami Yogananda, Swami Muktananda, Ramana Maharishi, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The massive proliferation of Yoga is due people like this, and not due to any Buddhists. Even new-age ideas about self-realization, spiritual evolution and karma are all Hindu, not buddhist.
If you read most scholarly articles on the advent of new-age religious movement they trace it back to Hinduism.
[B]The child has become a man and left the home[/B]
The case is like a child being born and then leaving home for good because he knows he can never truly grow as a person in his small home. Yoga might have been born in India, but the child has become a man and has left the home. He now has many homes all over the globe. He is no longer your jungle boy.
The truth is, the man has left the home and become a child. Yoga has devolved in the West, not evolved. Yoga originally was a very precise science of spirituality and self-realization which produced great masters. Now it has become nothing more than a physical culture and a weight-loss gimmick. You call this evolvement?
It was due to people like you that I left Sikhism. For some reason you have been taught to disrespect, undermine and hate Hindus. When you believe pretty much exactly what we believe and belong to the same great tradition of Sanatana Dharma. You separatist politics is creating unnecessary divides between Hindus and Sikhs. You even seem to love the Muslims more than us, when it was the Muslims that killed, maimed and raped Sikhs. Go to the Gudwara and the atrocities of the Muslims on the Sikh people is recorded in graphic detail. Similarly, have you forgotten the Jaleyawala Bagh massacre by the British? When did Hindus ever persecue the Sikhs? Other than the Hindu-Sikh riots after Indira Gandhi’s assassination which took place because of Sikh fundamentalism, nowhere in the entire history of India have Hindus ever persecuted the Sikhs. We are part of the same religion. I am so happy that my Sikh family and relatives do not think like you.
