Is Yoga Hinduism?

Spirituality Religion
#1121

[QUOTE=Yogi Mat;56342]A fascinating rendition of ancient Indian history SD- but I am afraid it misses the real crux of the problem by quite some margin I am afraid.

Again, if you read my responses I do not equivocate on ancient Indian history as, from my point of view it misses the underlying problem which is this:-

Unless we can DEFINE what we mean by “Hinduism” and “yoga” we cannot make any convinving statements as to whether or not they are equivalent.

Of course, there is always the opportunity to do that, but this can (and does) cause problems - judging by the length of this thread alone!!

Here, you are wanting to define Hinduism (and by relation) yoga with reference to a method known as chronological seriation - fair enough and it is perfectly reasonable to do that.

However, we must not ignore the meaning or power of the words we are using - and their ability to obfuscate truth.

As we agreed, Hinduism is actually a “eurocentric” concept itself - and so this fact (you like facts - right?) instantly unsettles your claim that Hinduism is equivalent to yoga since yoga is a more ancient word, the word predates Hinduism.

So, the real issue from my point of view is not whether or not yoga is Hinduism - and/or visa versa but the philosophical instability of making such a claim.

Consider this lovely snippet of Indian philosophy for your delictation, I am sure we are getting somewhere nearer to the truth of the matter now.

Thanks for keeping up.[/QUOTE]

Now that I think about it, I DON’T want you campaigning for a better representation of Hinduism. You are no better than the racist Europeans who wrote our history.

The bolded is perhaps the most illogical and retarded argument I have ever heard in my entire life.

Yes, Hinduism is a foreign word but that does not mean the religion it labels has its origins around roughly the same time.

In any given language, there are loan words from different languages that are taken by different cultural groups. In our case, the label for the religion of the Indians just stuck when the Muslims said it.

Its like saying the Indian film industry predates Bollywood because the word “Bollywood” was a word that came after. Even a mentally unstable teenager can tell you that they are actually one and the same, but with different labels.

Do not campaign for a better representation of Hinduism when you know nothing of your history. You will just be detrimental to our cause.

#1122

[QUOTE=The Scales;56353]wuts yor problem buddy?

cant define yoga and hinduism?

Here ya go! From my dictionary

[B]yoga[/B] |ˈyōgə|
noun
a Hindu spiritual and ascetic discipline, a part of which, including breath control, simple meditation, and the adoption of specific bodily postures, is widely practiced for health and relaxation.
The yoga widely known in the West is based on hatha yoga, which forms one aspect of the ancient Hindu system of religious and ascetic observance and meditation, the highest form of which is raja yoga and the ultimate aim of which is spiritual purification and self-understanding leading to samadhi or union with the divine.

now here’s your hinduism!

[B][B]Hinduism[/B] |ˈhindoōˌizəm|
noun
a major religious and cultural tradition of the Indian subcontinent, developed from Vedic religion.
Hinduism is practiced primarily in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. It is a diverse family of devotional and ascetic cults and philosophical schools, all sharing a belief in reincarnation and involving the worship of one or more of a large pantheon of gods and goddesses, including Shiva and Vishnu (incarnate as Rama and Krishna), Kali, Durga, Parvati, and Ganesh. Hindu society was traditionally based on a caste system.
[/B]

Glad I could be of service!
*Tips cap[/QUOTE]

Your dictionary is a big fail with respect to that simplistic definition. Of course, it IS a Western text, so it doesn’t surprise me that they would screw that up.

#1123

Fred.

Yes history isn’t nice when it’s false.

I used the "dictionary’ app embedded in my OS X.

Seems the evil western bias crawls into everything around here.

#1124

[QUOTE=The Scales;56476]Fred.

Yes history isn’t nice when it’s false.

I used the "dictionary’ app embedded in my OS X.

Seems the evil western bias crawls into everything around here.[/QUOTE]

Its not evil. Its actually rather understandable, given the “Western” need to compartmentalize and classify everything. By doing so, they fail to account for its diversity and the fact that Hinduism is not really a religion or a culture, but something in between.

How come you call me Fred?

#1125

[QUOTE=Nietzsche;56478]Its not evil. Its actually rather understandable, given the “Western” need to compartmentalize and classify everything. By doing so, they fail to account for its [B]diversity[/B] and the fact that Hinduism is not really a religion or a culture, but something in between.

How come you call me Fred?[/QUOTE]

Excellent post.

Fred - short for fredrick. Fred is easier to spell than Neatchia.

Do you find fred offensive?

#1126

Fraulein Freiderich.

#1127

[QUOTE=The Scales;56481]Excellent post.

Fred - short for fredrick. Fred is easier to spell than Neatchia.

Do you find fred offensive?[/QUOTE]

It wasn’t excellent, special, or original at all. Its what any Hindu or any knowledgeable person, like you, would have said.

Oh, I see.

No, I don’t find it offensive. After all, its the Intrawebz, where people go by fake names all the time.

#1128

Posted in wrong thread.

#1129

Scales:

Seems the evil western bias crawls into everything around here.
yes indeed - including your choice of language in this forum it seems - and maybe the clothes you are wearing and the books you read? Even, “The True History and the Religion of India” by H.D. Swami Prakashanand Saraswati (one of SD’s favourite bedtime books) is written in English! So - maybe you should really go for it and try your lame mocking of your opponents in ancient Sanskrit? That might be fun - I would pay good money to watch you try!

Here is some more evil, facist propaganda for you to decry:-

http://yogawiki.co/AYogaBook/BrahmanismBuddhismAndHinduism

It has been very good doing business with you both.

Thanks very much for your participation.

#1130

The True History and the Religion of India" by H.D. Swami Prakashanand Saraswati (one of SD’s favourite bedtime books) is written in English!

You really do have an obsession with language, words and meanings don’t you and analysing this to death(using ven diagrams, semantic nets)? Language is used to communicate experiences, thoughts, feelings, knowledge. When it ceases doing that the language becomes useless. If H.D Swami Prakashanada Saraswati(whom I do not know for your kind information) is writing a book in English, it is because he is aiming at an audience that speaks English and not Sanskrit. If he wrote the book in Sanskrit, when most people speak English, how could he get his message across?

I did not learn my history from Swami Prakashananda, Mat, I learned my history from official archeaologists and reading scholarly books on Indian history. I have reviewed all the archeaological evidence and compared and contrasted it with the Western indology based on racist scholarship, and found that this a clear case of falsification of Indian history.

What I don’t understand is why are blindly supporting these racist Western indologists? You are accusing us who oppose them based on our perusal of the evidence of being facist revisionists, but you say nothing against racist Western indologists who publically announced their agenda was to destroy the Vedic civilisation and made no secret of the fact that they looked down on Indian people? I already told you the 1500BCE date for the beginning of Indian history was invented by a man who wanted to destroy Vedic civilisation( and replace it with Christianity). I will tell you further the 1500BCE date he arrived at was based on his belief the world began in 4004BCE. In order to calculate when the Aryans arrived in India he started his dating from 4004BCE, worked out when Noah’s flood take place, how long it would have taken the flood waters to dry up, how long it would have taken the land to become fertile again and people to appear - then he tentatively decided 1500BCE was the date the Aryans arrived into India. Now, tell me in what world is this scholarship?

#1131

Now Contrast this 1500BCE date for the arrival of the Vedic people into India/Aryans based on using the bible, with the 7000BCE date based on analysing hard empirical and texual evidence uncovered by archeaologists.

You are saying we are fascist revisionists for accepting the 7000BCE date and not the 1500BCE date?

#1132

SD: Last time I looked, this thread was entitled: Is Yoga Hinduism? NOT “IS the Aryan Invasion Theory real?” or “How the Indo-European world-view is wrong”.

I accept that the translation of the Vedas was motivated by British / european imperialism and bias but I am saying that this is NOT RELEVANT to the thread topic.

It could be that you are in multiples threads and yu are getting confused - perhaps yoga is not your field of expertise?

I am also agreeing with you that Indians should not whole-heartedly base their entire world-view upon something that was undertaken by Westerners many years ago.

BUT you have HIJACKED this thread to promote Indian Nationalism - I do not want to discuss INDIAN NATIONALISM - I am here to discuss the thread topic: “Is Yoga Hinduism?”.

I have all the information I need about Indian Nationalism from one of my heroes, Sri Aurobindo - not you.

Please keep up.

#1133

Yogi Mat, nobody in this thread is talking about Indian nationalism. I personally don’t care much for Indian nationalism. I care more about Hinduism(I have made this clear in the thread Hindutva) What we are talking about is the origins and history of Yoga and how they cannot be separated from the origins and history of Hinduism. Hinduism is the religion of Yoga and teaches Yoga. We have made this very clear in this thread.

  • All Hindu scriptures, including the Vedas teach Yoga philosophy and practice
  • All Hindus gurus teach Yoga philosophy and practice

We know our history very well, from the beginning of Hinduism in 7000BCE to Hinduism today in April 2011. We know of the various changes, phases and developments Hinduism has gone through.

#1134

Your communications are disproportionate to the problem we are discussing.

Your boots are too big for such a subtle discussion about yoga.

If I wanted to translate Shakespeare into Sanskrit I would ask someone with knowledge of Sanskrit! - not Japanese ! and obviously they will have their own agenda - to make Shakespeare intelligible to their audience.

I would not expect a Sanskrit version of Shakespeare to be able to communicate the subtle nuances of irony and mockery and all the literary devices he uses - and similar when I am reading the english version of the vedas I TAKE IT WITH A PINCKH OF SALT - and I am suggesting that everone else also takes a similaraly skeptical position - even with the original versions - knowing literature for what it is - its shortcomings in conveying subtle cognitive function for example.

Eg. Have you ever tried to describe what a persons face looks like ?

It just can’t be done reliably enough to create a water-tight identification BECAUSE OF THE WAY THE BRAIN WORKS.

If you did yoga and spent less time reading about it you might not dismiss my complaints as to your claim so quickly.

To dismiss the linguistic and cognitive problems with yoga is to dismiss yoga.

Similarly, if I want to read the vedas in English I would have to get someone with knowledge of the English language to do that - and people like Muller gladly stepped up to the plate and were paid for their efforts.

Muller et al were not doing this for Brahmins - they were doing it for the British secret service etc. - and you are cherry picking the errors and saying that the entire translations are worthless.

THROWING THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATHWATER

OK - they are not perfect - but to suggest some conspiracy when you are also relying on the publication of personal correspondence to criticise contradicts your theory that this is a massive western conspiracy against India.

If there really was one - this information would have been covered up!

And Hinduism is doing pretty well isn’t it ?

It is a bit like TESCO complaining that they only have 2,500 stores when they could have had 3,000 if it wasn’t for the evil British government!!

They are still the third-largest retailer in the world - and last time I looked - Hinduism Hinduism is the world’s third largest religion.

So - to quote one of your buddies here: Dude - what’s your problem?

references from classical Sanskrit literature help determine the range of spiritual and psychological meaning that the word yoga possessed from perhaps 700 BCE to around
700 CE. But they tell us little about how yoga, or rather the techniques that eventually were subsumed under that name, was actually practiced during this period or before. The earliest textual references presuppose a long history of practice of mental and physical techniques intended to bring about inner mastery and freedom on the one hand, and mastery of natural and supernatural forces on the other. One hymn of the Rig Veda
mentions long-haired ascetics who “mount the wind” (perhaps a reference to what was later called pranayama) and gain extraordinary powers. Many hymns of the Atharva Veda are meant to bring about the satisfaction of desires, or the removal or ills, by supernatural means. (Such practices, which may have their origins in prehistoric shamanism, are found also in later forms of yoga.) The upanishads, along with early Buddhist and Jaina texts, demonstrate that ascetic techniques meant to promote
freedom from fundamental psychological suffering (dukkha) were widespread in northern India around 600 BCE. Classical texts like the Yoga Sutra and Bhagavad Gita, which use the term yoga when referring to such techniques, formulated systems of practice that evidently had developed over the course of many centuries.

#1135

There really is not issue here, and it should not be an issue. Yoga is a philosophy and practice of the religion called Hinduism that comes from the India and has a 10,000 year history. In the 20th century Hindu gurus have bought Yoga to the West, and Western people have accepted it and found that it works very well and even the philosophy makes a lot of sense.

The issue comes when you do not acknowledge the fact that it is from Hinduism. When you start denying that and start spreading false claims about it, of course you are going to alienate us and make us protest.

#1136

Something I find wrong about you is your constant adhominems(to the man) You have told me I am being perceived as a fool, you have told me I have bad communication skills, you have told me all my knowledge is from wikipedia, and you have told me Swami Prakashanda’s book is my bed-time book.

Why should I talk to you when you clearly do not respect me and insult me constantly? You don’t seem to be making any points in this thread. All I am getting from you is insults.

#1137

You are taking everyone around in a circle again:-

WHAT DO YOU WANT HINDUISM TO REPRESENT?

WHAT DO YOU WANT YOGA TO REPRESENT?

You can’t just say they are the same thing withour analysing them.

ONCE AGAIN - I REPEAT HINDUISM is an ENGLISH word - so you have to tie down that notion - yoga is also a difficult one to pin down (see above).

YOUR claim that YOGA IS HINDUISM is very unstable.

From your responses, you are ACTUALLY saying that YOGA CAN BE NOTHING ELSE BUT HINDUISM which implies that if it is not Hinduism it is not yoga?

So - as I have said before - you can say “yoga is Hinduism” - and I agree - but see my previous response as you are oversimplifying the issue in order to promote the interests of Indian Nationalism - you are appealing to Indians to rise up against Europeans on the basis that they diid not do a good enough job at translating a text that even Sanskrit scholars still argue about !

Lame

#1138

You are now sounding mentally unstable.

You keep repeating yourself.

Ad Hominems is an attack on the man - I have given you MY OPINION that I think you are a fool. It is for others to make up their own mind - and they will.

I have not said “YOU ARE A FOOL”

I am also of the opinion that you are a poor philosopher and are intellectually challenged by my arguments.

Again - you might be doing this on purpose in which case you are actually much more enlightened than me.

But I leave this to others to decide.

If you don’t want to discuss this issue your are free not to respond.

I VERY MUCH respect your participation - but not your opinions because they are blatantly wrong and offensive.

You deliberatly choose not to answer my compalints and you offer nothing new other than to re-iterate rhetoric that has been better put by Indian Nationalists, Hindus and Yogis much more effectively that you.

I suggest you quote Aurobindo, Roy and all the others that have a much more articulate and cohernet argument than you.

#1139

ONCE AGAIN - I REPEAT HINDUISM is an ENGLISH word - so you have to tie down that notion - yoga is also a difficult one to pin down (see above).

Perhaps, you are finding it difficult(this does not say much good for your intellect). The rest of us can easily understand that the word “Hinduism” refers to the Vedic tradition of India which begins in 7000BCE. The word gravity to refer to the natural attractive force that all heavy bodies have did did not exist before Newton - does that mean that gravity did not exist before Newton?

#1140

[QUOTE=Yogi Mat;56366]Your assertion was that YOGA IS HINDUISM and your arguments are not convincing. You ignore some very important aspects of the discussion and MOST SIGNIFICANTLY you are latterly prepared to accept TWO definitions - one for each - and ignore how this contradicts your claim.

  1. You have a complaint that ancient Indian history has been misinterpreted - which I UPHOLD- but you IGNORE the weaknesses in your own interpretation

  2. You accuse Indologists of being racist - and I am open to that possibility although it is irrelevant to your primary claim

As I said before - you are the one making the assertion "YOGA IS HINDUISM" - so the burden of proof is with you - and although you may have convinced yourself and a few others that this is THE ONE TRUE ANSWER - this is the NIRVANA FALLACY.

There is often more than one answer to the problem and you want to decry other answers, which you have not done to my satisfaction due to your rhetorical mode of expression.

There is sufficient uncertainty in the evidence you have given for me to both accept and reject your claim.

  1. I accept Yoga is Hinduism but only with some a severely truncated notion of what each represents

  2. I reject Yoga is Hinduism if taking into consideration the multiplicity of perspectives on both subjects

Thank you for your participation _ I value your contribution on what is a very difficult field of study.

I will take what you have said into consideration in my research.

If there is nothing else you wish to say to me then I will take my leave.

if you have any further questions I will answer them as best I can

With best wishes[/QUOTE]

The problem with converts (self-professed or otherwise) is that they tend to not understand the subtle nuances of their newly adopted tradition. I think perhaps YogiMat is confused as a result of that.

Also, I find it amusing to see people adopting the "Yogi" title (a common phenomenon in the West), just because they practice a little bit of Hatha Yoga.

I would recommend you read this book to learn more about the Indian philosophical systems and their history, nuances etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Indian-Philosophy-Ramakrishna-Puligandla/dp/0875730892