Is Yoga a Religion?
Does yoga have a "religion?" Ashley shares her perspective.
Growing up, organized religion was never a part of my life. My parents didn’t practice it though they encouraged me to check things out on my own. So I did. I tagged along with friends….sitting through services at various denominations and wondering when I was going to ‘get’ that feeling that people must have when they leave church. Then, about seven years ago, on a snowy Sunday in Colorado, I stepped into my first yoga class. As I was driving home, fully in the throes of my very first yoga buzz, I realized that ‘this’ is what people must feel like when they leave church—content….and connected.
Obviously I thought this whole thing was pretty cool because I continued showing up every Sunday after that. And now, as a yoga teacher, the question comes up every now and then---“What religion is yoga?” From what I know based on things I’ve learned my answer is ‘none of them’. From what I feel in the depth of my being my answer is ‘all of them.’
The short story is this: the practice of yoga goes back, like waaayyy back, to roots in India. The origins of Hinduism, Buddhism AND yoga are all vedic but yoga as a tradition predates even the formulation of what modern Hindus think of as their religion. Sure, a lot of the names for the poses come from Hindu mythology and a lot of the themes or intentions used in class sound kind of Buddhist in nature. But the bottom line is that it’s not any of these religions. It is a spiritual practice. And in my opinion, it is a spiritual practice that doesn’t clash with any other religion that’s practiced by students, but rather could serve to enhance that practitioner’s connection to their religion.
And that’s what I love about yoga….it doesn’t ask us to adhere to or prescribe to any particular God or being…..it just asks us to show up. It asks us to merely link our movements to our breath and to see where that takes us. Maybe it takes us further down the path of studying the eight limbed path of yoga. But maybe it just takes us to a place where we leave class filled with a feeling of being content…and being connected. And well, I think that’s plenty.
