By some estimates there are more than 10,000 different religions in the world today. Could yoga be one of them? Countless books and DVDs espouse the spiritual benefits of yoga practice, and there are certainly some enthusiasts who find it to be a religious experience. Others though, insist that yoga is no more a religion than jogging. What does yoga truly represent?
Director, Rabbis Without Borders
It is a myopic Western view, which knows Yoga as a physical exercise, to claim that is all that Yoga is. The physical is only one of the eight limbs of the classic form of Yoga known as Ashtanga Yoga:
Yama - ethical practices and restraints
Niyama - religious observances, commitments to practice, such as study and devotion
Asana - integration of mind and body through physical postures
Pranayama - breath control
Pratyahara - withdrawal of external sensory input
Dharana - concentration, one-pointedness of mind
Dhyana - meditation (quiet activity that leads to samadhi)
Samadhi - the quiet state of blissful awareness, ecstasy, dissolution of separateness
If we relate to Yoga merely as a mat practice of postures, as a tool disconnected from its history, then it is not religion, but neither is it Yoga. It is more like a bio-feedback or a stress reduction method that benefits our body-mind. Calling an isolated set of practices “Yoga” does not change that Yoga is a comprehensive tradition, a religion reflecting the collective wisdom of thousands of years of devotion by its adherents.
Yoga is a body of knowledge, a wisdom tradition that is deep and vast. It deserves our treating it as such, and, in its full expression, a religion.
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