I have been a yoga instructor for almost two decades. I have had several Muslim students who swear by it. One of my Muslim students gifted my yoga class to his whole family, by insisting they all attend. Then he also extended yoga into the life of his agency staffers (again largely from the community), by offering each of them a month’s class in my studio.
Why the fuss?
I also know of several yoga instructors from the community. My mother, a deeply religious person, practised yoga and always vouched for the fact that it helped control her chronic diabetes. Everybody in my family practices yoga, and my daughter is a yoga instructor herself. So, I cannot see what the fuss is about at all, and I am sure that would be a representative sentiment of a large swathe of people belonging to the community, including those who may not have a passionate involvement in yoga as I do. Celebrating a day or not, that is a matter of personal choice. Children love their teachers, so they celebrate Teacher’s day. They make a big fuss about Friendship Day, by tying colourful wrist bands. If suddenly these were made mandatory, perhaps somebody from some other community will make a fuss. Would that really be representative? You tell me.
I studied in a Protestant school and stood first in most Bible exams, and won several prizes. My dad, a deeply religious man, owned many Hindu philosophical texts. I lost him soon after I finished college. While re-reading his books, I would often see his handwriting, little squiggles and notes he had jotted, on the sides of the pages of his much-thumbed Upanishads. A scholarly mind is open to beautiful ideas from all scriptures. That does not diminish its veneration of its own beliefs. Rather it adds to it. I have been influenced by him, and I believe that would be true of many belonging to my generation who saw no contradiction in being exposed to inspiring ideas from other communities. This rift and debate appears strange to me, and unpalatable, created out of desperate political machinations. It is best we all look at it, worry, and distance ourselves from it, before the divides become irreversible.
Reasons to celebrate
At the Sivananda ashram where I trained, students from other Islamic countries come, hiring and flying down translators. They come from many Islamic countries – women in their burqas, and boys with their namaz mats – to train to be yoga instructors because that is a huge demand out there, with fat pay checks. So, the community here would be shooting itself in the foot even on very practical grounds, by denying its youth (already the lowest in the job pyramid) opportunities if it falls into the trap of seeing yoga as a religious practice instead of a health-providing one which it is, to a majority of its practitioners, not just around the world but in this country as well, including within the majority community.
Of course, yoga has deep philosophical and mystical underpinning. I subscribe to it totally and for me personally yoga would be incomplete without it. In the initial part of my training I have hungrily read every philosophical treatise on yoga on which I could lay my hands on – be it the Bhagavad Gita or less-known ones like Aparokshanubhuti. Yogic philosophy resonates a lot with the Sufi movement. In fact, there is a lot of concurrence between the mystical traditions of Islam and Hinduism that it can be mind-blowing and exciting to a scholar. But this aspect of yoga is only for the specialist, a philosopher or a scholar. For most of its practitioners, it would – for most of their lives – remain a physical form of exercise that offers assured and superb health and amazing youthfulness. That is a good as any other reason to celebrate yoga. If not on one particular day, every day. At least, for me, yoga is matter of every day celebration.
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Why the fuss?
I also know of several yoga instructors from the community. My mother, a deeply religious person, practised yoga and always vouched for the fact that it helped control her chronic diabetes. Everybody in my family practices yoga, and my daughter is a yoga instructor herself. So, I cannot see what the fuss is about at all, and I am sure that would be a representative sentiment of a large swathe of people belonging to the community, including those who may not have a passionate involvement in yoga as I do. Celebrating a day or not, that is a matter of personal choice. Children love their teachers, so they celebrate Teacher’s day. They make a big fuss about Friendship Day, by tying colourful wrist bands. If suddenly these were made mandatory, perhaps somebody from some other community will make a fuss. Would that really be representative? You tell me.
I studied in a Protestant school and stood first in most Bible exams, and won several prizes. My dad, a deeply religious man, owned many Hindu philosophical texts. I lost him soon after I finished college. While re-reading his books, I would often see his handwriting, little squiggles and notes he had jotted, on the sides of the pages of his much-thumbed Upanishads. A scholarly mind is open to beautiful ideas from all scriptures. That does not diminish its veneration of its own beliefs. Rather it adds to it. I have been influenced by him, and I believe that would be true of many belonging to my generation who saw no contradiction in being exposed to inspiring ideas from other communities. This rift and debate appears strange to me, and unpalatable, created out of desperate political machinations. It is best we all look at it, worry, and distance ourselves from it, before the divides become irreversible.
Reasons to celebrate
At the Sivananda ashram where I trained, students from other Islamic countries come, hiring and flying down translators. They come from many Islamic countries – women in their burqas, and boys with their namaz mats – to train to be yoga instructors because that is a huge demand out there, with fat pay checks. So, the community here would be shooting itself in the foot even on very practical grounds, by denying its youth (already the lowest in the job pyramid) opportunities if it falls into the trap of seeing yoga as a religious practice instead of a health-providing one which it is, to a majority of its practitioners, not just around the world but in this country as well, including within the majority community.
Of course, yoga has deep philosophical and mystical underpinning. I subscribe to it totally and for me personally yoga would be incomplete without it. In the initial part of my training I have hungrily read every philosophical treatise on yoga on which I could lay my hands on – be it the Bhagavad Gita or less-known ones like Aparokshanubhuti. Yogic philosophy resonates a lot with the Sufi movement. In fact, there is a lot of concurrence between the mystical traditions of Islam and Hinduism that it can be mind-blowing and exciting to a scholar. But this aspect of yoga is only for the specialist, a philosopher or a scholar. For most of its practitioners, it would – for most of their lives – remain a physical form of exercise that offers assured and superb health and amazing youthfulness. That is a good as any other reason to celebrate yoga. If not on one particular day, every day. At least, for me, yoga is matter of every day celebration.