“Yoga’s not about making money off people . . . You get these perversions happening. It’s not everybody doing it, but the problem is that it is a pervasive problem. The irony is that censoring my class is like making that problem worse,” said Jen Scharf, former yoga instructor at the University of Ottawa (U of O).
Last November, Scharf’s free yoga class offered through the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Students with Disabilities was cancelled because of concerns about cultural appropriation. Publications as far-reaching as the Washington Post and the BBC covered the scandal, sparking an international debate about whether or not yoga, as it is practiced in the West, is cultural appropriation.
Earlier this week, the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa announced it hired a new yoga instructor, Priya Shah, for its Centre for Students with Disabilities, according to CBC News.
Susanna Barkataki, an Ayurvedic yoga teacher trainer, said “The practice of yoga in the West, in North America, if it wants to avoid cultural appropriation, should change to acknowledge yoga’s roots, where it came from, and practice the fullness it has to offer.”
Despite the international public debate over Scharf’s yoga class, she is now teaching a class for U of O’s Telfer School of Management’s Student Council Wellness Week, according to Ottawa Magazine.
Yves Panneton, a Hatha yoga instructor with the Canadian Yoga Alliance, said the U of O yoga class controversy “is not really reflective of a good understanding of what yoga is and where yoga comes from.”
Panneton said the kind of yoga practiced in the Western world is focused on physical postures and meditation, which is technically Asana yoga.
These physical postures did not exist or were only a minor part of traditional yoga practices, said Richard Mann, a South Asian religions professor at Carleton.
“The Asanas and positions that are currently practised in gyms did come from a type of religious discipline, but the positions were never the real focus of that discipline per se,” he said.
However, Panneton said traditional yoga is “the union of a universal soul and an individual soul” to achieve a sense of connection and “oneness.” Yoga was introduced to Hinduism in the early 1800s as a way to teach scripture in schools and practice devotion to the divine, he said.
Yoga is the “mental discipline underlying the Hindu philosophy,” Mann said, but similar practices of mindfulness and meditation are practised in other South Asian religions, such as Buddhism.
Cultural Appropriation
According to Christopher Chapple, a Doshi professor of Indic and comparative theology, yoga reached North America through Swami Vivekananda’s lecture on yoga at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893.
Following Vivekananda’s lecture, “many yogis travelled to the US and Europe to try and popularize postural forms of practice,” said Joseph Stewart Alter, an anthropology professor who studies yoga at the Yale-National University of Singapore College in Singapore, in an email.
As yoga became a globalized practice, Panneton said it became clear the West was not interested in the spiritual benefits of yoga, rather the mental and physical benefits. Western yoga classes are designed for the West’s interest in physical fitness and “combined gymnastics with yoga to improve health,” he added.
According to Panneton, globalization of the practice “builds on [yoga] but integrates new elements” of health and yoga to create a distinct practice.
Panneton said he thinks claiming yoga is cultural appropriation is a case of political correctness, adding he believes we must respect differences when we share elements of our cultures.
The physical postures we commonly associate with yoga are only one aspect of yoga, Barkataki said.
“In addition to Asana, we need to understand, practise, and teach all eight limbs of yoga,” she said in an email. “Yama or ethical conduct, Niyama or personal practise, Pranayama or working with the breath, Pratyahara or awareness of the senses, Dharana or meditation, concentration and insight, Dhyana or being present with whatever arises, and Samadhi or interconnection with all that is.”
Andi Grace, a blogger and former yoga instructor, said in an email whether yoga is cultural appropriation or not depends on how someone is practising yoga.
“Anytime someone, especially white folks, is using a practice that comes from outside our culture, it’s important for us to ask ourselves, is this mine to use?” she said.
Barkataki said she agrees it depends on how yoga is being practised because yoga has always been an evolving tradition. She said the practice itself is not cultural appropriation because it has been changed, reinvented, and reshaped over time.
“If someone . . . completes a yoga teacher training that is primarily Asana based, and remains blissfully unaware of the complexity of yoga’s true aim or the roots of the practices, they are culturally appropriating yoga,” Barkataki said. “By remaining unaware of the history, roots, complexity, and challenges of the heritage from which yoga springs and the challenges it has faced under Western culture, they perpetuate a re-colonization of it by stripping its essence away.”
Mann said he thinks it is understandable that claims of cultural appropriation exist because of the colonial history of India.
“There is a past of Europeans showing up to India and saying ‘what you’re doing is wrong and we’re going to make you better by making you more like us,’” Mann said. “[History] carries a lot of baggage for a lot of South Asians, and Hindus often feel that they are still misunderstood.”
Chapple said yoga is more of a “cultural export” than cultural appropriation.
“The spread of yoga may be seen as a natural and longstanding participant in a flow of ideas and practices dating back to the export of Buddhism and Buddhist forms of yoga meditation starting 2,000 years ago,” Chapple said.
Alter said the issue is the definition of appropriation.
“While there are very real cases of cultural appropriation involving sacred artifacts, music and other things, yoga is a phenomenon which has been in global circulation for . . . at least the past 200 years—and has undergone so many transformations in the process, including the invention and reinvention of postures—that I don’t think anyone can claim that it is ‘their’ cultural tradition,” he said.
Mann said asking whether or not these ideas belong to specific traditions would be like asking if Christmas can only be celebrated by Christians.
“Lots of non-Christians . . . participate in something called Christmas,” he said. “They might view it differently—they may not view it as a religious event, so much as a holiday.”
Scharf said Western yoga is a good example of “cultural misappropriation” because “yoga does not belong to one race, it belongs to the world.”
However, “to separate something from its religious roots, for a particular group, becomes potentially problematic,” Mann said. While some may think of the globalization of yoga as sharing something, he said, others see it as taking something.
Commercialization of Yoga
According to Grace, the commercialization of the practice of yoga is a part of cultural appropriation. Making “yoga into a product and a heavily marketed lifestyle . . . takes the practice away from its essence,” she said. “Yoga actually means union, or to yoke. It doesn’t mean to stretch while wearing lycra.”
Barkataki said making yoga part of the fashion industry creates a barrier between people and practicing yoga.
“At its root this is a practice of personal transformation, of contribution, of evolution, and when that really happens you don’t need anything. You don’t even need a yoga mat to practise,” Barkataki said.
She added the financial barriers and exclusivity to the Western practice of yoga prevents Indian yogis from accessing their culture in North America.
Mann said he thinks commercialization is not necessarily a problem because yoga can be practised solo.
“Nothing stops a Hindu from practising yoga themselves. You don’t always require a teacher, and frankly you may not want the style of yoga that is being taught by a particular gym,” he said.
While some might say the commercialization of yoga is problematic because you shouldn’t make money off of a religious practice, Mann said this is a Christian-Protestant notion and in South Asia it is okay to do so.
“Religion has always been dependent on money to survive. You need cash to build buildings, print books, to circulate ideas, to move people around,” Mann said.
“In India, sometimes it costs money to do yoga as well—it’s not always free.”
Chapple said he thinks commercializing yoga isn’t necessarily a problem, particularly when using the word “yoga” to sell athletic apparel.
“It describes a functionality,” he said. “Yoga Asana requires freedom of movement, not impeded by clothing.”
Yoga and Stress Relief
Scharf said for students, the benefits of yoga “really depend on the person.”
Abby Withers, a first-year psychology student at the University of Guelph, said in a Facebook message that she practises yoga to “relieve stress and keep [her] mind and body in constant unison.”
“After a good hot yoga class I feel physically relieved. My body feels as though I have released the negative and painful energy from my muscles,” Withers said. “If I am having a bad day, yoga will always allow me to free my mind of negative emotions or thoughts.”
She said practising yoga gives her a break from “the real world.”
“Whether it is dealing with stress, a heavy workload, negative aspects of your everyday life, yoga is there to relieve you of these physical, mental and emotional strains,” Withers said.
Mackenzie Dowson, a first-year psychology student at Carleton, said she practises yoga for different reasons. She said she prefers practising more gentle styles of yoga and using the breathing techniques and postures yoga has taught her to benefit her mental health.
“Yoga is such a mindful experience that you don’t realize you’re feeling something when you’re just sitting there in the quiet, focusing on your breath or how your body feels,” Dowson said.
Appropriation vs. Appreciation
Dowson said she thinks the U of O yoga scandal was “a little ridiculous” because she believes everyone has their own reasons for doing yoga.
“I think everyone should appreciate that yoga came from somewhere . . . deeper and more meaningful,” she said. “I don’t see it as cultural appropriation. The people who decide to practice in a non-spiritual way, that’s how they’re deciding to take the practice, it doesn’t mean that they’re doing it wrong.”
Withers said she “likes the idea of yogis learning about the religious roots of yoga before attending yoga class [because] we are adopting another culture’s practice and it is respectful and honourable to realize where we are taking these ideas from.”
—With files from Emily Fearon.
