Hinduism is more than 5000 years old. There is nothing ‘New-Age’ about the ancient wisdom of Hinduism.

On the other hand, Deepak Chopra is the very embodiment of ‘New Age’. He does not represent, know what I’m saying ?

From the Jay Leno monologues :
“What would happen if Oprah were to marry Deepak Chopra ?
She would become Oprah Chopra”.

Also, that one guy kept saying that every scholar he’s ever looked up in his 40 book yoga collection or whatever; that really has no bearing in this argument. If some guy in a 500 level yoga course has Chopra’s book as a requirement, what does that even mean? Who cares? Since when is a foreigner an expert on somebody else’s native culture, especially when the native person grew up and lived in that culture and experienced firsthand through interactions with different texts and people, the elements of their culture?

Also, Chopra says that Hinduism is dogmatic, yet Yoga itself prescribes a dogmatic discipline that one must take to achieve liberation. I don’t know… I don’t think Chopra really knows what he’s talking about. He seems to not even know his own basic understanding of the principles.

A person who is a Christian may decide to circumcise their child for WHATEVER reason…yet, it will not make them Jewish or an Israelite, just because they get the procedure done.

This example of circumcision as a means to decouple Yoga from Hinduism, as propounded by a commenter, provides an insight into the understanding of Yoga and Dharma of some people. Yoga is a means of unification of the aatman (inner soul) with the Brahman (universal soul, supreme transcendent; the Hindu concept of the Supreme Being). Circumcision in Judaism and Islam as I understand isn’t supposed to result in “unification” with the Jewish God or with the Islamic Allah. If anything, circumcision in Judaism may be compared to clean shaving one’s head during the Hindu ritual of Upanayana Sanskaram.

The strident invective and air of moral superiority in the comments by the person commenting under the name Bhairavi is as non-Yogic/non-Dharmic/non-Hindu as one can get. Sadly, this is the type of Yoga being taught be self-proclaimed Yoga teachers with commenting under Sanskrit (common Hindu) names.

Yoga in the west has lost its true Dharmic spiritual import due to crass commercialization and attempts at decoupling from its undeniable Hindu Dharmic roots. Bikram something, Deepak whatever and their ilk are nothing more than philosophical profiteers.

Totalitarian supremacist ideologies, in their zest for numbers, have a history of appropriating practices from other belief systems and calling it their own. The attempted theft of Yoga is just a more recent phenomenon along the same lines. @Malavika [05.17.10 at 8:12 am] puts it aptly:

If Hindus are outraged at the blatant appropriation of Yoga as ‘Christian Yoga’, they have every right to be. Look at the fate of Pagans whose Easter and Dec 25(Winter Solstice) have been appropriated by Christians. They have been successfully genocided and denigrated.
The narrative seems to be as follows. All the treasures of Hinduism like Yoga, meditation, plurality of POVs(called Darshanas) are ‘generic’, ‘universal’ and belong to ‘all religions’ but CCC (Caste, Curry and Cow) are intrinsic to Hinduism. Any clear eyed person can see the hypocrisy in this posturing.

Hindu Dharma is the only belief system which withstood the storm of totalitarian, supremacist ideologies. With age of direct conquest gone, academic and media cabal based insidious denigration on one hand, and cultural appropriation (of transcendental fruits such as Yoga) on the other, are the tools for new age conquest by the totalitarian “my-way-or-the-highway” ideologues.

Quite a few of the folks commenting here desperately trying to decouple Yoga from Hindu Dharma know as much about Yoga and Dharma as the pope about quantum physics. Thankfully there are sane voices even among westerners (like Steve Meyers 05.03.10 at 7:54 pm); albeit a minority at the moment; which see through this shenanigan.

2 pertinent posts:
1. Yoga in the west: [http://www.sandeepweb.com/2010/05/04/the-yoga-disease/]
2. Hindu Roots of Yoga: [http://www.sandeepweb.com/2010/06/03/the-hindu-roots-of-yoga/]

…that’s what I’m going to do.

I’ll keep my peace inside thank you!

Not a convincing argument again. While circumcision of the child would not make it Jewish but the parents would easily acknowledge that circumsicion is a practice of Jewish origin. The same applies to Yoga. Its practioner may not become Hindu but he would be dishonest if they negate the Hindu origin of the practice.

Since law of gravity is also a Universal Truth, should people stop associating the name Sir Issac Newton with it?

You make many absurd points from your egoless state.

Peace out…

second of all, Buddha inspired a bunch of people to follow him and they called it “Buddhism”. Moses and Abraham were following Jehovah to whatever else. Hebrew was the language Abraham spoke and the only reason Moses called his people “Israelites” were because of his forefather, Israel…Judaism as a word came way after them.

So get your stuff right. You can call it what you want. I will call it what I want. Hindus can do whatever they need to do to feel at peace. I will do what I do to feel at peace, just like you.

However, you acting this way and talking out the side of your neck will only take you further away from the universal truths that Hindus are trying to hard to hold onto.

(to further prove my point) it doesn’t matter where circumsision came from anymore. The only real question is whether you’re going to get circumcised or if (you as a parent) will circumcise your child. A person who is a Christian may decide to circumcise their child for WHATEVER reason…yet, it will not make them Jewish or an Israelite, just because they get the procedure done.

May you be free from the suffering of your ego.

In a pluralistic envornment, group identity has the same purpose individual identity. Mispresentation of the group identity and appropriation of its cultural acheivements impinges on the identity of the individuals who comprise it.

Buddha did not say he was a Buddhist but he did found a group order called Sangha and gave it a distinct identity based on triple gems. His followers were supposed to subscribe to that corporate identity in addition to deeply personal meditations or Vipassana.

Moses and Abraham founded Judaism and gave Jews separate laws and rituals. Where did you think circumcision come from ? It was a marker to distinguish Jewish from non-Jewish.

Muhammad founded Ummah, a corporate Islamic body, which had the power to legislate and raise army of the faithful.

So your reading of religious group identities is very superficial. Hindus need to guard their group identity just as much as any other religious group and part of which is not to let interested parties steal their heritage without attribution and distort its basis for profiteering.