Come Together

The practice of yoga has been integrated into physical education and after school programs, break periods and even across the curriculum in science, mathematics, and social studies lessons in countless public (and private) schools across the country. Along the way, despite the improved physical and emotional wellbeing of the practice and, its popularity and mainstream acceptance, many parents, educators, and religious leaders have objected to yoga education in schools. (The state of Alabama has banned yoga instruction during and after school.)

Opponents have defined the practice as:

• a Hindu philosophy and method of religious training
• a kind of Hindu cult-like thing
• a New Age religion
  

So where do such ideas come from? It is thought that yoga and Hinduism originated in India. (It is also thought that yoga predates Hinduism.) The first yoga practitioners happened to be Indians, who happened to be Hindu. Naturally, the first yoga teachers, again, Hindu, translated the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, yoga's source text, from their perspective: The goal of yoga, became union with god. Surprising, since the ancient Hindu text, the Brahma Sutra, rejects yoga.

What does Patanjali actually say? The goal of yoga is yoga -- to unite ourselves with our highest nature, whatever that means/is to us.

I explain to my young students that yoga is Sanskrit for "union" and ask what that means to them. Their answers: "working together," come together," "bring together," "teamwork," "helping each other," and "cooperating." ... Simple and profound.

Do you think yoga instruction is appropriate in our schools?