Atheist Yoga

I started practicing yoga a little more than a decade ago in order to help relieve back pain. Not only did it work out the kinks, relieve stress and tension, and increase my flexibility, but yoga also helped me achieve a greater inner awareness: This in turn aided me in other athletic endeavors, such as kickboxing and abdominal exercises. In Atheist Yoga , atheist yogi Anton Drake makes a compelling argument for the compatibility of yoga and meditation with atheism and materialism.

Listen, Learn, Practice: Yoga Spirituality for Atheists

Drake follows this thesis with a general discussion of the principles and techniques of Hatha yoga, with an emphasis on breathing and meditation. Also included are two chapters on sex and yoga. These interludes read like the conversations you might remember having had when you were stoned out of your gourd — a little weird, to say the least.

Likewise, yoga teachers with an atheist or more secular clientele might also find it a useful resource. Instead of reading about yoga, give it a try: Start with a session designed for beginners and work your way up from there. Watch the entire video once or twice before trying it yourself. I use a framed Flying Spaghetti Monster poster with Plexiglas, propped up on the floor. Jul 07, Terri rated it it was amazing. I received this audio book as a gift in exchange for a honest and unbiased review.

This book is quite educational. I always thought yoga was a form of exercise. I is also about religion, health, sex, and can replace medication. Yoga helps you sleep too. Along with yoga is meditation. This book explores the close compatibility between atheist and yoga.

This book has opened my eyes and taught me so much. I think I need to listen to it a fe I received this audio book as a gift in exchange for a honest and unbiased review. I think I need to listen to it a few more times to absorb everything it has to say. I found the parts about making orgasms better and longer most fascinating too!

The author, Anton Drake did a great job on his research for this book. The lengths one has to go to, to actually explore and experience all of this so he can write a book is just awesome! The author wrote this in such a way, that I found it to be very interesting, which really surprised me! The narrator, Jack Chekijian did a great job once again with his clear and flawless voice and pronunciation of words I can't even repeat after hearing.

That's a really good way of saying it. And to be honest I don't know a lot about the whole chakra element. Did you draw this conclusion from your participation in mystical religious practices? Or what is it your extensive academic study and research into mysticism? If you want specifics, I'm specifically responding to the idea of religion as I encountered it through the christianity I was raised with.

The principle however is the same across all religions I'm familiar with: While that sentence doesn't explain all of mysticism, it explains the one aspect I was rejecting in my original comment. Your comment perturbed me because in a religious context, the term "mystical" has a specific meaning that involves unity or knowledge of God or Truth.

What you are describing is some kind of anti-reason dogmatic Christianity.

Theism, Atheism, Yoga and Fear

It does not describe mysticism at all, which is actually often skeptical and willing to question everything. Special access to god that isn't empirically testable is exactly what I was talking about. It's a hand wavy explanation that is super boring compared to how things actually work. Mysticism doesn't hand wave anything.

It's not concerned with telling us why lightning bolts flash from the sky. It's about accessing certain mental states. It's just that the language used in mystical traditions is religious, mythopoetic. It is empirically testable, as scientific research into meditation has shown. What's really boring is subjecting everything, even personal emotional and spiritual experience, to empirical testing.

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I'm all for phenomenological emphasis, I even advocate it. We get lost in the map too easily and it does us good to go back to raw experience and trying different states. I see no reason to use religious language for that thought. I personally practice mindfulness meditation, and I would consider it to be spiritual, and a focus on the phenomenological, but not religious or mystical in the least.

It's the same as psychonautics to me. The lines between religion and spirituality and are not so clear. Personally, I consider religion and spirituality the same. It's complicated because, as you know personally, many who claim to be religious are in fact not spiritual at all. People tend to forget, though, that there are tens of thousands religious people in this country who identify as a liberal or progressive sect and are tolerant and open-minded. Not all religion is hateful or dogmatic. It seems we've reached some kind of axiomatic difference, so we don't really have to argue anymore.

I would encourage you to keep an open mind when reading religious literature or hearing a religious leader speak. You may see no reason to use religious language, but I see no reason to use scientific language. BTW sorry if my first reply to you was snarky. Awesome user name btw! Like my AA meetings, higher power is just whatever is getting me through that day. Fellow AA yogi here! I've noticed that similar subjects come up in yoga and meetings.

I'm not so sure about God or what that means but I am sure about my connection with the universe, the planet, and all sentient beings. I enjoy the idea that the world is a series of vibrations and we are all interconnected. Gives me a lot to think about. We have a name for this: People who talk about God generally have something more in mind; something that created everywhere and everything. This really does seem to be the same thing to me.

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It's not like no one has thought to themselves "how did the universe begin? I guess that's what words become. As Nolan put in the Dark Knight: To them, pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. I think I meant to reply to this post, what I was basically trying to say in my other post is that the Hindu conception is that God is not something separate. Though I guess the Hindus do have something else in mind, but it seems to me one could have this view of God without all the other stuff.

Maybe not the gods you've heard about, but sounds quite a bit like the Hindu concept of god. I've had it explained to me that rather than consider that the universe was created by some separate entity, the universe as a whole in fact is god. The Devas Shiva, Ganesh, etc. Anyway, not saying you should believe in any of this stuff, but when OP says "sounds like god to me," I feel the same way. The way people view God in the West isn't necessarily the only way to think about such things.

Well, in a way. I had been wondering if I'm an atheist recently. And I learned that the correct term for my preferred philosophical position is Pantheism. I was surprised to find out that I guess I'm no longer an atheist even though in my mind the two aren't contradictory. I'm an atheist in terms of not believing in a monotheistic god, but in a philosophical sense, the universe is god.. On an off note, I guess once you let go of one religious attitude, it becomes easy to continue shaping a perspective without years of cognitive dissonance.

Yeah, you can not just go around telling people you believe in god when you mean you are panantheistic or pantheistic. The term god elicits a mental image of a man that looks like a wizard. I see it as time-tested exercise and filter out all spiritual content. Objective is to get "the flow", have fun, be relaxed but active at the same time. Maybe a playing the piano is a good analogy.

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You may search for the deeper meaning in music and 'find it' but the key is always. I've been settling into spirituality for a lot of personal reasons, but I don't believe in chakras, karma, nirvana, etc. Besides that, I simply enjoy the physical sensations, confidence and benefits from yoga. I also use mindfulness meditation to relieve stress. Seeing someone say they do not believe in nirvana is like hearing someone who has never smiled say they do not believe in happiness. I think inner peace and stillness and detaching from one's desires are very possible and very real, as I have experienced all of these things while meditating.

But the way I have interpreted nirvana, not only is it totally overcoming one's potentially destructive desires, the act of overcoming frees you from the cycle of reincarnation, and this freedom is nirvana. I don't believe in reincarnation, so I don't believe in nirvana. Reincarnation is not the same as rebirth though. From an atheist perspective this is the same as saying 'you' are gone after death the parts that make you different from anybody else ; the self is not reborn. When someone says that after death you are gone for good they are correct.

If you associate with a self your 'self' dies. As an atheist I don't like any mention of a creator or higher power, but I really like the spirituality behind yoga. In the Bhagavad Gita it is said over and over that Atman is the true Self and Brahman is the true reality of the universe. So anytime there is something said about god in yoga such as "yoga is a way to get closer to god" I take it as "yoga is a way to get closer to your true Self" as in by doing yoga I will become better in-tune with my body and mind and therefore understand my Self and my dharma my nature more intimately.

I really like the concept of Brahman because it's described as being what reality is no matter what maya illusion we may be perceiving in the place of reality due to the limitations of our senses. How cool is that? I'm an atheist too and I think that at lot of what my teachers say about being mindfull and everything being one is totally compatible with aetheism.

If you don't wan't to view it from a spiritual persective then look at it as the idea that everything is made up of the same stuff, everything has largely the same needs, and it all draws from the same pool of resources these all apply on both an emotional and physical level - so living mindfully of this will help you lead a happier life and contribute to making a better world around you even if the contributions are small.

As for the Creator stuff I've never heard a teacher do that but, my best advice is to just relax. Belief in a creator provides comfort and support for a lot of people - so just let them have it and move on. As long as it's a situation where everyone can come together to practice and they don't care if you're an atheist, bhuddist, baptist, or whatever then let them express their beliefs and keep practicing. That said, if I felt the teacher was trying to preach or convert me then I'd probably find a new class.

Just like with everything else in life: Religion and woo-woo are pretty much unavoidable in the US, but fortunately I have yet to meet any yogis spreading messages of hatred and intolerance. So I shrug away the occasional talk of chakras and meridians as long as the instructor is good and the class is helpful to my practice. I have attended classes where the woo-woo is too much for me, and have chosen not to continue with those instructors.

Where I'm coming from: Actually closer to ignostic but that's not a commonly understood term. Strongly identify as skeptic. Buddhist here, checking in. Leaning closer toward atheist Buddhist than Buddhist with belief in deities. Anyway, from the wiki site you left about ignosticism;. How can something neither refer to something which does or does not exist?? When referring to something, the general and sensible dichotomy in existence is either, "it exists" or "it doesn't exist. Wow, this ignosticism thing is actually pretty cool. Let me see if I can answer this for you They're saying that the question of whether or not "God" exists is bunk.

There's no way to prove it either way, so it's not a logical question. I actually think this kind of fits in with Buddhism in a way. From a non-dualistic perspective, it is kind of impossible to say "God exists" or "God does not exist. Doesn't matter, just meditate. I would say yes, and I engage in Hindu practices, though I always found that the question doesn't really make sense, like "God" isn't something to be believed in or not believed in.

Of course I am not ignostic, just seeing some parallels between my thinking and ignostic thinking on the matter. So I thought I was going to explain this but I don't know if that quite made sense, hope it helped. As a Buddhist you must be especially aware of the tricksiness of words—if you meet a dog with Buddha nature clapping with one hand, do you kill it? I suspect you understand this better than you may have first thought. Most of the "woo" stuff I just tolerate being told to look up at my 3rd eye, chanting, chakras, or anything having to do with the Mayan calendar and I don't mind as long as it doesn't interfere with my yoga practice.

I think that the mind-body connection is a very real thing and it's something that yoga really helps me with. I tend to be very much "in my head" without yoga. So what about the assertion that the benefits of yoga will affect the rest of your life? I think that has been the case with me, but I don't know if I'd attach the word "spiritual" to it. I get a very immediate "high" from each yoga workout, so it's instant gratification for me as well as delayed gratification. Making progress in the poses and seeing my posture and muscle tone improve has done wonders for my confidence. And just having something that I love to do, even on days when I hate everything else, is so, so valuable.

There's so much good stuff in yoga.

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It's like everything else, really: When the reality is so amazing, why is there a need for made-up stuff? I am atheist and I have a spiritual side. When I find my zen. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm seeking guidance from dead or connecting to a god. I'm just finding my inner me. Theism doesn't have a monopoly on spirituality, nor need spirituality imply anything supernatural. No God required to practise yoga!

Though it won't prevent you from practising it, either, unless your God is a jealous God who doesn't like yoga. I just realized something! There was a day I was in yoga, and we were doing child's pose. The instructor said, "Face your creator" I looked at my crotch a little confused I'm starting to think that everyone else may have been looking up.

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If I need to discredit someone else's belief system this is indicative of my own internal lacking. I love yoga, I meditate, I firmly believe that the use of both these tools has helped me become a calmer, more benevolent person. I'm a theist Shaktaa, Goddess worshipper and born into a Hindu Universalist tradition, who started practicing hatha yoga a few years back and has found it transformative. I am a big supporter of atheism, though - I think blind belief in God or anything without encouraging actual personal experience is one of the many things wrong with the world.

I want to say that historically, Yoga Darsana philosophy, viewpoint, perspective are based on the Sutras of Patanjali, which is a stream of Samkhya philosophy. While it's a part of Hinduism, it's not actively theistic - it's a dualistic system that posits the difference between Purusha Spirit or Consciousness and Prakriti Matter or Nature. In fact one of the things I appreciate about Hinduism is that it seeks to connect the spiritual and physical think Kama Sutra rather than classifying the physical as "bad" or "unpure" like Western religions tend to do.

Thank you for this post. I am an atheist and a skeptic, and yet I enjoy the weirdest of all yogas I do not believe that my aura exists let alone can be magically improved, nor do I believe that I have chakras or that they can be aligned. I do, however, like to meditate. Meditation has proven positive effects on mood. Kundalini has a lot of chanting and movement - two things that get me nice and tranced out. During a Kundalini class, I'm much better able to meditate. For my husband, who is actually less of a strident atheist than I am, it is not worth it.

We all pick and choose what we do and how! I hope one day to teach an atheists' yoga class. I'm gonna have to get creative to make that happen - but it seems like a need. If you get into the deeper history and philosophies of yoga you will find that there is a lot of atheistic thought speculated throughout. Among many rishis and siddhars, what we have left is a natural law of karma with or without reincarnation that does not need nor have a creator or central authority but is pure action and causation as a non-personal working of the system.

Yoga is to clear the vasanas tendencies that lead to unintended karma. Basically it's about being in control of ones self, ones mind as well as ones body as the two are connected. No need for a god. Kitkrash, thanks for your comment. I have recenting been struggling with the Hindu religious aspects of all my Yoga teachers.

I've considered giving up my yoga asana practice but the practice is too important. I just finished a hour teacher training that was the most hindu-centric yoga practice I experienced. Still looking for an ethical compromise. Hi this is very useful blog Spiritual Class in Chennai. An inside and out learning of yoga is fundamental for a fruitful vocation as a yoga teacher. Before taking up yoga as a calling, you have to ensure that you are committed and would need to fuse yoga in your way of life.

Yoga brings the body and mind together, and a significant number of the stances help to hone the psyche and enhance fixation abilities. Thanks for sharing with us this helpfull Blog. And we suggest you best yoga teacher training school in Rishikesh, India.

We provides the best yoga teacher training course here. Visit our website and enroll yourself here: The benefits of yoga extend far beyond the typical benefits of which people are aware of. Perhaps the physical health component of yoga is secondary for you and you are looking more for the spiritual health benefits.

Interesting inference, I've never thought that atheists and yoga can be somehow incompatible, anyway, I don't see any good reasons that would interfere the healthy spiritual development of a person in any religion. As for me, before I started yoga classes, I looked the bunch of mat review https: This blog is a punchy bit of composing, as it has a solid impact.

No matter how many times I read this, I will never get bored of it. The two noteworthy frameworks of yoga are Hatha and Yoga Raja Yoga.