School Sun Salutations Here to Stay [Encinitas Yoga Case]

I watched the conclusion of the recent trial of Ashtanga yoga in Encinitas Union School District (EUSD) with rapt attention. Last month I flew to San Diego, CA from my temporary sabbatical home in Oxford, UK to spend a full court day testifying as expert witness for the plaintiffs. My job—as an educator—was to answer the judge’s opening questions: “What is religion? What is Ashtanga yoga? And, is Ashtanga yoga religious?”

Given what I know of the case—I reviewed all trial documents and observed or read reports of all proceedings—I am astounded at the judge’s decision. Granted, the judge revealed near the outset that he himself does yoga and saw nothing spiritual about it, and, granted, any finding against yoga would have been exceedingly unpopular.

Many onlookers are no doubt breathing a deep yoga breath of relief. People love yoga; they feel it benefits them physically, emotionally, and spiritually; and they want their children to do yoga. Wasn’t the judge’s course of action obvious? Isn’t yoga just stretching and breathing anyway? You may be thinking, I do yoga, and it doesn’t mean anything religious or spiritual to me.

The legal question was whether the EUSD yoga program promoted religion or excessively entangled public schools with religion. The judge found that yoga is religious, but EUSD watered it down enough that kids won’t notice.

Krishna Pattabhi Jois, the founder of Ashtanga yoga, and the Jois Foundation that gave EUSD a $533,720 grant to implement an “Ashtanga Yoga” program (staffed by Jois “trained” and “certified” instructors), are overtly Hindu. The goal of Ashtanga (eight-limbed) yoga is to “become one with God”; the eighth limb is Samadhi, union with the Universal (Brahman). The Sun Salutations that open every Ashtanga class “pray to the sun god.”

Jois yoga instructors may not talk about any of these beliefs. This is because Jois believed that doing yoga asanas (postures) is enough to lead practitioners to experience the other seven limbs—includingSamadhi.

The district’s witnesses so resolutely denied knowing that Ashtanga is religious or ever having learned or taught anything “religious” that their answers strained credibility. They claimed to see nothing religious in chanting Hindu sacred texts in Sanskrit, meditating while repeating Om in the lotus posture, or placing one’s hands in special positions (jnanamudra and anjalimudra, or wisdom and prayer seals) that symbolize and presumably bring about “yoking” with the divine.

Even after EUSD scrubbed the curriculum of Sanskrit (except the Sanskrit “yoga”), appended secular character quotes to moral teachings based on Hindu texts (yamas/niyamas), removed Ashtanga posters and mandalas, and renamed poses in response to parent complaints, children still recognized “EUSD yoga” as more than stretching and breathing—indeed as religious. This is why kids still use Sanskrit, chant Om, place their hands in mudras, and meditate in lotus (teachers still call it “lotus,” not“criss-cross applesauce”) in EUSD classes.

Judge John Meyer’s precedent-setting decision has enormous implications for America’s public schools. Hundreds of schools nationwide are adopting yoga programs that are religious in many of the same ways as EUSD’s program—a trend that will accelerate after a “research study” predictably reports benefits from the Encinitas experiment.

And Ashtanga is not the only religious practice that has crept into public schools since the Supreme Court’s landmark rulings in 1962 and 1963—happy 50th anniversary—that expelled prayer and Bible reading. EUSD, like many other schools, also teaches mindfulness meditation (which mindfulness promoter Jon Kabat-Zinn calls the “heart of Buddhist meditation”). If prayer and Bible reading do not belong in public schools, neither do religious yoga and meditation.

How did we go from removing to reintroducing religion in public schools? Protestant Christianity has been dominant in America for so long that most people bring a Word/belief bias to defining “religion.” Americans fail to recognize that religious intentions may develop through participating in practice/experience-focused religions.

Kristin is a Catholic who tried yoga thinking it was “not religious.” Kristin started with “physical aspects,” but now views the “eight limbs of Ashtanga” as “basically similar to the 10 commandments,” only better because “just like suggestions,” unlike rule-oriented Christianity.

Sociological evidence reveals that practicing yoga often changes religious beliefs. This is why Ashtanga yoga—Meyer’s decision notwithstanding—should not be taught in public schools.

Candy Gunther Brown, PhD

Brown is associate professor of religious studies at Indiana University. Her latest book is The Healing Gods: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian America (Oxford University Press, 2013).