From time to time I hear someone say, 'but yoga comes from India, therefore it is something "foreign" and I don't see how we can make use of it's. Of course this is foolishness. It is like saying, 'i don't want to listen to the music of Bob Marley because he was Jamaican', or someone in India declaring: "we don't want to use electricity because Thomas Edison was an American'. Yoga is universal. It is a priceless gift from the East and it's benefits are available to all of us who would accept them.
It is very tragic that many of us not knowing the fact, have for many years confused Yogis (a person who practice yoga is a Yogi) with a certain class of people in India who are known as Fakirs.
Fakirs have gained extraordinary control of their senses, but use this control to subject their bodies to abnormal conditions.
For example, they sit on the famous 'bed of nails', stick pins and swords into their bodies, allow themselves to be buried alive and perform other such supernatural feats. They are generally persons of low mentality and they perform these supernatural feats for money, food, favours and so forth. These Fakirs should never be confused with Yogis: nor do snake charmers or Indian rope tricked practitioners have anything to do with Yoga. Yoga is a method of natural development for body and mind, and a true Yogi will never permit anything harmful or unnatural to be done to his body or mind.
Finally, there is the question of 'religion'. I am often asked, 'is Yoga a religion?'. My answer is, 'definitely not!'. For us, Yoga is a dynamic system of physical exercise and a practical and valuable philosophy to apply to every-day life. In short, Yoga is a way of life and everyone, regardless of his religion, can benefit greatly from any one or all aspects of Yoga.
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