Yoga is bullshit

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Yoga is bullshit

Postby lightstalker » Wed May 26, 2010 3:38 pm

I come across more and more people these days (particularly in the U.S) who swear by Yoga. You know the types who only drink bottled water, shop at organic food markets and keep rescue remedy pastilles in their hand bags. Frankly, yoga people are starting to piss me off..


This rant from a blog I found http://www.gettingovergod.com/

Im sorry to say that yoga is probably one of the biggest proponents of bullshit mythological thinking that there is currently in the modern cultural pantheon of mythologies. Yoga mythologies are just absurd. Really, here’s the essence of yoga in a nutshell. You stretch, you breathe, you bend over, you move some muscles, you weight your bones, and guess what, after an hour and a half of doing that, you feel better. How weird! But that’s not a good enough explanation. No. Yoga has to become the path to enlightenment. Yoga has to become the new Christianity. Yoga has to become the spiritual path of the ancients that has been brought back to life to bring quality of mind, body, and spirit to your life.

Yeah, we have to add all that bullshit in because we’re not capable of simply exercising, and exercising is not interesting. Exercising is something that meatheads do, but as a civilized, conscious person, you must practice yoga. That’s the problem right there. You see, you are so fucking full of yourself. You are so full of shit, so in the belief system that you are the center of the universe, that you are the person who the whole universe revolves around — that there is no way you can just do mere mortal exercise. No, you have to do yoga.

Why? What the hell is so important about yoga? You are bending over. You’re breathing. You’re stretching your arms, you’re stretching your muscles and your tendons and your ligaments, you’re building strength, you’re working some cardiovascular. Big deal. Do we have to create an entire religion around it? Of course, the answer is, yes we do.

Why? Because it seems human beings would rather create outrageously complicated and bizarre stories and build these complex scenarios instead of just doing exercise. Because some delusional fool 4,000 years ago was sitting in a cave and doing exercise and not eating and not having sex and doing all these crazy contortions – and all of a sudden, he became “enlightened, we now have the religion of yoga. In his enlightenment, he decided to start a religion. Awesome. His religion is a religion based on the idea that you can attain a certain level of consciousness that puts you in touch with the oneness of God and the infiniteness of the universe. In fact, these people do have the experiences that they claim. They have something that begins to put them into an altered state, but the mistake the sensations in their body for 3D reality.

So, the delusion is that an elder creates a religion around his or her hallucinatory belief system. He creates a reality, an entire yogic way of being, and the yoga postures become the answer to life, the path to enlightenment. So you have a whole generation of knuckleheads that are thinking that the way they bend over must be done the way our elders did a pose. It’s the delusion that there is some kind of perfection out there that we must emulate. To add insult to injury, it is through the perfection of the pose that ultimately, you will become enlightened.

That is the equivalent of saying I reached enlightenment while eating cat food, and so you just have to keep eating cat food, Friskee’s to be exact, and one day, you too will be enlightened. It’s the exact same thing; it’s just one knucklehead was doing yoga and some other knucklehead was taking drugs and some other knucklehead was thinking about God and some other knucklehead thought that he was the second coming and some other knucklehead was listening to burning bushes, obviously, clearly taking drugs, and came back to his people and told them how they achieved this coveted state of enlightenment.

Now personally, I have been “enlightened” for seven years. I had my first enlightenment experience seven years ago. Now, the only difference between me and other teachers is I had that experience, but that did not stop me. It didn’t stop me from asking questions. It didn’t stop me from using critical thinking. It didn’t stop me from using my brain. In fact, quite the opposite. And I began to see the new consciousness of enlightenment was nothing more than a form of hallucination – a chronic trance state.

Enlightenment is a form of trance where you have the delusion that you are in touch and one with everything in the universe. However, if in fact you test that delusion out in three dimensional reality, you begin to see that in fact, you’re not in touch with the universe, you’re not in touch with all that there is, you are not one with everything any more than anything else is one with everything.

Yes, from a certain hallucinatory perspective, it may feel that way. You may believe that you can put your hand through a wall or that you can know all the knowledge of the universe. But you can’t and you don’t. You may believe that you can, but it doesn’t mean it’s true. So much for the bullshit of The Secret.

So, for any of you that think that you’re enlightened and think you are one with the universe I would like to try my simple experiment. Of course, if you are all that, you know everything and you even know what my experiment is before I even ask it.

So, tell me what my experiment is and tell me the answer and I will sing your praises and fall at your feet. Other than that, shut the fuck up! I am tired of listening to people who talk about oh, they’re enlightened and conscious, and they’re this and they’re that and they know what’s best for me or you – or even worse, humanity.

That is bullshit and I am tired of it! You don’t know me any more or less than you know the dirt under your toe nails.

When I go to a yoga class, I want to take fucking yoga. That’s what I want to do. I want to take yoga class. I do not want to hear your opinions about what our forefathers meant or how great life was back in the fucking Middle Ages; are you crazy? Have you done any research about the Middle Ages, or way back when?

Yeah, let’s go back to the good old days. That sounds perfect. Let’s go back to the days when you would break your arm and die because of infection. Let’s go back to the good old days. How about the medieval times when they’re torturing you because you don’t believe what I believe, so we’re going to cut your scalp off and rip your brain out while you’re alive and not under any anesthesia. That sounds perfect.

Oh, how about let’s go back to the good old days when you fall and cut your knees and your knee gets infested with disease and infection and you die. Times when a cold could kill you. Let’s go back to those good old days when the average life expectancy was 20, and you were an old person at 30.

I can’t take much more of this insane thinking. People, please. It is time to wake up. Do you really believe life was that great? Really? Is that really what you think? You think life was the way we’re living it right now with sewage, running water, electricity? I got news for you, it wasn’t. And as hot as it is right now, I have electricity and I have a fan blowing and I have flowing water and I can take a shower. These are things that were not even possible in many parts of the world even a hundred years ago. So, stop with all your pious bullshit because that is all it is.

Enlightenment is another hallucinatory state, all be it a comfortable one, a fun one, a nice one. It’s a beautiful experience, but it is not reality.

So for all you yoga fanatics — you don’t have to worry about whether or not your doing the pose right because the pose is irrelevant. Some asshole from 2000 years ago thought he hit on the truth of the entire fucking universe by coming up with some ridiculous pose and moving it to some crazy altered state and thinking that therefore, he has to preach that to the whole world to save the world.

You need to read my book, but in chapter 13, it talks about the buckets of mythology. Guess what, this is just another bullshit bucket. You see, all myths in religions, whether they’re yoga or they’re Christianity or Buddhism or Islam or any other religion, they are all based on the same idea — I have the right way, and you don’t! If you don’t do it my way, you will die – god, the universe, whatever, will take you out. Okay? That’s it. There is really not much else going on. Whether it’s vegetarianism or yoga or any other crazy frickin’ thing, the concept is still the same. Do it my way or else suffer the consequences.

I’ve got news for you. It is time to wake up and see that there is no right way to do anything, and nobody has the corner of knowledge on the market, nobody, including the Pope or anybody else. It’s time to wake up and smell the roses. You don’t smell as pretty as you think you do. In fact, you smell kind of bad because the stuff that you’re touting as reality and truth smells as bad as the day old fish remains I have sitting in the garbage. Sorry. You don’t have it all worked out and neither does anybody else.
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby Woodsman » Wed May 26, 2010 5:27 pm

It's just an exercise routine that consists of stretching and strengthening muscles, joints, ligaments, etc.

It does positively contribute to a persons physical condition. The other parts are there to support a positive mental attitude, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a religion.

For the record, I am not a Yogi, though I know some and I have some respect for that art.
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby marie-angelique » Wed May 26, 2010 6:03 pm

i've been doing yoga since i was a teenager. it is one of many forms of exercise i enjoy.

but when they start getting all woo woo and spiritual on me my eyes glaze over.

like when people talk about 'enlightenment' i just want to punch somebody.
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby coldharvest » Wed May 26, 2010 6:07 pm

marie-angelique wrote: just want to punch somebody.

....that's my yoga.
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby ktrout » Wed May 26, 2010 11:38 pm

It seems like a really cool activity, but yeah, the Chi stuff is really bullshit. I practice balance a lot just so I can ride bicycles without wrecking. I guess I've kind of reinvented the wheel a bit, so to speak.
At least it's not acupuncture or traditional Chinese medicine. I tell my wife that lots of medicines have come down the line from classic/indigenous cultures, but I want to see the double blind studies before I buy into it.
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby roach coach » Thu May 27, 2010 1:44 am

I just use it to stretch and hopefully prevent injury. The new age hippies ruin it for me when they try making it into their version of "the good news."
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby JamesInTheWorld » Fri May 28, 2010 5:26 am

Yoga is gay



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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby Royal » Fri May 28, 2010 11:54 am

JamesInTheWorld wrote:Yoga is gay
~JITW


If it makes women nice & bendy, then I'm all for it.
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby Kurt » Sat May 29, 2010 12:52 am

I remember someone once told me with a straight face because they believed it that "yoga is love" and if the world did yoga then all wars would end.
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby marie-angelique » Sat May 29, 2010 2:16 am

Kurt wrote:I remember someone once told me with a straight face because they believed it that "yoga is love" and if the world did yoga then all wars would end.

i hope you laughed so hard you spewed your soda outta your nose :)
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby ktrout » Sat May 29, 2010 3:30 am

Kurt wrote:I remember someone once told me with a straight face because they believed it that "yoga is love" and if the world did yoga then all wars would end.

I've known some batshit left coast New Agers. They're a lot more fun than batshit Christian Conservatives.
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby mapandcompass » Sun May 30, 2010 2:23 am

I've been to about... 4 yoga classes after a (rather flexible) lady friend of mine encouraged me to at least try it before knocking it. I guess you could say I was Y-Curious? Heh. Once I figured out what was going on, I decided I could do it drunk and naked in my living room just about as well, and have a hell of a lot more fun about it. Then they starting charging $5 for the privilege of being told how to stretch and I vowed to never return.

The limbering-up part of Yoga (read: stretching) obviously has its uses. Even the whole deep-breathing and 'getting connected with your body' bit is tolerable. I have noticed that, overall, it improves my balance and agility. Sometimes it even alleviates the lower back pain associated with the time I spend at my desk chair.

Yet for all of these benefits, I agree with the OP insofar that this 'Yoga-is-the-way-and-the-light' mentality is absofuckinglutely uncalled for (and where's that empirical evidence stuff we've been relying on for the last 300 years?) and generally overlooks the basic impact of exercise on the human experience. Stretching, deep breathing (oxygenate that blood much, yuppie?) and a light workout makes you feel better... WHO'DA THUNK IT? (Apparently not the highly educated uber-skinny-vanilla-inside-out-soy-latte population)

Why the simple act of stretching has to involve some sort of magical mystical spiritual awakening is beyond me. The attempt to transform a healthy habit of stretching and deep breathing into a happy-lovey-fun-time activity appears to already be undermining the legitimacy of said activities (since the almighty BFC is largely passing negative judgment)

So, I propose a much more reasonable BFC Yoga routine:
1. Set a beer on the floor.
2. Bend over slowly, from the waist.
3. Pick up beer.
4. Alternating left and right arms, stretch and bring the beer to your lips.
5. Repeat until you feel 'connected with the universe'
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby marie-angelique » Sun May 30, 2010 6:25 am

bikram yoga is disgusting. not only is the room hotter than hell, all the teachers do the exact same boring routine every time.

and for part of it they make you step off your mat and do it on the nasty, sticky carpet. the bottom of my mat stank after just one class.

WTF?
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby ktrout » Sun May 30, 2010 6:29 am

The benefits of obsessively practicing balance are pretty good. For balance.

mapandcompass wrote:5. Repeat until you feel 'connected with the universe'

Or connected to the floor, whichever comes first. You could also practice consuming the beverage eyes closed standing on one leg as in the tree pose. Outstretch your arms between gulps.
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Re: Yoga is bullshit

Postby Kurt » Sun May 30, 2010 6:50 am

Lightstalker had a hilarious bikram yoga story that involved some kind of vomiting.

It was so funny I remember it from five years ago.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11798&p=98700&hilit=yoga#p98700
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