The Global Conversation

Tag: Religion

  • Yoga in schools: helpful or harmful?

    The parents of two California grade school students have sued to block the teaching of yoga classes in their children’s physical education class, complaining it promotes eastern religions.  The action was filed by The National Center for Law & Policy, an Escondido, California-based nonprofit “legal defense organization” focusing on “protection and promotion of religious freedom, the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, parental rights and other civil liberties.”

    NCLP attorney Dean R. Broyles filed the lawsuit against the Encinitas Union School District in San Diego County on behalf of plaintiffs Stephen and Jennifer Sedlock, claiming “The program is extremely divisive and has unfortunately led to the harassment, discrimination, bullying and segregation of children who, for good reasons, opt out of the program.”

    The integration of yoga into the physical education program has been highly effective in reducing hyperactivity and stress.  In schools around the nation who are implementing yoga into their health and wellness programs, they are seeing a marked decrease in the number of students who harm others and/or themselves and a reduction in aggressive behaviors which are commonly associated with violence and drug use.  The yoga classes, which incorporate breathing techniques to alleviate stress, promote relaxation, and increase body circulation, have been proven to increase students’ confidence and overall well-being.

    So with all these demonstrated obvious benefits, why would anyone resist such an advantageous program, one that has a proven track record in schools and communities around the world of noticeably enhancing lives in both a physical and emotional way?

    The complaint in this case is citing that the introduction of yoga in the school unlawfully promotes religious beliefs.  The lawsuit objects to eight-limbed tree posters they say are derived from Hindu beliefs, the “Namaste” greeting, and several of the yoga poses that they say represent the worship of Hindu deities.  The plaintiffs are not seeking monetary damages; they are asking for the removal of the program in its entirety from the school’s physical education program.

    In this particular situation, once again, deeply rooted fear-based religious beliefs (ironically, the very thing being protested against) are attempting to crowd out change, an example of inflexible belief systems clinging desperately and fearfully to an Old Cultural Story which embraces an idea that “THEIR way is THE way.”   Or it could be entirely possible that they have NO idea what “their” way even is and just simply believe that “another” way is arbitrarily wrong.

    But why do stories like this continue to exist where the fear that holds this Old Story together is so enmeshed in its antiquated concepts that it prevents those who hold it as true from being able to welcome change, even when such a change has been demonstrated to be beneficial and life-enhancing for so many people?

    Could it be possible that Old Cultural Stories continue to exist because the concepts held within them actually are best?

    If that is so, perhaps there is no place in schools for yoga, and our children should only move their bodies in largely approved and unmistakably pragmatic ways, such as doing jumping jacks or kicking a ball on the playground or, better yet, throwing balls at each other.  Perhaps unruly children who have not learned how to quiet their minds enough to sit in class and pay attention for any length of time should continue to be medicated with mind-numbing drugs and/or sent to the principal’s office repeatedly to be punished for “acting out” in class.  Perhaps children would be better off not knowing how to control their breathing and utilize it as a holistic tool with which to calm themselves in moments of anxiety or pressure.  Maybe, if we wait long enough, the dysfunctional system that we have in place will one day eventually demonstrate itself to be beneficial.  And in the meantime, we should just shelf all these crazy new alternatives that are currently available — and working — for our children.

    The way I see it, if we still did things in alignment with what they thought was “best” when I went to school years ago, our administrators today would be liberally spanking our children with a wooden paddle.  Fortunately, that belief system has changed.  And fortunately, for the students who attend the Encinitas Union School District, they have someone like Superintendent Timothy Baird who is standing behind the yoga program and will continue to offer it to their students because of its health benefits.

    What do you think?

    I say:  Bring on the yoga.

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation.  She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

  • Globalization vs. Traditional Religion

    We may as well face some facts. Back in the old days people would be born, live and die in the same village. Everyone they knew was of the same nationality, ate the same kinds of food, wore similar clothes and, most likely, was of the same religion. Some may have been vaguely aware that other cultures exist, but lacking any real contact with them, it was almost as if people from those other cultures were not really real. Back then it was common and acceptable to perceive one’s own culture and religion as central — and to see all others as somehow not “counting” quite as much. Few people had reason to think any more widely than this: provincial worldviews were the norm.

    But as transportation options improved, people began to move from place to place. Then suddenly they were exposed to people who were different. Some wound up with neighbors from a different country. Some might have had coworkers, or even supervisors, from a different religion.

    This brushing up against different world cultures would have caused people to compare their own customs and beliefs against those of these strangers. Generally speaking, two types of reaction were possible: 1) people could retreat into their comfortable and familiar worldviews, resisting and resenting the influx of these strangers into their awareness. They could dig in their heels and insist their own ways were more real, more right, and more valid than all the others. Or 2) They could forge relationships with the strangers and seek to understand the differences. They could try the strangers’ foods, listen to their music, even engage in conversations about their contrasting religious beliefs. People choosing this more transformative response would find themselves seeing commonalities with these strangers. They would likely come to see that there is good and bad, truth and falseness in all cultures — and all religions. This most likely would loosen the stronghold of religious exclusivity, and weaken the fences between people with different beliefs.

    People choosing the first option above would be refusing to allow themselves the opportunity to learn about others. They would be excluding a part of the truth from their awareness. They would be reinforcing their own provincialism and limiting their own growth. Conversely, those choosing the second option would be allowing more of the truth about our existence into their awareness, expanding their own horizons, growing.

    Now, these days with global communications as they are, people don’t even need to move to be exposed to other cultures and religious views. We need only turn on a computer or TV to be immediately thrown up against huge numbers of issues, people and cultures from all over the world. Their religious beliefs and practices will conflict with ours. This leaves us the same choices as listed above. We can choose to see only the differences, and retreat in fear from these others. Or we can broaden our worldview to include them in our common humanity.

    But how to include these others on the religious front when their beliefs and practices seem so different? How to move forward when some of our religious leaders are still insisting their own particular belief system has the only right answers? Admittedly it can be hard to rise above the divisiveness and triumphalism — and the attempts to convert everyone — when certain factions are blowing up our buildings with thousands of people in them.

    But there is another way to view this.

    Every religion has a literal level where all the beliefs and practices are specific to that faith. From within the literal level, one’s own creed appears very different from — and superior to — all the others. This can lead a person to conclude that his religion is the only right one, or at least the best one. Seeing only the literal level leaves us mired in discord, trying to assert the primacy of our beliefs over those of others.

    But another way of looking at this issue is emerging to the forefront in several camps. Thanks in part to global communications, some people are beginning to see beyond the literal level of religion. They are beginning to see through the specific symbols of their religion, to emerge with a far more general metaphorical understanding. They come to realize the allegorical nature of the stories in their religious texts. Then when they are faced with comparing those stories from other faiths, they can see that the religions are not so very different in intent.

    All religions contain a common core of values. Opening our minds and hearts to this truth allows us to realize that all religions arose from a common human search for connection with something greater than ourselves.

    All the elaborate rites, rituals and beliefs that make up each individual religion were created by humans according to their own local culture, but arose from a common universal quest shared by everyone. In this sense we must admit that all religions are but different localized ways to express a basic human need. Seen this way, insisting our religion is the only correct one begins to sound downright limited, parochial and immature; imposing specific rules from our particular holy book on others who have not chosen to follow it begins to sound ridiculous. When we can expand our worldview to include people of all religions, and those of no religion, into our human family, we become more mature in a spiritual sense. We move toward a position of seeing all people as cut from the same cloth. This is one little step on the road to unity — or the Oneness expressed as a goal of some religions like Buddhism.

    Some proponents claim that a general spiritual transformation is afoot where people are moving more and more quickly toward this realization. As more and more people are exposed to other belief systems, they are coming to appreciate that each religion contains some truth, but none has the whole and entire truth. They are coming to see that there is no chosen people, no one religion that is right over all the others. This transformation is being helped along by global communications, which increasingly exposes us to all different religions. Many people are confused, overwhelmed or turned off by competing religions all claiming superiority. But still recognizing their own search for connection with something greater than themselves, they adopt the “spiritual but not religious” label.

    Religious leaders interested in maintaining a vibrant flock would do well to adapt their message to this snowballing trend of globalization, which they cannot fight. Traditional religion will soon render itself irrelevant if fails to adopt more universal, more unitive themes into its teachings.

    (As a practicing optometrist, Margaret Placentra Johnston has been helping people see better in the physical world for the last thirty years. Now she writes to help people see more clearly in other ways. Captivated by the depth and beauty of the universal worldview described by various spiritual development theorists, Margaret used ten real life stories from real people to illustrate steps on the way to that worldview. Her book, Faith Beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind (Quest Books, October, 2012,) is the result of that search. Available wherever books are sold.* Visit FaithBeyondBelief-book.com for more information. *(Ebook format available at http://questbooks-ebookstore.net/Books/9780835640589?FromPage=search)