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Jasmine Kaloudis teaches yoga lifestyle concepts at Synergy By Jasmine in Philadelphia, PA. Throughout her 15 year yoga practice and teachings, Jasmine has experienced how yoga is a tool which allows us to experience ourselves more fully and more richly.

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It seems like yoga is often thought of as a religious practice with the various Hindu deities, chants, new age language about the divine powers of the “universe” and devotional hymns. The practice could be construed as a religion and the studio a temple with the rituals, greetings and protection of the space as sacred. How is yoga not a religion and just a form or spirituality and what is the difference between the two?

In the Bhagavad Gita, which is a book many devout yoga practitioners and teachers read as they go deeper into learning about yoga philosophy, the main character, Arjuna, searches for answers to his dilemmas; he is shown to go beyond the conventional cultural programming and ways of thinking by exploring attachment and considering the duality of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, failure and success.

He also attempts to achieve a balanced state of mind though various yogic lifestyle practices. He is able to bring his spiritual beliefs into his daily practices. When used as a practice of uniting the mundane with the highest level of self-actualization, the term “Yoga” is applied to many different spiritual paths. Yoga is simply a practice of self-awareness, self-actualization and compassion for others. Yoga is a practice of gaining higher knowledge.

My mother is a very devout Catholic woman. She prays the rosary many times a day, volunteers at her church and reads religious texts in her leisure time. She is quite dogmatic and self-righteous in her religious beliefs. She has practiced yoga with me on many occasions and has never found it to be a conflict with her practice of Catholicism.

Religion is often infused with observing holidays that have rituals attached to them.  There is a history of struggle of good over evil. These stories help to explain why that religion has certain beliefs. In most of the world religions, there is a history of conquest, intolerance, cruelty, wars and killing. The focus is often on intolerance in these conquests and non-acceptance. These are contrary to many of the common values that the Upanishads promote.

Religion does not ask us to question beliefs or practice but to simply obey and accept them since an authoritative figure or collective body has decided that. Yoga promotes a deep study of self-inquiry, acceptance and self-realization. Yoga promotes deeper awareness by using tools such as our breath, bodies and awareness in order to come to our own conclusions about the nature of higher reality.

In religion, the nature of higher reality is simply dictated to us. For most, religion is a huge source of personal and collective identity, culture and an attachment to a geographical location such as with the Greek Orthodox Church (Greece), Russian Orthodox Church (Russia), Judaism (Israel), Hindu (various pilgrimage sites for various holidays and gods), and Islam (Mecca).

Fear is often a tool in the major religions to motivate people to behave a certain way. People behave certain ways because they are afraid of the punishment they will receive in the afterlife or do not want to endure public censure for their lack of conformity. They find comfort in knowing they are practicing something as their family has done for decades.

Fear of the “other” is often a powerful way to gather a group together since they can develop rapport and camaraderie and a sense of community for being intolerant of others’ differences and practices. Lack of self-esteem is one of the main contributing causes to this.

A striking case in point would be the Germans before Hitler’s rise to power. The Germans had suffered a massive humiliating defeat. They had a need for significance and they found it by inflicting their own lack of self-worth on those that were not a member of their group. Religion (the Jews) were the main defining factor in differentiation.

Ritual also provides a context for family to come together (Christmas, Easter, Passover). Ritual is also a way to tie people together in a certain religion. Rituals helps to have children become involved in the practices as well. Often rituals are performed on young children or infants who have no say in the matter, even if the ritual is physically and psychologically painful (male and female circumcision). Barbaric practices such as these initiate the child into a world of violence, subjugation and pain. In yoga, free choice and awareness are the tenets.

In religion, negative emotions such as guilt and fear are powerful motivators to induce certain behaviors or practices and even beliefs. In the Spanish Inquisition, people were killed simply for refusing to change their beliefs. In yoga, one is encouraged to find their own path to happiness and peace. Guilt is often a byproduct of the practices or lack of conformity to the practices. The practice of confession, is done in order to shame the devotee of their lack of ability to follow all of the rules. As a punishment, one is often given “hail Marys” or to “pray the rosary.”

Yoga is a more internal path and it is not necessary to do certain lifestyle practices in a group or even at certain times of year in a ritualized fashion. One is frequently encouraged to question and to do a deep process of self-inquiry. The ultimate goal of yoga is self-mastery and deep self-realization.