SOMEWHERE IN THE u.s.a., in what must doubtless be among the more progressive public school systems, yoga has been installed as part of the cirriculun. The primary purpose, presumably, is to provide students with a skill that will serve them well throughout life in creating clear headed thinking, relaxation, the ability to focus and produce.
sounds pretty good, doesn't it? The only problem, a bunch of not so progressive minded local americans, and somehow i smell christians, that savory righteous aroma of moral rectitude, are
much opposed to the idea.
Their reason: yoga is a product of the buddhist religion, and as such, violates the sacred principle of separation of church and state. Never mind that yoga has a life of its own, entirely seperate from its buddhist origins, never mind the fact that buddhism is more of a philosophical tradition than a formal, organized, dogmatic religion; we must not entice our children to anything even remotely associated with religion.
Or is that really the problem? Might it be that the problem is not religion itself, but the particular religion, a non christian religion? The aroma intensifies, as we get closer to its source. Those who oppose yoga in public schools; are they progressive minded secular humanists, staunchly defending freedom from government sponsored religion, as in the first amendment, or, are they , perchance, right wing conservative christians, the sort who for fifty years have bemoaned the absence of prayer in school, the sort who ascribe america's imminent collapse to the removal of god from the classroom?
The best guess is, the latter. We must have no religious instruction in school, or anything remotely resembling it; if its the "wrong" religion. At last report the yoga has been cancelled, due to the threat of legal action. So maybe this school district isn't so progressive after all. Or, maybe the forces of progressivism, in some quarters, are insufficient to overcome the forces of darkness.
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