Our View - Tuesday

MANITOU'S NEW HINDU COURSE
City subsidizes "free" yoga lessons

Replace the crucifix on a rosary with a peace symbol, and you have what some consider a nonreligious set of rosary beads. A growing number of non-Catholics do this because rosary recitations provide proven physiological benefits. Some use the beads for a breathing regimen, and others use them in conjunction with nonreligious mantras, such as "peace and serenity for me and the world; peace and serenity for me and the world..."

In Italy, The University of Pavia's Department of Cardiovascular Medicine conducted a study that was reported in the peer-reviewed British Journal of Medicine a few years back. The study concluded that rosary and yoga mantras have identical healthful effects in slowing respiration and enhancing heart rate variability and baroreflex sensitivity.

"The rosary might be viewed as a health practice as well as a religious practice," a summary of the report stated.

Yet the Manitou Springs City Council probably wouldn't sponsor and subsidize a course on secularized rosary mantras and breathing. Nor should it. The rosary is steeped in religion, emanating entirely from Catholicism. String five "decades" of organic beads on tie-dyed hemp and it's still a symbol and practice linked to the Catholic faith. If Manitou Springs funded healthful rosary sessions, it would go in the direction of establishing a city-sponsored activity directly tied to religion. It would be wholly inappropriate and marginally legal, at best.

Yet the Manitou Springs City Council has decided to sponsor and subsidize yoga - a practice steeped in religion and emanating entirely from Hinduism. Shannon Solomon, a Manitou Springs councilman, asked his fellow council members to allow him to use space in City Hall, rent free, to teach his free yoga courses. Solomon abstained from the vote, and it passed unanimously among his peers. The special favor for a colleague saved Solomon the $200 it costs to rent city space for a day. The free rent, the location on government property, and the enthusiastic unanimous support amount to an endorsement.

Solomon said he can give away the classes because yoga has increased his earnings in the construction business. It almost sounds like a testament to prayer. He admits the free classes have upset other yoga teachers in town, who charge. They tell him "you're destroying the yoga economy." Now the city will subsidize Solomon to undermine them.

That's bad enough, but it's even worse that the city has opted to endorse and subsidize an exercise that's helplessly intertwined with one particular religion.

Webster's New World Dictionary defines yoga (coming from an east Indian Sanskrit word which means "union with god") as: "a mystic and ascetic Hindu discipline for achieving union with the supreme spirit through meditation, prescribed postures, controlled breathing, etc."

Millions in the United States do yoga as a seemingly secular exercise, unaware or uninterested in its religious roots and meaning. That doesn't mean it isn't religious.

In an article for the online "Got Questions Ministries," former yoga instructor Laurette Willis explained that yoga can't be fully secularized. She cited a Time magazine feature that quoted Subhas Tiwari, a professor of yoga philosophy and meditation at the Hindu University of America in Orlando, Fla. Says Tiwari, there is no debate: "Yoga is Hinduism." A staff member of an East Coast Classical Yoga Academy wrote Willis, saying: "Yes, all of yoga is Hinduism. Everyone should be aware of this fact."

A 2006 article in the Orlando Sentinel quoted Sannyasin Arumugaswami, managing editor of Hinduism Today. He told the Sentinel that Hinduism is the soul of Yoga "based as it is on Hindu Scripture and developed by Hindu sages. Yoga opens up new and more refined states of mind, and to understand them one needs to believe in and understand the Hindu way of looking at God."

Willis cites "An Open Letter to Evangelicals" that appeared in the January 1991 issue of Hinduism Today. It states: "A small army of yoga missionaries - hatha, raja, siddha and kundalini - beautifully trained in the last 10 years, is about to set upon the western world. They may not call themselves Hindu, but Hindus know where yoga came from and where it goes."

In other words, practitioners of an Eastern religion brought a ritual of their faith to the West. Shilling foreign religions can be tough, so they brought a form of Hindu worship packaged as an exercise routine. Fair enough. It's somewhat similar to Christians bringing religion to India, packaged as aid in the form of food, shelter and clothing. We don't need CARE packages from the East, so we get a high-end health club regimen.

There's no reason under the sun for anyone to criticize yoga for its unquestionable, unbreakable link to a major religion. There's no reason anyone should look down on the Hindu religion, or those who practice it or dabble in one of its traditions. Our constitutional republic protects a free market of religious choice.

That's precisely why no city government should endorse or subsidize a practice that's closely tied to one religion. They wouldn't and shouldn't subsidize a kosher cooking class or a secularized rosary session with free rent.

If they fund one religious practice, they must open the doors and fund all who come. Otherwise, they're picking a favorite, which flirts with establishment.

If Americans don't understand the religious nature of yoga, it's only because they're not familiar enough with eastern religions. Yoga is religious, and that's great. But city government must not pay the guru's rent.

Fair verdict, OK system

The military commission system for dealing with suspected terrorists at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay needs work. But the first test of the system, the trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, has come out with a verdict that seems roughly fair, largely due to the integrity of the military officers who conducted it and served as the jury.

The military commission system, created by 2006 legislation, allows hearsay evidence and secret documents that the defense sometimes may not see, let alone challenge. It seemed so rigged that Col. Morris Davis, formerly the chief prosecutor, quit last October because he "concluded that full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system."

However, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, who served as judge, went beyond the formal rules to make the trial of Hamdan as fair as possible. And the jury of six senior military officers, in a split verdict, found Hamdan guilty of supporting terrorism, but not guilty of conspiring to commit terrorism. Given that Hamdan was a paid driver for bin Laden, that's a reasonable conclusion. By driving and protecting the leader he did support terrorism. But it seems unlikely that he conspired to commit terrorism.

The jury sentenced him to 66 months in prison (prosecutors had asked for 30 years).

His lawyers say they will appeal the verdict to a federal appeals court.

Despite the deficiencies of the military commission system, this is a reasonable outcome that may speak of our country's credibility when it comes to prosecuting detainees.