ONLY YOGA

Ive been teaching for five years now. It has gone very quickly. I've taught retreats in my home in France, taught in clubs, corporations large and small, taught private sessions, CEOs and five year olds, classes in very swanky fitness centres, church halls, and most recently in schools to small groups and assemblies of three hundred plus.  I even attempted to teach at the House of Commons, something I feel they would need at the moment (yoga helps with decision making, focus, anger management and anxiety). If only they had taken it up, perhaps Brexit would have been handled differently.  Anyway, popped into a health food shop briefly this morning, to pick up something - think it was nuts - and a man said to me.
"Look at that."
So I did.
It was a packet of vanilla and something.  Think it was seeds and nuts, mushed up, sort of thing you are supposed to sprinkle on porridge or cereal or some such.   I did that in my twenties.
"Buddha Glory" he said, reading from the package.
"Indeed."
"It is appropriating from a religion. As is aruveya. It is appropriating incorrectly."
I nodded because I agree. What has a vanilla nut concoction to do with Buddha.   It is a bit like saying Christ advocates you eat cornflakes each morning. (Nestle will probably attempt that at some stage, and I'm sure Monty Python considered it in The Life of Brian).
We chatted for a bit, and then he mentioned yoga.  I said I taught yoga.  He frowned. Then gave me a talk (lets say a talk) on the philosophy of yoga, all of which I agreed with.
"If you practice yoga, you should be vegan or vegetarian, you should live a good life, be kind and benevolent, it is a philosophy not an exercise, it is aligning the body.  You people eat steak at night and then practice yoga in the morning."
I think it was the combination of 'you people' and 'eat steak' that made me stop mid breath.  I don't eat steak and I'm not 'you people'. I smiled and agreed with him and he seemed restless I didn't want to argue. But what about - I agreed with him.  He left. I bought my nuts, wondering if I had just met a yoga fundamentalist.  I agreed with what he said.  The west distorting and appropriating from the Eastern philosophies (which they do and have always done although they call it 'adapting' because it sounds far less aggressive than distorting.).
The moment reminded me of the scene in Good Morning Vietnam, when the head of the radio department, sent the character Robin Williams was playing into enemy territory because he didn't like him.  When his boss found out, he moved him to another department and said 'It's only radio'. And this is only yoga. In whatever embodiment, or however it morphs, distorting from its origins, (in kilts, on surf boards, with boxing (!), as long as you remember the origins, that is what matters. As long as you know where it came from and how you want to practice it, then that is what is important. As for me, I will be careful where I buy my nuts in future.