They will come for our right to practice yoga and meditation.
The Four Disruptors—Trumpism, MAGA, Muskism, and Christian Nationalism—fear what these practices create. Inner clarity, emotional resilience, and collective empowerment undermine their control. So, expect them to come for your yoga.
Authoritarian forces depend on passivity, fear, and distraction. Yoga and meditation cultivate agency, presence, and purpose. Leaders who thrive on obedience cannot allow widespread critical awareness.
Public Debates Over Yoga: A Fight for Control
Yoga has never been just about exercise. The debates, restrictions, and bans are due to the threat yoga poses. The battle over yoga’s place in public life reveals more profound anxieties about spiritual diversity, autonomy, and collective resistance.
During British rule in India in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, traditional Indian practices, including yoga and Indigenous martial arts like Kalaripayattu, were discouraged or outright suppressed.
In the U.S., public schools have become battlegrounds for this fight. In 2016, a Georgia elementary school faced parental complaints about yoga practices, leading to the removal of “Namaste” and certain gestures from its curriculum. Alabama banned yoga in public schools for decades, only lifting the ban in 2021 with strict limits—teachers cannot say “Namaste” or use Sanskrit terminology.
Yoga in India: A Political Tug-of-War
Today, the practice remains politically charged in India, where yoga originated. Critics argue that the promotion of yoga serves a Hindu nationalist agenda, marginalizing minority communities who may not share the same cultural or religious background.
The Fears of the Taliban
The most extreme form of suppression comes from the Taliban, which has banned Afghan women from gyms and public parks. While the Taliban’s official decrees have not explicitly mentioned yoga, their broad restrictions on women’s access to public spaces, education, and physical activities effectively prohibit practices like yoga.
Why These Debates Matter
Banning yoga is never just about religion or tradition—it is about control. Under enslavement, people of African descent couldn’t worship their gods, speak their languages, or engage in their movement practices.
In the U.S., yoga faces opposition in schools but thrives in corporate wellness programs, where it is stripped of its transformative power and packaged for profit. Expect corporate wellness programs to go the way the DEI programs they abandoned.
The Struggle for More Than Wellness
The Four Disruptors will remount their attack on limiting yoga in schools and public spaces. They will also attack the right to think, feel, and act freely. The debate over a broader suppression today sets the stage for the suppression of yoga tomorrow. Book bans today. Yoga bans tomorrow.
We must actively protect freedom. Reflection cannot exist without action. Yoga and meditation are not just a retreat. When we practice them, we declare defiance and our agency.
How will you defend the right to practice?