For those who practice yoga

[vedic_kings]

Hi,

Did you become vegetarian because of yoga? Or did vegetarian lead you to yoga?

[sophia_cat]

Hmmm.. I was a pescatarian for years, then a vegetarian for some and now (99%) vegan.

What brought me to yoga was extreme back pain (piriformis syndrome) - caused by too much cardio done improperly with bad posture.

Until that time, I thought yoga was a bunch of hooey and cardio was the way to go for fitness. Turns out, yoga workouts are much more intensive and I get so much more out of them than cardio.

My only regret is that I didnt start yoga sooner. Boy am I not flexible!

Id like to believe that the veg lifestyle led me to and made yoga more appealing.

I cant imagine a serene, wise person who practices yoga could also eat animal parts and their bodily fluids. It just seems contradictory.

[meatless]

I was veg for three years before starting yoga, but that fact has nothing to do with why I started it. I was looking to start exercising and wanted something I could do easily at home. A friend of mine did yoga and liked it, so I tried it too.

[Sokara]

My veganism has nothing to do with yoga. I just started doing yoga because I wanted to get more in touch with my body.

[broccoli]

Yoga and vegetarianism are totally not related for me. I picked up yoga because I needed something to do on the days I didn't run. :)

[Draekyn]

Yoga and vegetarianism aren't related for me either. I became interested in yoga as a way to de-stress.

[isowish]

I am a vegetarian, and that is part of me and who I will always be.

I like yoga a lot, but mostly I'm doing it because it was the best of the (compulsary) 'enrichment' activities at my school. More and more I'm thinking that I will continue it out of school after this term, but it's not related to my vegetarianism.

[bethanie]

I have read a lot about the relationship between yoga and vegetarianism in various yoga books I've resourced and even have a book called the yoga cookbook which is vegetarian. But I became vegetarian first and started practicing yoga later.

B

[eggplant]

Neither one led to the other for me either, but I can see a connection in that I am vegan and I do yoga both as ways of enhancing my physical, emotional and spiritual health. I'm sure it's the same for a lot of people--they didn't do one because of the other but both interests grew out of similar impulses.

[Tesseract]

No connection.

[jenni-anti-fur]

they arent related for me really although i was a veggie before i started yoga--and i started to help with my emotional physical and physical health--same with pilates--

peace and love

jenn

[synergy]

I can't remember which I even started doing first, probably yoga. At first there was no connection, but there is for me now.

[Tweety]

For me there wasn't a connection. I was vegetarian when I started taking yoga classes primarily for flexibility.

[jenna]

I got into yoga years before I stopped eating animal products, but I wasn't committed to it. I practice it daily now.

[CarlaVeg]

In my case, there is definitely a connection... I became a vegetarian because I started practising yoga and learning more about the yoga system. The more yoga I did and the more I read about it, the more m,y respedt for life grew... Ahimsa is practise by yogis, therefore they don't eat flesh.... I love the yoga philosofy, and that lead me to being a vegetarian!!!!!

[zoebird]

i don't know if they're related for me.

i've done yoga forever--my whole life--but so has my mother (wlel, most of her life) and she's not vegetarian. I became vegetarian about 6-7 years ago, because it was something that i wanted to do, that i had wanted to do for a long time. i think it had a spiritual component--which may have developed because of yoga or any number of other spiritual practices that i do.

as to the issue of a wise and serene yogi not being able to eat animal products, it's actually quite ridiculous. yoga has a vast variety of perspectives on vegetarianism, but nearly 80% or more of those schools of those mention that vegetarianism is not required for enlightenment or salvation. Many of them include eating meat for a variety of reasons. Most of them, if not all, consume dairy products (though not necessarily eggs).

most dietary discussions revolve around the practices of saucha, rather than ahimsa. sauchic practices are developed to increase bodily health and purity and to prepare the body-mind for ritual, meditation, prayer, or asana. The sauchic dietary practices focus on sattvic, vegetarian foods in preparation for these practices, but not necessarily as an 'all the time' practice.

the attachment of vegetarianism to ahimsa is largely a 20th century proposition brought out by ghandi. while he rested in long traditions of ahimsic philosophy, it is important to note that when ahimsa was attached to vegetarianism, it largely focused on cows and not on other animals, and animal sacrifice was also common (and still is, relatively). there are numerous historical, philosophical, and religious reasons for this--most of which are completely unknown to or entirely misunderstood by a western audience.

in the last decade, yoga has been greatly attracted to veganism and vegetarianism in the west largely because of the work of Kali Rae (kali rae tri yoga) and Sharon Gannon and David Life (Jivamukti). These teachers are connected to many of the 'stars' of the vegetarianism movement and organizations such as PeTA, and through their efforts, the concept that vegetarianism is intrinsicly linked to yoga, to yoga's ahimsic practices, has begun to take root in the yoga community (and particularly in the vegetarian yoga community). I think that this is a disservice to the tradition, but it does have it's point.

i think it's important to point out the practicality of vegetarianism and veganism from the ahimsic perspective in light of the industrialization of our food sources. But, i do not think that necessarily means that veganism or vegetarianism is the answer, and that if an individual--here or in india or anywhere else--discovers that veganism and vegetarianism is not healthful for them, then they can (and the tradition would note that they should) consume meat or dairy as necessary. Why? because the tradition believes that a person must be healthy in order to do their work in this body, and if that requires consuming meat, dairy, whathaveyou, then it doesn't inhibit their ability to become enlightened, wise, or anything else.

[Nicky]

No relation for me. My boyfriend bought me a beginner yoga set.

[Fallen]

There's not relation. I was a vegetarian before I took yoga, but it didn't influence my choice in either.