My wife told me about something odd that happened in yoga today. The teacher had them standing on one foot with bent knee and the other leg crooked behind them and their arms going in different directions, also bent, and announced, "This is swastika pose." My wife was uncomfortable about it, especially because she was there with a Jewish friend. When the two of them drove away, the friend said she was a little freaked out by it too.
Of course, swastikas are everywhere in India. But my wife thinks this is one aspect of Sanskrit culture that can’t make the passage. She’s never heard of such a pose before; and the fact that the teacher was big and blonde made the whole effect worse.
They went over to the friend’s for lunch and my wife was glad that her friend didn’t tell her husband, because he might get really upset. She’s hoping that her friend forgets about it.
gays were one group of many that were thrown into the nazi ovens and modern political leadership of gay rights groups rehabilitated the pink triangle as a symbol of liberation and obliterated its meaning as a symbol of persecution – it now exists in that state merely as an historical artifact … if the swastika were not so useful as means to invoke fear into jews about the persecution their people have historically suffered as relates to the madman hitler, it would have lost its power by now … the swastika as a design motif has been around for many thousands of years in many parts of the world … it is time to take away its power by using it again for other purposes other than a reference to nazi crimes
Phil,
Then your wife and her friend are ignorant of a LARGE PORTION of important history, I’m sorry to say.
The Svastikasana pose existed eons before Hitler came along. It is a most auspicious pose and the Swastika is a long time important symbol in Indian culture — I’m sure Cliff will weigh in here eventually. There’s one difference: the chi or energy goes counter-clockwise in the Indian symbol, not clockwise. Hitler absconded with the symbol and changed its direction.
The yoga teacher was neither wrong nor inappropriate. And your wife and friend should be informed.
It’s a fairly common class of symbol that occurs in quite a variety of archaic contexts, in fact. I’m not sure if the Nazi usage of the symbol was purely arbitrary or if it’s another example of “Aryan” mythology they fabricated from bits they stole from other cultures, but in any event the symbol is exclusive to Nazism about as much as the cross (as in, the Iron Cross) was exclusive to the German Empire that preceded the Nazi state. And Christians would take exception to that, I’d say.
I’m with MRW here. Knowledge is power, especially over fear.
Not just India and not just ancient: the Swastika can be found on nearly every hospital and ambulance in SE Asia today. It is a key Buddhist symbol and since Buddhist temples are ubiquitous in Asia, so is the Swastika.
Do Americans travel anymore?
must be politically correct… repeat after me… must be politically correct.. what a joke..
Another thing, Phil. The correct Swatiska symbol is on the very best Chinese luopans, the compasses used by for-real feng shui practitioners, not the bullshit stuff sold to Americans. I mention this because she’s a feng shui aficionado.
The Nazis appropriated a variety of historical religious and occult symbols that they thought were suitable for a world-conquering thousand-year Reich. The Swastika is really a symbol of the sun as a spinning source of energy. (It’s not an unreasonable question to ask how the ancient Hindus knew the sun rotated, but they seem to have been a clever lot.) I understand that Jews and other victims of the Holocaust will tend to feel uncomfortable about these symbols due to this appropriation, but the symbols long predated the Nazis and their ideas, and it would be unfortunate if we should let our eyes be blinded to their original significance or demand that those who continue to use the symbols in their original context should change.
The swastika is THE critical symbol of a few streams of yoga and tantra.
In Ananda Marga symbology there is a symbol called the pratik that includes a six-pointed star (also predating Judaism), with a rising sun on the lower interior, with a swastika within the sun.
The symbol is described as a symbol of uplift, actually suggesting the irrelevance of racialist orientation, in favor of democratic spirituality of dynamic (the meaning of th swastika – to morally struggle through life) inherent in all souls.
The presence of the swastika is a confusion. It has permanently usurped the original meaning of the swastika for an opportunistic, relatively trivial, entirely materialistic meaning. Indian spiritualists live in a state of self-censorship for the shame/confusion of the now imprinted historical use of the symbol.
Branding.
And, it created a great deal of confusion in the politics of the late-30′s – early 40′s. There were some Indians that saw the nazi’s application of the swastika as a brotherhood, a commonality, even in identifying hatred of the Jews, and including later some hatred of Israel. And, there were some that regarded their common opposition to colonial Great Britain as the basis of an alliance. (Even moralistic Subhash Chandra Bose).
There were some Indians that saw the nazi’s application of the swastika as a brotherhood, a commonality
Bullshit. Indians were very much aware that it was a hijack. The energy, the chi, of their symbol goes counter-clockwise.
You didn’t read my post.
How unusual.
He quoted from your goddamn post, numbskull. (God, no wonder you don’t work at a college anymore).
“There were some Indians that saw the nazi’s application of the swastika as a brotherhood, a commonality, even in identifying hatred of the Jews, and including later some hatred of Israel. And, there were some that regarded their common opposition to colonial Great Britain as the basis of an alliance. (Even moralistic Subhash Chandra Bose).”
You forgot to mention ‘Aryan.’
“In Ananda Marga symbology there is a symbol called the pratik that includes a six-pointed star (also predating Judaism), with a rising sun on the lower interior, with a swastika within the sun.”
All three notorious brands in one. Should the pratik be on a cereal box?
Like this pendant?
link to flickr.com
It was/is extremely hard though to experience a yoga or meditation session, get very still and open, and then see the swastika. (Its original symbology is crowded out by the imprint.)
It is not the same symbol, Witty. The Indian symbol is counter-clockwise. Hitler’s is clockwise. Any idiot can tell the difference.
The Indian Wheel of Life reflects the turn of gravity in the Northern Hemisphere, and anyone — ANYONE — who watches their bathtub or drain empty knows that. Counter-clockwise.
If you’re so unaware that you can’t tell the difference, then you have no business commenting, but dont diss those of us who can recognize nuances, or who can tell the difference between a cross straight up and a cross upside down.
Do you think that Phil’s wife or Phil himself is “any idiot”.
They were describing their own discomfort, there own confusion.
I’m not sure what you are defending. I practiced Ananda Marga yoga for twenty years, with the pratik and swastika in my face daily. I successfully reconciled it as different from the nazi symbol, and then came to a realization that I was forcing myself into a confusion.
That, what you are asserting had occurred, that the nazis had abused a symbol that had more profound symbolic meaning, PERMANENTLY imprinting deep pain inevitably now associated with the symbol.
Your comments resemble my effort to reclaim the original liberatory meaning of Zionism here, that I am widely accused of rationalizing.
Great, Witty. Just so long as you recognize in the years to come, thanks to Zionism and Israel, the Star of David is going to be a similarly abused symbol that will carry painful, horrible meaning in the modern context.
Also, the swastika was a motif that was used on synagogues in the Arab world. Its an irony.
The swastika was a “branding” effort, a use of commons expropriated for a more trivial political or marketing purpose.
The nazis expropriated land, expropriated symbols, expropriated words, expropriated algorhythms, expropriated technologies.
Only the symbols were “branded”. Now that they have been abused, they are no longer useful for the prior meaning.
The nazis rejected Einsteinian discoveries and theories on the basis that they were “Jewish science”, even as their own key scientists regarded the discoveries themselves as not associated with a race, while still denouncing Einstein and other critical scientists.
Science is theoretically more collegial than politics.
Great. Now take that commentary about Einstein and apply it to Professor Khamis and maybe you’ll have something genuinely profound and relevant here.
And again, when you say: Only the symbols were “branded”. Now that they have been abused, they are no longer useful for the prior meaning. Prepare yourself for the day when the Star of David is regarded as such, because it was branded onto the Israeli flag.
speaking of abused symbols, perhaps we could talk about the star of david…
“They went over to the friend’s for lunch and my wife was glad that her friend didn’t tell her husband, because he might get really upset.”
That is the funniest part of the post. I imagine some sort of spitting-mad Alan Dershowitz character fuming at every perceived slight that he goes out of his way to identify.
Knowing that the swastika is an ancient symbol, I’m left wondering what the imagined slight was. Was the thought really that the “big blonde woman” was trying to harass the Jews in the room? Would the whole incident have gone unnoticed if a little swarthy lady were the instructor? Is there a list of things that big blonde women can’t say or do?
I don’t like being bashed because of my ethnicity any more than anyone else does, but I don’t get the reaction here. If these people don’t like that particular yoga studio, they are free to find another studio.
It’s all about perception. There was a perception of possible implied anti-semitism at the yoga class, but this is a state that exists in the perceiver’s head due to some heightened sensitivity. Trust in overt symbolism, statements and actions. They don’t hide. The rest you can rationalize away and go on with your day. As for the right-wing zionists and israeli-firsters, anti-semitism is a powerful political prop which proves endlessly useful.
It’s all about perception, e.g., in Bremen:
link to holocaust-trc.org
Anyway… I did try to sit on this comment, but… one notes, Mr. Weiss, that your wife had a sympathetic reaction to you when the word swastika comes up in a context totally irrelevant to the Holocaust; but when your own father labeled her faith as inherently anti-Semitic, and directly slandered her, you did not reciprocate, at least not at first.
That probably sounds more accusatory than I’d want it to sound but… it is an observation.