Russian seeks to halt yoga
NZPA-Reuter Moscow An official Soviet newspaper called for the teaching of yoga to be stopped in the Soviet Union because it spreads ideas hostile to Communist ideology. “Sovietskaya Kultura” said that yoga, which involves meditation and exercises which Hindu philosophy holds brings a person closer to the “supreme spirit,” could lead to schizophrenia, dislocation of limbs, and damage the spine. The aim of yoga “to join the ‘l’ with the ocean of divine reason” contradicted Communist ideology and atheism, it said. One yoga teacher, Ya Koltunov, had been ex- . pelled from the ruling Communist Party for leading a group which had become a “hotbed of mystic ideas alien to our ideology,” it added.
“There are still groups and circles, the leaders of which, starting with the yoga ‘cobra position,’ end up spitting poison at our system and country. We must always and in all places fight these hawkers of spiritual disease,” the. newspaper said.
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Press, 17 December 1986, Page 6
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159Russian seeks to halt yoga Press, 17 December 1986, Page 6
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