Islam and Yoga

One question that I was meaning to ask you was whether there was anything significant (meditation, breathing and posturing) in the manner that Muslims pray.   

When they kneel they seem to take a yoga posture and the prayers that they recite multiple times a day can be seen as guiding their breathing and also allowing them to focus inwards.  Is this just a coincidence or are there historical links?"

Mi~Beloved’s reply:

The Islamic situation is a separate and to some extent independent development. But there was interchange between Indian culture and Arabian culture when the Muslims conquered India. For instance there is a pair of drums called tabla which are used primarily in India. But those drums were produced from an Indian drum by the Muslims when they conquered India.

The original Indian drum is called mirdunga. A Muslim drummer cut the mirdunga into two and then turned the two faces up and made the tabla which allows more precise notation when drumming.

Still each of those cultures developed methods independently.

The use of couches as we do today is based mostly on the spread of European influence after the discovery of the so called New World. Before that the only people who used couches were chiefs and their families. It was a status thing like for instance crowns and special head-dress. But even though nearly every home today has couches, still the wealthy people segregate themselves by using special name brand couches which the poorer segment of humanity cannot afford.

The kneeling, praying and corresponding breathing in Islam is a separate development and is not linked to yoga in India. The whole attitude of anything which begin in the Arabian Peninsula and the Sahara has to do with the pressures of the environment there but these people were in touch with India cultural all along and must have exchanged habits now and then.

Yoga however was developed for both physical and spiritual improvement but specifically for astral or psychic access in terms of self-discovery. Islam’s attitude is that God is great, so we will worship him as stipulated by Mohammed and then we will go about out regular business and convert anyone we meet along the way.

Christianity’s attitude is that God messed up in the beginning but he will compensate everyone who accepts his Son as the leader.

Yoga presents the idea that no matter who is responsible for this mess, you should dig yourself out of this grave. This is a psychic problem not a physical one. Hence the solution must be psychic, which means doing whatever is necessary to increase psychic perception by mental and emotional adjustments in the psyche.

As we came to know ourselves in this body, the situation is physically stressed. For yoga there should be a reduction in physical interest and an increase in psychic reach.