Kemetic Yoga as a Social Movement for Cultural Regeneration What is Kemetic Yoga?
It is much more than merely doing poses that come from the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs and temples. Kemetic Yoga is a social, cultural and political movement which emerged out of the struggle for liberation of African people all over the world. We invite all people to participate in this system of Yoga as a positive means of total self development but it’s underlying motive is the restoration and rejuvenation of the culture, health and well-being of a people that has been intentionally and systematically locked out of the telling of world history by the dominant political economic structure which is controlled by a worldwide minority.
Kemetic Yoga promotes the practices, philosophy and spiritual science of our ancestors from ancient Kemet, Africa as a whole and the worldwide African presence. We believe that all Yoga can be good but we reject blind philosophical adherence to watered down cliches about universal love while those in the superior social, political and economic position only mouths the phrases but does not practice it in action.
The Pose of Immortality Discovered, Deciphered and Perfected by Dr. Asar Hapi and Yirser Ra Hotep of Chicago in the 1970s to Initiate the Kemetic Yoga Movement. This is the Root of the Modern Practice of Kemetic Yoga. Demonstrates the African/Kemetic Roots of Yoga. This Sacred Posture is Not Known in India
The Kemetic Yoga Movement recognizes that the mainstream Yoga industry is controlled ideologically, economically, politically and socially by a small group of business people and ideologues whose purpose is to perpetuate the myth of Yoga as an exclusively Indian/Hindu phenomenon, the Sanskrit language as the spiritual and only legitimate language of Yoga and India as a utopia of spirituality culture. This small group who controls the Yoga industry in America, a multi-billion dollar industry, has an obvious vested interest in perpetuating the India Centered myth of Yoga.
Feuerstein Claims Yoga purely of Indian origin and that there was never an Aryan Invasion of Black India that annihilated and suppresses the original Native People.
The Sudras at the Bottom of This Pyramid are Black People of India Held down by Virtue of this Color and a False Application of the Idea of Karmic Debt.
Will This Book Ever Be Featured in Yoga Journal?
This is not the image of India Georg Feuerstein and Gaiam want you to have.
The Black Dalit, so-called Untouchables Continue to Fight for their Freedom
Compilation of Writings by Yirser Ra Hotep on Various Aspects of Kemetic Yoga
This small group controls the organs of Yoga information and products through Yoga Journal and Gaiam and controls the definition and legitimacy of Yoga through Yoga Alliance. As importantly they control historical and philosophical understanding of Yoga in the minds of Yoga devotees through the publications of Georg Feurerstein and those he has influenced.
The conferences where Yoga information and “truth” are disseminated are sponsored and conducted by this small exclusive group of white people who consciously, systematically and intentionally excludes all content that runs counter to their narrative of Indian Centered Yoga. They have extended their control to the degree that even Yoga proponents from India are largely excluded from their world and almost all of the teachers, scholars, writers, lecturers, presenters and workshop facilitators are white people.
Why Has a Kemetic Yoga Practice Been Featured in Yoga Journal and Disguised as Kundalini Yoga? (Kia Miller is a featured presenter at Caribbean Yoga Conference). Why isn’t Kemetic Yoga acknowledged as even existing?
The predominant popular forms of Yoga i.e., Ashtanga, Iyengar, Kundalini, Kripalu, Integral, etc., are all represented by white “masters”. Other popular Yoga brands such as Forest Yoga (Anna Forest), Anusara (John Friend) were “created” by whites. You also have Yoga chain stores like Core Power Yoga and YogaWorks that are owned by white men and perpetuate Yoga as primarily a physical workout incorporating weights and other popular devices. The only major player of Indian descent left is Bikram Choudhury who has created an empire through ruthless business strategy and tactics aimed at protecting his system of “hot Yoga” from those in the mainstream industry he perceives as attempting to coop it.
Our empirical research demonstrates that the only thing about Yoga that is exclusive to India is the word itself which may be of Sanskrit origin. Examples of the practices, philosophy and science of Yoga can be found all over the world and are intrinsic aspects of African culture and the Black culture throughout the diaspora.
Black people created and continue to create their own forms of Yoga independent and in total isolation of any influence from India or Indian-centered “teachers”. This is why we reject Indian-based Yoga missionary incursions into Africa as another attempt at cultural imperialism by white liberals who do not understand the internal strength and power of African people. As Edward Bruce Bynum points out in the “African Unconscious” the concept of Yoga is of primordial African origin and permeates the underlying fabric of African and Black Diasporic consciousness from which it was transmitted throughout the world. Our Soul Yoga Fest as recently held in Jamaica was not meant to teach the
people Yoga and inoculate them with foreign terminology and concepts but to help them to express the genius they have inside of them already! The people who originally created Yoga do not need to be taught to say namaste or savasana or about Yoga sutras, Patnajali or eight limbs concepts. They have their own language and their own method of expression. They simply need to be awakened to the fact that they are the progenitors and not impoverished receivers of aid from the charitable liberals.
On the Indian subcontinent our allegiance is with the Dalit, the so-called Untouchables who are systematically oppressed, suppressed and essentially destroyed under the historical system of caste that placed the darkest and original people (Dravidians) of India at the bottom in a perpetual damnation based upon a fake and utterly false concept of karma (see Ancient Future by Wayne B. Chandler and the African Presence in Early Asia by Runoko Rashidi). Our allegiance is with the Sacred Feminine Energy (Shakti/Shiva Godhead) which has for thousands of years has been crushed and sublimated under the male figure of God called Brahma through oppressive Hindu domination.
Those who come into the Kemetic Yoga and YogaSkills Method family from other systems of Yoga or with no experience need to understand the history of our movement and that our objective is not to beg for inclusion and integration into the mainstream Yoga world on their terms but to create our own vehicles whereby we can define and create for ourselves. Let us be totally clear that if anyone plans to be a prime member of this movement that they are obligated to do the research and devote much thought to the information and perspectives discussed above. We have an extensive reading list in our training manual for teachers, which are now over 400 pages. Have you taken the time to read the manual, purchase the books and read them so that you can be truly educated in the Kemetic Yoga system and perspectives?
