From the D&C comes this story about embracing eastern religions in a public school:
At French Road Elementary School, wellness initiatives — from yoga to nutritious eating — have become part of the classroom.
“We need to look at the whole child — mind, body, balance,” said Carolyn Rabidoux, the school’s assistant principal, during a celebration of the health efforts Friday morning at the school.
…
A video showed the students’ experience with yoga: Students said “peace breaths” helped them with their homework, and one girl described how yoga poses helped her from panicking when she was stuck with 16 people in an elevator meant to carry 12.
Students also demonstrated their yoga skills “soaring like flamingoes” and “exploding like volcanoes.”
“We were looking for a culture shift,” said Heidi Kaufman, who teaches yoga at the school. “Yoga becomes a tool and life skill.”
Some of you will say, “come on, Ben, Yoga in America is more about exercise and relaxing than it is about religion” to which I say “not so fast, my friend”. Wikipedia’s summary of Yoga.
Yoga refers to traditional physical and mental disciplines that originated in India. The word is associated with meditative practices in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Within Hinduism, it refers to one of the six orthodox (astika) schools of Hindu philosophy, and to the goal towards which that school directs its practices. In Jainism, yoga is the sum total of all activities — mental, verbal and physical.
more on yoga here