Yogi Bear

In the mood for Cry Eye by Son Dam Bi


I was (and am still) never fond of yoga. Aside from being.. a plus-sized person, I found it not as interesting as BoA/DBSK/Rain/Son Dam Bi's moves. I don't even care if my friends said it really works; the sweats will come out as mad as the heavy rain or whatsoever. No yoga for me, no.

Let's for now put aside the mantras thingie. Yep I know most of you yogis don't do chanting in your yoga classes.

But the most important reason to me is the name of one of the poses which is Surya-namaskar (Sun Salutation). You see, I'd been reading a book about yoga nearly 20 years ago, when this thing wasn't a fad yet in this country. It was interesting to see the pictures of people doing the bending and twisting - like playing Twister ahaks :P. But then when I saw the name of that one pose, I was quite appalled with it. And suddenly the whole thing turned to be not as interesting as I thought.

In my opinion, though by doing the pose we don't actually saluting the sun (and never intend to, well, for the more-religious type, yeah), other non-Muslim yogis might see (and say) that we're doing that. And for people who don't even bother to be Muslim-friendly (or worst, those who are Muslim haters), they might say "Oh? And I thought they only bow to Lord Allah?". How does that feel, ladies and gentlemen? I had this thing happened quite recently when I shake my clasped hands up and down unintentionally, and this one stupid fella asked me (jokingly but hurtfully) "tuhan mana ko sembah ni?" (dalam hati aku cakap kurang hajar punye mangkok, rase nak lempang2).

Okay, you can say that, "Yeah, like whatever. It's not like we *really* salute the sun." If, and I say IF, the classes you have in that cool, air-conditioned, windowless room is actually made for the class followers to face the sun, what say you?

The fatwa done recently is not wrong, if you, as a Muslim, think about it deeply. Try to really, really ponder on it carefully before bashing here and there (I found Malaysian loves to bash everything about the government recently. Not that I'm pro-Gov or whatsoever). Bash me if you want, I'm all ears.

Besides, I'd rather love Yogi Bear than being a yogi.

ThE DeaTh aNd ThE StRaWBeRRy