{"id":466,"date":"2012-07-31T07:00:09","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T07:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/?p=466"},"modified":"2012-07-31T01:49:50","modified_gmt":"2012-07-31T01:49:50","slug":"jesus-buddha-and-the-material-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/?p=466","title":{"rendered":"Jesus, Buddha, and the Material World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last week I alluded to my frustrations with the Westernized versions of Eastern philosophies. Last week it was in regard to the marketing world of yoga accessories. This week, my frustrations were further fueled when entering a tea store. A tea store laced with figures of Buddha and Eastern Religion, so overpriced and shiny. The clerks, wearing their fake smiles, and feeding us lines to try to get us to buy more. So skilled in their sales techniques were they that we had to listen closely in order to get out with only what we intended to buy. Never before have I used so many “No thank yous” at a register. And I began to recall the history of the Buddha. Wasn’t he about a life of poverty and freedom from attachments? This place wreaked of contradiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the same way that a yoga brand can monopolize an item, unnecessary to the practice of yoga but sold because they have convinced the Western tribe they “need” it.<\/p>\n

What happened to simplicity? Finding immense gratitude for what you have because you have disciplined yourself to not take more than you need.<\/h3>\n

Now, I know what you are thinking. This is a Christian blog. Why am I talking about Buddha.<\/h3>\n

Ok. Let’s take a look at Jesus. Jesus was a man who himself said had no place to lay his head, rejected by his own hometown. Yet a friend to the poor and sick, to the sinner and unclean. There is a documentary entitled “What would Jesus Buy”. It is a look into the consumerism of America and a challenge to consider the history behind what we buy as well as the true “need” for them.<\/p>\n

What would Jesus give us as a gift? His bread. A fish. His time. His touch. His life.<\/h3>\n

Are we the consumers Christ would want us to be? How can we live the philosophy of Christ with our wallets?<\/h3>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I alluded to my frustrations with the Westernized versions of Eastern philosophies. Last week it was in regard to the marketing world of yoga accessories. This week, my frustrations were further fueled when entering a tea store. A tea store laced with figures of Buddha and Eastern Religion, so overpriced and shiny. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yoga-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":469,"href":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions\/469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianyogastudio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}