Knitting is not the new yoga
A couple of months ago, during Christmas, I fancied to learn to knit. I had already made myself a scarf some time ago but wanted to learn a little more with my mother. The idea of selecting the wool, the colors and create a garment manually by yourself attracted me a lot.
My surprise was to find a bit later a kind of urban legend on social networks saying … “Knitting is the new yoga”. The first thing I thought was: “that is a marketing technique, that’s all”. I was sorry for that but it made me laugh at the same time while thinking as if one could reach samadhi and realize himself knitting!
It is a very relaxing activity, there is no doubt, I could almost say that it is a kind of an active meditation and that’s when I started to wonder a bit. In this photo, for example, I’m finishing a scarf for my dear brother and while I was knitting, my mind was wondering … is this Karma Yoga? Then I found an article on the internet saying that when one knits, the same areas of the brain are being activated as during a meditation.
To find out more about this and clarify myself for sure, I decided to ask my yoga teacher: Ramiro Calle. His answer was literally as follows:
“It all depends on the attitude, but you cannot ignore the meditation; what it matters is to bring a meditative attitude to activities such as drink tea, make tea, walking or caress someone.
Unfortunately there are many marketing techniques in the spiritual supermarket. Samadhi is not reached even by knitting during two hundred lives without stopping. Buddha was not enlighted by knitting, but once achieved that level, knitting is different. It looks the same but is not the same.”
So… ladies and gentlemen, knitting is not the new yoga!
Big hugs to everyone and thanks for your comments.
* Photos: Dalalba