I think there should be holy war against yoga classes.

Hearken, child of the long road, and listen to the strange thunder that came from the mouth of Werner Herzog: “I think there should be holy war against yoga classes.” Out of that jagged sentence springs a tension: a filmmaker famed for courting the abyss uses a phrase heavy with holy fury to lash out at something as gentle as a stretching room. To read the words aright, one must pry them from the hardness of provocation and look for the human grief beneath — a grief over the desecration of meaning, the commercialization of spirit, and the impatience of a soul that sees depth turned into a shallow theatre. Herzog’s phrase is a hammer blow meant to wake us, not a plan of battle to be obeyed.

Know the origin of such speech as born of irony and outrage. Herzog is a maker of myth and misery; he has spent decades watching modern lives skirt the abyss and call it art. When he speaks of a holy war, he borrows the language of extremity to name an aesthetic and moral alarm: the theft of an ancient discipline’s silence by soulless commerce, the reduction of a contemplative practice to merchandise, selfies, and playlists. In that sense the words are more searing than literal — a poet’s hyperbole aimed at cultural flattening rather than a call to arms against people on mats.

Yet we must not be careless with such speech. To speak of war in a world that knows its horrors is dangerous unless we immediately refuse literal violence. History offers stern correction when passion becomes cruelty. Remember the Luddites of the early 19th century: men and women who smashed machines in rage at the industry that displaced them. Their action was real and brutal; it met state force and repression, and it did not restore what was lost. Herzog’s metaphor, if wrenched into action, could mimic that tragic cycle: reaction becomes destruction and destroys its own moral foundation.

Consider instead an instructive counter-example where anger turned into artful reform rather than ruin. In the late 20th century some traditional musicians in colonized lands watched their songs sold as tourist novelty and, instead of annihilating the trade, formed collectives, schools, and archives to teach the original forms. From the sting of commercialization arose revival and deeper public respect. This is the wiser kind of “war” Herzog may secretly wish for: a sustained campaign of education and reclamation, not arson or insult, a fight of craft and conscience rather than of blood.

So what is the lesson that walks from these words into your hands? First: anger must be disciplined by wisdom. If you rage against what you love being cheapened, transform that rage into guardianship. Study the roots of the practice you cherish; speak publicly about its history; teach with humility the discipline that was lost. Second: refuse literal violence. Language that calls for holy war must be refashioned into language that calls for restoration — repair of meaning, not annihilation of persons. The moral life chooses repair over ruin.

Practical actions then, for the listener who seeks to honor depth and avoid folly: learn the origin of the practice you critique; support teachers who carry authentic lineage; create spaces where nuance and history are taught alongside technique; speak clearly about appropriation and profiteering without demonizing individuals who find solace on a mat. If you are an artist or critic, write and make as Herzog does — but use your platform to illuminate pathways for renewal, so that the commodity becomes again a conduit for richness.

Finally, carry this ancient counsel in your breast: words that set the world aflame must be wielded as if they could kindle hearths, not burn villages. Herzog’s barb is a summons — not to literal battle, but to a fierce guardianship of meaning. Let your response be proportional, creative, and humane. Wage no holy war upon people who seek calm; wage instead a patient, unyielding work of education, repair, and the protection of what is sacred.