The Problem With Yoga

[Aloysius]

I am against the western use of Yoga for two reasons:

One: I think it is disrespectful to hindu culture. We wrench these things out of their context in typical western fashion and either follow their spiritual beliefs as well in New Age ways (which is actually respectful to hindu culture, but not an option for a Christian) or we declare that we can use their rituals with no spiritual consequence, as if it was nothing more than another way of excercise like stretching or jogging. To me, that is terribly disrespectful to their beleifs

I also think that mindset is terribly naive to spiritual realities. These acts are inextricably linked to their spiritual realities. Doing Yoga will make you more in line with a philosophy of balance between good and evil and mellow indifference towards their differences. No matter what mindset you take while doing them, you are still acting out these motions which were specifically designed within their cosmology to bring about a specific mindset.

In Anthropology, there is something known as the "Law of Unintended Effects". It is based on the idea that culture is a complex indivisible whole, and therefore the removal of any aspect of culture or the introduction of any other aspect will automatically have an effect on every aspect of that culture. The introduction of yoga into our culture, even if it is attempted to be done with an explicit intention to not partake in hindu worship, it will have a hinduizing effect on the culture of the participant.

Self-absorbed self-improvement with these spiritual undertones is not acceptable for a Christian in my humble opinion. Kundalini yoga is the most dangerous and should not be attempted by anyone in western culture. But even the lesser types, the Hatha yoga and such, is disrespectful to both hindu culture and to our own culture and is contrary to true Christian practice.

There's a few good resources on the subject of why Yoga should be avoided that I tend to agree with; some of them have a fundamentalist Christian taint which makes them less convincing and I less agree with their POV... but there are some good Catholic perspectives as well. Listed in order of credibility of POV:

[url="http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=2927"]http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=2927[/url]

[url="http://www.yogadangers.com/"]http://www.yogadangers.com/[/url]

I hope the only person who agrees with me isn't Budge, but I'll gladly accept her support. Yoga is incompatible with Christianity.

[KnightofChrist]

I agree I am shock that Christianity is in most all cases forbidden in the public now. But the city I once worked for has yoga classes, and the local school has them as well. Yoga is "ok" but dont dare say that name "Jesus Christ"

Amazing...

Yoga is completely and absolutely incompatible with Christianity, an Christian can not serve two masters, we either serve God and God alone, or we do not. Yoga is counter to God, counter to Christ.

Edited April 4, 2007 by KnightofChrist

[KnightofChrist]

Counter to what some believe Pope John Paul II was very much against the "New Age Movement" he had this to say about it.

"We cannot delude ourselves that this will lead toward a renewal of religion. It is only a new way of practicing gnosticism-that attitude of the spirit that, in the name of a profound knowledge of God, results in distorting His Word and replacing it with purely human words. Gnosticism never completely abandoned the realm of Christianity. Instead, it has always existed side by side with Christianity, sometimes taking the shape of a philosophical movement, but more often assuming the characteristics of a religion or para-religion in distinct, if not declared, conflict with all that is essentially Christian."

[Tony]

I dont know much about yoga, but.. as far as the worship goes.. it's all about intent, isn't it?

[Aloysius]

not in my estimation. the practice of yoga is inherently dangerous to a Christian whether or not they intend to practice hinduism. you cannot just take these highly ritualistic forms out of their context and assume that doing them will have no spiritual effects. that's the simple problem of Hatha Yoga; the problem of Kundalini Yoga is more serious: you can stimulate stuff in your body which can induce psychotic states or disrupt your sleep schedule. Hatha Yoga has spiritual effects to; affecting you towards a mindset of balance between good and evil, and giving into an inherently immoral selfish focus on development.

sure, it gets rid of stress... mellowing you out even when it comes to important things that you should not be mellow about. it empties your mind, and affects your philosophy of life experientially. these excercises are highly crafted precisely oriented towards furthering the path of hinduist enlightenment. by doing them you begin to experience that hindu ascent towards enlightenment even if you don't believe in it, even if you don't think it, even if you intend not to do so. it is an inherently hindu act and it cannot be seperated out of hinduism.

[cathoholic_anonymous]

I can agree with much of what Aloysius says, apart from the idea that performing yoga has a 'Hinduizing effect on the culture of the participant'. When I was teaching in Nepal all the children had a compulsory yoga class at dawn. This was a spiritual event, a prelude to morning prayer. One day I went to watch. The teacher was explaining the different meanings behind the yoga poses and teaching the children certain meditations to use. It was all pretty complex - the teacher kept referring to ancient Sanskrit texts. If you are learning 'yoga' from a rubbish celebrity DVD, I don't think you could imbibe this amount of cultural and religious knowledge just from carrying out the postures themselves.

I was wary of practising yoga at first for fear of unwittingly ridiculing Hinduism, especially as in Britain yoga is associated with D-list celebrities and bright pink lyrca leotards. But my physiotherapist, occupational therapist, and even the neurologist insisted that I give it a go. They wanted me to do Iyengar yoga, which was specifically designed for disabled practitioners by its creator, a Hindu himself. It is used as a therapeutic programme in some hospitals.

I still do some Iyengar exercises daily. They helped enormously - I can go outside on my own now, without people having to accompany me for fear that I'll fall over and hurt myself. This is good; it was a real nuisance having to be chaperoned everywhere. My balance is quite a lot better and apparently the way I walk no longer looks so abnormal. As a Christian, I did get some spiritual benefit out of yoga when I had been doing it for a few months - when I finally managed to master an excerise that even people without my disabilities find difficult, I was filled with overwhelming gratitude to God. I looked down at my legs and could hardly believe that they were mine. So I think yoga can be a good thing if it is done for the right reasons. It certainly didn't empty my mind.

Edited April 4, 2007 by Cathoholic Anonymous

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1229376' date='Apr 4 2007, 06:17 AM']not in my estimation. the practice of yoga is inherently dangerous to a Christian whether or not they intend to practice hinduism. you cannot just take these highly ritualistic forms out of their context and assume that doing them will have no spiritual effects. that's the simple problem of Hatha Yoga; the problem of Kundalini Yoga is more serious: you can stimulate stuff in your body which can induce psychotic states or disrupt your sleep schedule. Hatha Yoga has spiritual effects to; affecting you towards a mindset of balance between good and evil, and giving into an inherently immoral selfish focus on development.

sure, it gets rid of stress... mellowing you out even when it comes to important things that you should not be mellow about. it empties your mind, and affects your philosophy of life experientially. these excercises are highly crafted precisely oriented towards furthering the path of hinduist enlightenment. by doing them you begin to experience that hindu ascent towards enlightenment even if you don't believe in it, even if you don't think it, even if you intend not to do so. it is an inherently hindu act and it cannot be seperated out of hinduism.[/quote]

I suppose you object to karate as well? After all those are ritualistic Korean movements that you do after a meditation.

[Mateo el Feo]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' post='1229416' date='Apr 4 2007, 10:04 AM']I suppose you object to karate as well? After all those are ritualistic Korean movements that you do after a meditation.[/quote]<Nerd Alert>
Karate=Japanese, Tae Kwon Do=Korean.
</Nerd Alert>

Edited April 4, 2007 by Mateo el Feo

[Aloysius]

but they are not directed at acheiving certain emotional stages on the ascent towards nirvana; they are self-difence moves.

yoga is made to enduce different psychological and emotional states; carefully crafted to be stages on the path to enlightenment. it is not at all the same as the different martial arts, its purpose is psychological meditative states, meditation directed by the movements of the body. everything about yoga is about inducing these emotional states.

The Catholic Culture artical is pretty good on the subject.

Cathoholic Anonymous, I don't know much about the specific type of yoga you describe, and it is certainly wonderful that you experience physical healing as a result of it. sounds like a few excercises which were non-meditative; not directed towards stress-releif and calmness... but I would still be wary of it. I'm not saying people who practice yoga are going to become brainless zombies when I talk of the emptying of the mind; I'm saying that following the directives of yoga ritualistically in these meditative types of ways will direct you through the stages of enlightenment at least emotionally and psychologically. anyway, what I'm most interested in condemning is Hatha yoga and especially Kundalini yoga; not yoga which is crafted to help overcome physical disablements as you describe..

anyway, this is an interesting alternative that I myself wouldn't assosiate with (cause it seems too pop-self-help-y for me) but ehh... it's interesting:
[url="http://www.praisemoves.com/"]http://www.praisemoves.com/[/url]
(it's from an evangelical christian perspective, so a bit of a grain of salt like I said) but it's artical on why it proposes an alternative is somewhat informative; of course, with that grain of salt:
[url="http://www.praisemoves.com/ChristianAlternative.htm"]http://www.praisemoves.com/ChristianAlternative.htm[/url]

[Aloysius]

Kundalini Yoga is definitely not to be attempted. Of this, we ought to all agree.
"One often hears and reads about the dangers of Yoga, particularly of the ill-reputed Kundalini Yoga. The deliberately induced psychotic state, which in certain unstable individuals might easily lead to a real psychosis, is a danger that needs to be taken very seriously indeed. These things really are dangerous and ought not to be meddled with in our typically Western way. It is a meddling with Fate, which strikes at the very roots of human existence and can let loose a flood of sufferings of which no sane person ever dreamed. These sufferings correspond to the hellish torments of the chönyid state..." C. G. Jung, Introduction to The Tibetan book of the Dead

for more information on all the dangers of Kundalini yoga:
[url="http://www.yogadangers.com/NewAge.htm"]http://www.yogadangers.com/NewAge.htm[/url]

But the most common type is Hatha yoga.

[quote]"Yoga is Hinduism." Subhas Tiwari, a professor of yoga philosophy and meditation at the Hindu University of America[/quote][quote]“Yes, all of yoga is Hinduism. Everyone should be aware of this fact." -Member of a Classical Yoga Acadamy[/quote]

[quote]“A small army of yoga missionaries – hatha, raja, siddha and kundalini – beautifully trained in the last 10 years, is about to set upon the western world. They may not call themselves Hindu, but Hindus know where yoga came from and where it goes.” -Swami Sivasiva Palani[/quote][quote]“[hatha yoga] prescribes physical methods to begin … so that the student can manipulate the mind more easily as he advances, attaining communication with one's higher self.” - Swami Vishnudevananda[/quote]

These are real hindus who really understand what yoga actually is; and I don't think we should brush that off. They see yoga as a missionary branch of their religion, basically.

[Budge]

Aloy you may be sitting alone on this one.

I cant tell you how many times Ive posted against yoga and even karate {Tai Chai etc} with dozens of outraged Catholics who probably take classes in both.

Better be careful, they may think you are not OPEN enough and ACCEPTING of other religions.

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[quote]They see yoga as a missionary branch of their religion, basically. [/quote]Hindus don't believe in converting people, as they believe that there is truth in all religions and not one is superior to another. Many Hindus say that it's impossible to convert; you have to be born a Hindu. This idea was explained to me in more detail when I was in Nepal - the locals get tired of overenthusiastic Westerners trying to embrace their faith. I think you're confusing 'mainstream' Hinduism (I use the word 'mainstream' with caution, as there is no clearly defined dogma within Hindu thought) with the Hare Krishna movement, which does seek to recruit people.

[quote]I cant tell you how many times Ive posted against yoga and even karate {Tai Chai etc} with dozens of outraged Catholics who probably take classes in both.[/quote]

To join Mateo under the 'Nerd Alert' banner, T'ai Chi is nothing to do with karate and bears no resemblance to it whatsoever. The purposes and principles of the two are completely different.

Nerd alert over, I really wish I had the ability to train in something like karate. There were a few nasty incidents of rape in Cambridge last year and the female students were offered the chance to take part in free karate classes. It would make me feel a lot safer when walking home at night if I knew a martial art. It's nothing to do with being 'open' and 'accepting' of other religions; it's to do with personal well-being.

[quote]I cant tell you how many times Ive posted against yoga and even karate {Tai Chai etc} with dozens of outraged Catholics who probably take classes in both.[/quote]

You should try talking to the Baptist pastor who is [i]giving[/i] the free karate classes. Clearly, it's not just Catholics who think that karate is a sport and a way of self-defence rather than a religious practice.

[Aloysius]

by missionary branch I didn't mean in the traditional sense of converting others to their beleif, but of spreading their religious practices. certain types of hindus want yogic ritual to unite all religions.

[Jaime]

and the practice of yoga makes you fluffy air extraction at inopportune moments

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Mateo el Feo' post='1229419' date='Apr 4 2007, 09:19 AM']<Nerd Alert>
Karate=Japanese, Tae Kwon Do=Korean.
</Nerd Alert>[/quote]
Thanks for the alerts... Next time use these


Not a big fan of yoga myself. But I'm not a big fan of any kind of exercise.... The one and only time I even did "yoga" was the day I found out I was pregnant with HStot. I wanted to assume the "cat" position and curl up for a nap on the mat. That was torturous.

I don't exactly have a problem with "stretching class" but why does it have to be "yoga" if you are stripping off all the Hindu elements and trying to Christianize it? It would be like saying that Protestants wanted to pray the Rosary... but they didn't want to use a rosary (too Catholic) and they weren't going to pray "Hail Marys" (ditto), but they were going to reflect upon the life of Christ. Well, that's fine. It's not praying the rosary though...

Why not call it "Stretching to Christian music" or something... "Christian Yoga" is an oxymoron in my book.