A brief overview with article links on Yoga for Christians. It is dangerous, and should not be practiced by Christians!
Classical Yoga Hindu Academy States:
“Is Yoga a religion that denies Jesus Christ? Yes. Just as Christianity denies the Hindu MahaDevas such as Siva, Vishnu, Durga and Krishna, to name a few, Hinduism and its many Yogas have nothing to do with God and Jesus (though we do respect
that others believe in this way). As Hindus who live the Yogic lifestyle, we appreciate when others understand that all of Yoga is all about the Hindu religion. Modern so-called ‘yoga’ is dishonest to Hindus and to all non-Hindus such as the Christians.”
Danda,
Dharma Yoga Ashram
(Classical Yoga Hindu Academy)
Pagan Practices
“The practice of Yoga is pagan at best, and occult at worst. Its teachings emanate from the Eastern religions, all of which teach that self is God, only we just don’t realize it until we do the techniques. ‘The goal of Yoga is self-realization-to look deeply within to what ought to be the temple of the one true God and to discover the alleged true Self or higher Self to be God. Nothing could be more religious than that, yet with straight faces, all of the Yogis insist that practicing Yoga does not change anyone’s religious beliefs.’”— Mike Oppenheimer, Let Us Reason Ministries, Read More …
“When Westerners employ yoga techniques as a means to improve their health, they should understand that they can also be producing subtle changes within themselves which will have dramatic spiritual consequences that will not be for the better. Regardless of the school or spiritual tradition, yoga practice tends to alter a person’s consciousness in an occult direction.”—John Ankerberg, Innocent Yoga?
Gimmie Yoga, a Burger and Fries
This week I had yet another new shock to the system. While standing in line to order a Number 3 meal at the local McDonalds®, I noticed an interesting new promotion that is taking place. They now have Adult Happy Meal. This is pretty cool because the kids always got some pretty neat toys. The adult meal also comes with a prize, but I was kind of shocked when I found out what it is … a DVD on Yoga.
Well on my bag for my Big Mac®, I found a handy URL telling me more about this and I checked it out.
Here is what they say…
15 Minutes of Sane
Feeling stressed? Try Yoga. It helps relax the mind and rejuvenate the body and spirit. Plus, it’s great for improving flexibility.
Your exclusive McDonald’s® Yourself!Fitness® Yoga DVD offers four different 15 minute workouts to help improve your mood and your energy level. You can customize your Yoga workout by choosing a language, difficulty level and your
area of focus—flexibility, stress relief, balance or strength.
The eastern thought of New Age mentality is not only entering the burger joints of America, but it has made a strong entrenchment in a place not as suspecting … our churches today. Read entire article by Ray Gano of Prophezine.
East and West, The Two Shall Never Meet
“Christianity cannot be integrated with yoga and remain Christian. To think otherwise imperils the Christian truth and faith. As the managing editor of ‘Hinduism Today,’ Sannyasin Arumugaswami, remarks, ‘Hinduism is the soul of yoga ‘based as it is on Hindu Scripture and developed by Hindu sages. Yoga opens up new and more refined states of mind, and to understand them one needs to believe in and understand the Hindu way of looking at God. … A Christian trying to adapt these practices will likely disrupt their own Christian beliefs‘.’ East is east, and west is west, and if Christianity is to remain Christian, ‘the twain’ should never be married. Can yogic practices be integrated with the Christian faith? Pastor Larry De Bruyn
Can We Separate the Exercise From the Philosophy?
“There is a common misconception in the West that hatha-yoga, one of about ten forms of Yoga that supposedly leads to self-realization, is merely a neutral form of exercise, a soothing and effective alternative for those who abhor jogging and calisthenics …
“[However], Hatha-yoga is ‘one of the six recognized systems of orthodox Hinduism’ and is at its roots religious and mystical. It is also one of the most difficult and potentially dangerous [spiritually] forms of Yoga. “The term hatha is derived from the verb hath, which means ‘to oppress.’… What the practice of hatha-yoga is designed to do is suppress the flow of psychic energies through these channels ["symbolic, or psychic, passages on either side of the spinal column"], thereby forcing the ’serpent power’ or the kundalini force to rise through the central psychic channel in the spine (the sushumna) and up through the chakras, the supposed psychic centers of human personality and power. Westerners mistakenly believe that one can practice hatha-yoga apart from the philosophical and religious beliefs that undergrid it. This is an absolutely false belief. …
“You cannot separate the exercises from the philosophy. … ‘The movements themselves become a form of meditation.’ The continued practice of the exercises will, whether you … intend it or not, eventually influence you toward an Eastern/mystical perspective. That is what it is meant to do! … There is, by definition, no such thing as ‘neutral’ Yoga” —Johanna Michaelsen, Like Lambs to the Slaughter, pp. 93-95).
Closer to A World Religion?
“Jacobs teaches meditation Judeo-Christian-style and minimizes the more overtly Hindu aspects of yoga in his classes—not to accommodate his Catholicism so much as to accent his universalism. ‘I honor the Hindu path, the Buddhist path, the Sufi path,’ he states with Midwestern matter-of-factness. ‘I do not think that Christians have a monopoly on paradise.’—A Look at Yoga and Religious Belief By Alan Reder
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One Comment
a few of these justifications on the negativity of yoga seem to be without any consideration for the true relations between the philosophies of yogi teachers and those of christ, most of these statements seem to reflect a culture bias unrelated to even a simplistic christian notion–equality of man, yoga is a path outside hinduim and buddhism, but its ideas have reflections within these doctrines, most yogi teachers would also even consider jesus christ as divine, seeing his beliefs as truth–most here on this website seem to reflect modern christian ideals relating more to culture idealogies rather than christ’s actually day to day lifestyle