Hindu religious leaders have strongly criticized a Catholic spiritual teacher for encouraging her pupils to find God through yoga.
Winnie Young, 96, meanwhile, questions why people misunderstand yoga to be a religion.
Young who studied yoga under one of the world's leading yoga practitioners, Yogacharya BKS Iyengar, claims to have spent most of her life teaching yoga.
She says the national yoga institute that she founded in 1975 practices Hatha yoga, which advocates controlled breathing to calm the body and cleanse the mind in an effort to achieve nirvana – an elevated mental state.
Explaining how yoga helped her draw closer to Christ, Young says, “I have been led by my Christian beliefs, but I don’t do indoctrination. I teach as a Christian, my Christian principles guide me.”
In her book “Yoga for the Christian,” Young concedes that she knows yoga is based on an Eastern philosophy but says Christians don’t have to accept the Hindu beliefs incorporated in yoga.
“[Christians] can learn the techniques and use it in a better way,” she says
Ashwn Trikamjee, the head of the South African Hindu Maha Sabha, however, has criticized Young's ideas.
"It's hypocrisy of the highest order. I don’t understand how anyone can teach yoga from a Christian background," he commented.
Trikamjee further added that if Christians want to teach yoga, they should teach the true form and not be guided by any religion.
Yoga teacher Kanchana Moodliar, on the other hand, feels that it is possible to teach yoga from different faith perspectives.
“Yoga does form part of the Hindu religion, but does that mean we need to own it and not share it? Are we not about sharing, tolerance, embracing all and about making better people, no matter what their religion is?” she asked.
“Yoga is a philosophy, and the practice is an exact science aimed at reaching a higher consciousness, so it can be adopted by anyone who has a yearning to connect with the Divine," Moodliar continued.
“So, whether yoga is taught from a Christian point of view or Hindu, as long as it enables the yogi to get into their bodies and through the body reach a higher consciousness, who are we to stop that?” she said.
Last September, two church halls in England refused to allow a children's exercise class to be held on their premises because it taught "un-Christian" yoga.
At the time, the Rev. Tim Jones, vicar of St. James’s, defended the decision, saying: “Yoga may appear harmless or even beneficial, but it is encouraging people to think that there is a way to wholeness of body and mind through human techniques – whereas the only true way to wholeness is by faith in God through Jesus Christ.”
Yoga instructor Louise Woodcock, however, insisted that her class had no religious content at all, and only involve music and movement.
“I explained to the church that my yoga is a completely nonreligious activity. Some types of adult yoga are based on Hindu and Buddhist meditation but it’s not a part of the religion and there is no dogma involved,” she said.
Comments
The FACTS are that all of real Yoga Is Hinduism. When "Hindu Leaders" try and convince others that "yoga fits into their religion," they are acting out from a universalist/fundamentalist point of view. This type of Hindu believes that Hinduism is the "Mother of all religions," and thus everyone is really practicing a portion of the original Hindu religion. Thankfully not all Hindus believe in this way.
The bottom line is that if you are "doing yoga," you have to know that (even if it is not disclosed) you are studying Hinduism. If you want to study our religion (Hinduism/Yoga) fine, just do not be blind-sided.
Swami Param
Classical Yoga Hindu Academy
The contact with 'the divine' is also a misnomer. Contact with "the supernatural" is more like it. Or contact with your own mind. But to believe when you contact those things that it is God, however you may think of Him, is blasphemy, because he has said not to try and contact him the way pagans contact their 'gods.'
Understanding the New Spirituality
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2008/04/understanding_t.html
These practices are worthless to the Christian for increasing one's 'spirituality' and are a slap in the face of the sufficiency of Christ/the Word for our salvation and sanctification.
http://kimolsen.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/yoga-is-occult/
Interesting article!
There are quite a number of people I have met who not only claim to be Christian but pastors who, as it turned out, were involved in many methods of divination and "harmless" practices that were definitely not of GOD!
Yoga is a geomantic practice from eastern mysticism including Hinduism and Buddism that most often involves chanting, and certain number of repititions of moves that are symbolic, etc... Yoga practices the deception of attaining a higher spiritual consciousness or "nirvana" enlightenment in self realization or self actualization through the human body totally without GOD, HIS WORD and the HOLY SPIRIT. Believe it or not this is idolatrous. Geomancy is divination which is an abomination to GOD! You cannot achieve "higher consciousness" and "divine connectivity" by mocking GOD and insulting HIM. Please beware of people like this who call themselves Christian but teach others that its harmless to combine divination with worshipping GOD and get "enlightenment!" This form of subtle seduction is a clear strategy of the devil and is nearly identical to the when devil seduced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Harmless?
The time before our LORD's return is so close and the devil is upping his strategies to deceive GOD's elect to seduce and distance them from GOD. Deception is rampant and this is just one of the enemy's many many schemes. That is why we need to lead lifestyles of spiritual warfare and pray like we've never prayed before, stay immersed in GOD's WORD and HIS SPIRIT and do our homework diligently, prayerfully! Be thankful in everything and give all praise and glory unto GOD!
Yes Jesus did spend time in prayer and meditation, but He meditated on the Word of God. He also prayed and communed with the Holy Spirit while He did that. Jesus' meditation wasn't focusing on Himself, he focused on the Father. Plus while He was mediating, i bet most of the time He was in the third heaven (Jn 3:13) since He only did what He saw His Father doing (Jn 5:19). The point is that we are supposed to meditate on the Word, not our body.
Freefallin... I think it's stretching it a bit to say that yoga in any form or fashion is demonic. Yoga is healthful for the body and medidation is at the heart of it. Did not Jesus Christ our Savior spend much time in prayer and meditation?
I don't care what style of yoga you do, it is still demonic. It has a spiritual root in the Spirit of Python (divination) which is referred to in Acts 16 where Paul casts it out of the girl who was fortune telling. Whether you want to admit it or not all the positions of yoga are worshiping different demons. So whether you want to say that you can connect to Jesus better when you open your spirit up to demons it is still wrong to do. God hates witchcraft and the Spirit of Divination.