"Is Yoga dangerous for Christians?" -M

Hello M!

The principal behind all that follows (and if you forget everything else, here's the key) is in these two points:

1. There is a universal Truth about the universe: That the God of the Bible is the creator of everything and the only way to restore our eternal relationship with Him is through faith in Jesus (belief that He is God, that He died to pay for our sins, and trusting Him to take care of them).

2. All beliefs that deny #1 are purposeful lies: Satan (the Devil) is the father of lies. His mission on earth is to keep as many as possible from salvation. He uses any means necessary to do this, which includes atheism, belief in other gods, and even belief in the Biblical God without faith in Jesus (that last one is worth a whole email sometime).


Yoga

Yoga has two masks. One is simply stretching and relaxation exercises. The other is rooted in Buddhism (a branch of Hinduisim).

Behind both masks (exercise and religion) is the truth that a false religion is controlled and propogated by Satan to distract people from God and His mission (to either keep them from being saved, or keep them from being effective Christians allowing others to be saved). I found a link to the "origin of yoga", which sounds friendly and historical enough, but if you read carefully, you can see some dangers:

-Classical yoga tries "to quiet the mind and merge with the infinite" Quieting the mind is good, but diving into spiritual things is dangerous, without God's protection, Satan rules here and all who are not God's are his. The lie here comes from the root belief that the "infinite" or the "universe" is god, that we are all god. This denies the sovereignty of the true God, and makes us out to be the most important beings ourselves.

-Modern yoga changes terms, saying that "embracing perfection of the body as the only path to enlightenment". This is a less overtly anti-Christian or even religious face, but it's still the same beast. It's still all about our perfection, "self-actualization" and personal sovereignty. It doesn't take long before it's drawing us into the unprotected spiritual side through "mind-body-spirit connections". You can see the true intentions based simply on how it became part of American culture, through hippies who were "embracing many aspects of Eastern teaching and philosophy as they sought to distance themselves from the "establishment" and the traditional American values they so actively rejected".


Relativism

New Age, Yoga, Buddhism and Hinduism (even Agnostic culture) is all really one concept, and the label they like to use for it is "tolerance", but it's an incorrect use of the word. It's really "relativism" or "subjectivism" which means "whatever you believe is true for you, but what I believe is true for me." Aside from the obvious, that a thing can't be true and not true at the same time (either I'm sitting at my computer or I'm not), this idea is what philosophers call "self defeating". If they are right, then what I believe is true. But, what I believe is that they are not right, so if they are right, then they are wrong. Get it?


Application

What does all this mean practically? Does it mean you should never do relaxation or meditation? Not necessarily. While you are a young Christian, I'd avoid it because even innocently, it can be a gateway into deeper stuff. But, some of those ideas have a foundation in the Bible (1 Kings19:11-13; Psalm 46:10; Joshua 1:8). The point is that you're meditating on God and the Scriptures, which brings out the big principal that Anything that does not acknowledge God eventually becomes corrupted by Satan. This can be true of TV, romance, eating and even the love of a mother. All sin stems from breaking the 1st commandment ("no other gods before me"), so anything that becomes more important than God becomes an idol or "false god". If your eyes are fixed on Jesus as #1 priority, then all your other priorities will line up (Matthew 22:36-37; Matthew 14:30-32; Hebrews 12:2).


I know that was a lot to read (and probably more than you wanted to think about), but I hope you found at least some of it helpful. Feel free to follow up with questions or reactions.


Check out This Present Darkness. It's a fiction novel, and actually a fun and exciting read, but it does a good job of giving a picture (imaginary, but not unbiblical) of how angels and demons relate to us, and how things like yoga can be used by the devil to seriously ensnare people.


your friend and brother in Christ,

Jeff