Yoga and Hinduism
An Anglican church in Bristol has recently decided to cancel yoga classes in its church hall. After nine years of leasing out its hall to a yoga practitioner, St Michael and All Angels church has now concluded that “the primary purpose of these buildings is the worship of God as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ”. They have come to believe that yoga is “incompatible with the Christian faith” and is linked to “alternative spiritualities”. Are they right?
Yoga may appear merely to involve physical exercises. Classes in Hatha yoga (the branch of yoga most common in the West) have mushroomed in halls and gyms across the western world in the last few decades. It claims to reduce stress, emphasising stretching exercises as a means of relaxation, toning muscles and releasing toxins by increasing blood flow; in essence yoga is touted as a fitness solution to the stresses of our manic twenty-first-century lifestyle. There can be little doubt that moderate physical exercise is good for body and mind and, in that sense, it can spiritually be a “neutral” activity. Yoga encourages people in the West to accept its physical benefits, while often making no reference to anything spiritual.
However, if we dig a little deeper into yoga’s roots we see that the physical aspect is only part of the story. Under the surface lies something dark and sinister. Yoga is religious in its character and is taught within all Hindu sects as a way to earn salvation. They say, “There is no yoga without Hindu and no Hindu without yoga”. Indeed they go on: “Divorcing any aspect of yoga from its Hindu roots is dishonest and a grave insult to a great world religion”. The word yoga comes from a Sanskrit word which means “to yoke or unite with god”, found in ancient Hindu texts. (Sanskrit is the classical language of India, used in Hindu rituals.) The stated aim is for the person to unite in spirit with the Hindu god Brahman, claimed to be the ultimate divine reality, considered impersonal and one with nature and the cosmos. This union, it is taught, is a means of redemption from “karma” – the consequences of one’s actions in supposed previous incarnations. The claim is that man and god become essentially one – which is pantheism and self-worship.
So these apparently-innocent stretching exercises are not simply designed to tone the body but are said to help attain spiritual growth and are one part of an eight-stage process on the road to “enlightenment”. The body, it is claimed, is being prepared by physical postures, breathing control and meditation to energise so-called “life forces” or “energy channels”. The mind is “emptied” as one turns inward, seeking “truth” in one’s own consciousness, rather than in the Word of God. For many Hindus, the desire is for a point of stillness in the mind which leads on to a degree of “enlightenment” which brings about “liberation from the cycle of reincarnation”. The Yoga Journal states, “Connecting the mind, body, and breath helps us to direct our attention inward. Through this process . . . we learn to recognise our habitual thought patterns without labelling them, judging them, or trying to change them.” This is certainly anti-Christian and leaves the mind open to Satan’s devices.
Hatha yoga claims to provide spiritual balance. “Ha” means sun or right while “tha” means moon or left. The sun and the moon and right and left are represented as giving balance to each other, uniting the soul with the divine while releasing energy in the body. Mantras (words or phrases used repeatedly) are claimed to give psycho-spiritual power. One exercise is called “Surya Namaskara”, which means “sun salutation” and consists of greeting and doing homage to Surya, the Hindu sun deity. Some gyms have a time of meditation repeating the word, “Om”, regarded by Hindus as the sound that created the universe, and some may, at the end of a session, repeat the word “Namaste”, which means “I bow to the god within”. These exercises are often dressed up in secular, western terms but the spiritual rituals are deeply symbolic and their aim seems to be to instil false religion into participants.
Tantric yoga, possibly rarer in the West, is at the extreme end of the scale, but still emanates from Hinduism and is alleged to use barbaric practices involving the occult, sorcery, and even human sacrifices and other unspeakable perversions.
Average people in the West, attending a yoga class but ignorant of its background, may not realise that it could have a very dangerous impact on their lives – opening their minds to demonic influences. How we need to look to the Saviour to deliver us from all evil powers, false religions and practices with satanic origins! The myriads enslaved in Hinduism also need Christ to set them free. The church in Bristol was right. Yoga is incompatible with Christianity. The Word of God tells us: “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Eph 5:11). It also warns: “Abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Th 5:22). KHM
Abortion Vote
In February, the House of Commons voted by 292 to 201 to reject an amendment which would have clarified the law on abortion. MP Fiona Bruce proposed making it explicit that abortion on the grounds of gender (most commonly because the unborn child is female) is illegal. Government parties allowed a free vote while Labour MPs were directed to vote against it.
The Prime Minister was among those who argued that the practice is already illegal; they are probably right, but one questions, especially in the light of this vote, if there is the will on the part of public prosecutors to act. The shadow Home and Health Secretaries have objected to the amendment’s use of the phrase “unborn child”, claiming that it could have “long-term consequences” which might “undermine the framework of abortion law”. They are afraid that anything that would recognise the foetus as a child will endanger the virtually-unrestricted practice of abortion and is therefore to be resisted, even if they might otherwise disapprove of abortion on the grounds of gender. It is amazing the lengths to which people will go to continue the slaughter of millions of unborn children.
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal 6:7).