Is Yoga contrary to our faith?

[Lorenzo]

While the physical aspects of Yoga can be beneficial, the spiritual aspects may be harmful as they flow into "New Age" religiosity. The Church’s reflection on the New Age, Jesus Christ: The Bearer of the Water of Life, warns us:


Yoga, zen, transcendental meditation and tantric exercises lead to an experience of self-fulfilment or enlightenment. Peak-experiences (reliving one's birth, travelling to the gates of death, biofeedback, dance and even drugs â€" anything which can provoke an altered state of consciousness) are believed to lead to unity and enlightenment. Since there is only one Mind, some people can be channels for higher beings. Every part of this single universal being has contact with every other part. The classic approach in New Age is transpersonal psychology, whose main concepts are the Universal Mind, the Higher Self, the collective and personal unconscious and the individual ego. The Higher Self is our real identity, a bridge between God as divine Mind and humanity. Spiritual development is contact with the Higher Self, which overcomes all forms of dualism between subject and object, life and death, psyche and soma, the self and the fragmentary aspects of the self. Our limited personality is like a shadow or a dream created by the real self. The Higher Self contains the memories of earlier (re-)incarnations.




Retrieved from:
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=39690

[bugsay]

di uy.....sa atraytis hinuon.

[hubag bohol]

di uy.....sa atraytis hinuon.

Hmm, ang yoga? Di oi, ang ogay pa galing...

[Votives]

lahi naman ni imo bai hubag ogay ogay naman ni..

[hubag bohol]

lahi naman ni imo bai hubag ogay ogay naman ni..

Bwahaha! Sa imong kaugalingong panglantaw, Bay Vots, is ogay2x contrary to our faith?

[Votives]

para nako dili cguro bai hubag.... hobby naman gud na nato ang ogay2x...

[bugsay]

Hmm, ang yoga? Di oi, ang ogay pa galing...

kon ikaw-ikaw ra'y maghimo sa ingon....dapat ipa subcon...

[hubag bohol]

para nako dili cguro bai hubag.... hobby naman gud na nato ang ogay2x...

Hmm, hobby, dili bisyo?

[hubag bohol]

kon ikaw-ikaw ra'y maghimo sa ingon....dapat ipa subcon...

Bwahaha! Sa ato pa, kon ipa-subcon, di na contrary to our faith?

[Pikoy]

para nako dili cguro bai hubag.... hobby naman gud na nato ang ogay2x...

naa baya poy baje nga kusog muogay hobby pud guro ni nila bay vots nuh..??!

[islander]

it is not.  yoga in its simplest context is nothing but a stress-relieving exercise.  its "unnecessary offshoots" (i.e., the philosophies mouthed by gurus, yogis, transcendental meditators, new-age advocates, etc.)are the ones that open the practice to being misunderstood as a threat to religion.  it's like saying that being a gym rat or an olympian is going against religion because these emphasize only physical development and victories.

[islander]

yoga, in fact, may even enhance one's religion for some people.  it could help one's mind get more focused when one prays.  there are even those who can attest that they can pray more sincerely, more meditatively, after they learned yoga. 

it is when one replaces one's religion with yoga, or when it becomes one's religion, that the context of the practice is changed.  bodybuilders just can't make religion out of bodybuilding, right?

[hubag bohol]

it is not.  yoga in its simplest context is nothing but a stress-relieving exercise.  its "unnecessary offshoots" (i.e., the philosophies mouthed by gurus, yogis, transcendental meditators, new-age advocates, etc.)are the ones that open the practice to being misunderstood as a threat to religion.  it's like saying that being a gym rat or an olympian is going against religion because these emphasize only physical development and victories.

But isn't pampering our bodies (which yoga does, bodyguarded with a mumbo-jumbo religious stance to boot)intrinsically adversarial to our faith?

[islander]

But isn't pampering our bodies (which yoga does, bodyguarded with a mumbo-jumbo religious stance to boot)intrinsically adversarial to our faith?

is ballet body pampering?

is ballet (yoga) and its music (mumbo-jumbo) adversarial to our faith?

oh, we take food supplements to keep our bodies and minds healthy, which yoga does.  why must we take the former, which makes a pharmacy out of our stomachs, as fine with religion while the latter, which is just a form of discipline, is contrary?  we're giving yoga too much credit.   

[Lorenzo]

Why is Yoga incompatible with Catholicism?

BY:FATHER JOHN HARDON, S.J.



Yoga is incompatible with Catholicism because the best known practice of Hindu spirituality is Yoga. “Inner” Hinduism professes pantheism, which denies that there is only one infinite Being who created the world out of nothing.


Yoga is incompatible with Catholicism because the best known practice of Hindu spirituality is Yoga. “Inner” Hinduism professes pantheism, which denies that there is only one infinite Being who created the world out of nothing. This pantheistic Hinduism says to the multitude of uncultured believers who follow the ways of the gods that they will receive the reward of the gods. They will have brief tastes of heaven between successive rebirths on earth. But they will never be delivered from the “wheel of existence” with its illusory lives and deaths until they realize that only “God” exists and all else is illusion (Maya). To achieve this liberation the principal way is by means of concentration and self control (yoga).
Indian spirituality is perhaps best known by the practice of yoga, derived from the root yuj to unite or yoke, which in context means union with the Absolute. Numerous stages are distinguished in the upward progress toward the supreme end of identification: by means of knowledge with the deity; the practice of moral virtues and observance of ethical rules; bodily postures; control of internal and external senses; concentration of memory and meditationâ€"finally terminating in total absorption (samadhi), “when the seer stands in his own nature.”

Although the psychic element is far more important in yoga than the body, the latter is more characteristic of this method of Hindu liberation. Its purpose is to secure the best disposition of body for the purpose of meditation. The practice begins with a simple device for deep and slow breathing.

Stopping the right nostril with the thumb, through the left nostril fill in air, according to capacity. Then without any interval, throw the air out through the right nostril, eject through the left, according to capacity. Practicing this three or five times at four hours of the day, before dawn, during midday, in the evening, and at midnight, in fifteen days or a month purity of the nerves is attained.

After such preliminary exercises, more complicated practices are undertaken, but not without the guidance of a professional yogin, called guru. The meditative phase begins with fixing the mind on one object, which may be anything whatsoever, “the sphere of the navel, the lotus of the heart, the light of the brain, the tip of the nose, the tip of the tongue, and such like parts of the body” or also “God”, who on Hindu terms is the only real being who exists.

Gradually by sheer concentration of attention; the mind reaches a state of trance, where all mental activity stops and the consciousness rests in itself. The state of samadhi is the culmination of yoga and beyond it lies release. The life of the soul is not destroyed but is reduced to its “unconscious and permanent essence.”




Works Cited:

Hardon, John A. “Ask Father Hardon.” The Catholic Faith 4, no. 2 (March/April 1998): 54-55.

Reprinted by permission of The Catholic Faith. The Catholic Faith is published bi-monthly and may be ordered from Ignatius Press, P.O. Box 591090, San Francisco, CA 94159-1090. 1-800-651-1531.
Retrieved from: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0275.html

[hubag bohol]

is ballet body pampering?

is ballet (yoga) and its music (mumbo-jumbo) adversarial to our faith?

oh, we take food supplements to keep our bodies and minds healthy, which yoga does.  why must we take the former, which makes a pharmacy out of our stomachs, as fine with religion while the latter, which is just a form of discipline, is contrary?  we're giving yoga too much credit.   

Sigi, tuo na ko. Yogini lagi ka, unya bali, este, ballet dancer pa jud...

[Lorenzo]

Sigi, tuo na ko. Yogini lagi ka, unya bali, este, ballet dancer pa jud...

Bai Hubs,

Kuyawa pod ni si iring uy. Perhaps pwede na ni siya mo try out sa Nutcracker concert.