Hello Everyone,
Just to reiterate, 98.5% of my earlier post emanated from E.A.; only around two sentences came from Wikipedia, (which I know has a questionable reputation). One of the more telling lines: that all forms of yoga are theistic in nature came directly from the E.A., (which I consider a rock solid resource; albeit a general one). I believe E.A.’s assertion that all forms of yoga are theistically based with the single exception of Sāmkhya-yoga, (which is atheistic- according to Wikipedia), is a solid fact and contains no ambiguity.
Well, it’s a bit muddled, at least as you repeat it. “Yoga” can mean at least two things other than the common meaning of “hatha yoga” (a set of postures designed to aid in meditation). It can mean one of the four ways to God in classical Hinduism: knowledge, meditation (which is where hatha yoga comes in as a prelude to meditation), action, and devotion.
Or it can mean one of the six schools (“darshanas”) of Hindu philosophy. Samkhya is another school. The six schools are traditionally grouped into pairs–each pair consists of one school (perhaps better understood as discipline or subdivision) that provides the groundwork for the other. Samkhya and Yoga are such a group. Samkhya gives the account of reality on which the classical Yoga school of philosophy builds. The difference is that Samkhya is atheistic (i.e., it doesn’t posit a divine source of reality and a divine being plays no direct role in it as far as I know), while Yoga (in the sense of the classical school of philosophy) does posit a divine Person (Ishvara) as the focus of meditation. However, Yoga builds on the dualism of Samkhya, in which there are two eternal principles: Purusha (spirit or personality) and Prakriti (matter). The difference is that Yoga philosophy understands Purusha to be ultimately represented by a divine Person–meditation on this divine Person helps one’s own “purusha” become liberated from prakriti.
Yoga philosophy developed the techniques of hatha yoga as a way of helping one do this.
However,
Vedanta philosophy, by far the most influential and important of the traditional Hindu philosophies, absorbed Yoga methodology and directed it toward its own philosophical goal of union with Brahman, which in Vedanta philosophy is the sole source of all reality (there are different schools of Vedanta thought with different understandings of how Brahman/Ishvara relates to individual beings and to matter).
So you’re right that Yoga is theistic, but the original Yoga philosophy is theistic in a rather different way from Vedanta, and different versions of Vedanta have rather different conceptions of God and human relationship with Him. So I think the attempts of conservative Christians to argue that hatha yoga presupposes a *particular *understanding of God which is incompatible with Christianity don’t hold up.
My biggest problem with this whole discussion is the premise that if yoga is “spiritual” it is bad, but it’s good only if it’s just “stretching.” This strikes me as theologically unorthodox. It implies that all the “spiritual” elements of other “religions” are bad, which makes no sense and appears to me (admittedly, I’m a non-Catholic) to contradict Lumen Gentium and other monuments of Catholic teaching. (Yes, I know I’m on the Trad forum and many of you guys don’t care for Vatican II
)
If Catholics recognize that all religions contain elements of truth and goodness, what could possibly be a nobler task than learning to appropriate these elements?
**
However, suppose yoga is a benign pursuit as many of you claim; but then again, suppose that the criticisms against it are correct and it is indeed offensive to God. There does seem to be enough credible data out there that would suggest this is indeed possible. Let us say there is just a 10% chance the criticisms against yoga are valid; why take such a chance? Is yoga so important to you that you would be willing to choose it over God and risk even a 10% chance of offending Him? Why do that deliberately? Isn’t the daily battle with sin wearisome enough without adding to it through (possibly) offensive pursuits?
**The view of Christianity implicit in this paragraph is to utterly (to use your own word) wearisome that I find it hard to understand why anyone would espouse it. What evidence do you have for such an awful God as you seem to believe in? Why do you think you have to guess what is or is not pleasing to God? Why not follow what is true and good to the best of your knowledge and trust that this search can never be displeasing to the God who is all Truth and Goodness?
Why on earth do you think that Christianity is about keeping your head down and avoiding ways of displeasing God and saving your own soul? Where is Roman 8 and the groaning of creation? Where is the teaching of the Fathers about the victory of Christ? Where is the joy and hope that Christians generally claim accompanies our religion?
In the awful event that the only two options were your version of Christianity or atheism, I’d have to be an atheist. And if someone were, in error, to think that this was the case and choose atheism, I think the true God would be honored by such a choice.
Your teaching amounts to saying that Christ has not risen and is not Lord. It is a denial of the Faith. It is a form of unbelief cloaking itself in the guise of piety.
I hope that my strong words will free you from any sense that I am a conventional “liberal” concerned with offense and sensitivity and drivel of that sort. I am concerned with truth, as I know you are. I think your version of Christianity is false and destructive.
Edwin
I encourage all of you to seek out the counsel of an “orthodox” priest, (if you can find one in your area), and to pray over this subject and seek out Our Father’s guidance; if it is done with an open sincere, pure heart; the answer will be revealed to you. I am not 110% sure what the answer is; although I do think that if something looks, sounds and acts like a duck- it is usually a duck. 
