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Yoga in philosophy and practice is incompatible with Christianity
By Fr. James Manjackal MSFS (Part I)
As a Catholic Christian born in a traditional Catholic family in Kerala, India, but lived amidst the Hindus; and now as a catholic religious priest and charismatic preacher in 60 countries in all continents, I have something to say about the bad effects of Yoga on Christian spirituality and life. I know there is a growing interest on Yoga all over the world, even among Christians- and this interest is extended to other esoteric and new age practices like Reiki, reincarnation, acupressure, acupuncture, pranic healing, reflexology, etc. which are methods against which the Vatican has cautioned and warned in her document “Jesus Christ bearer of the water of life”.
For some, Yoga is a means of relaxation and easing of tension and for others is a form of exercise promoting fitness and health and for a few is a means of healing of sicknesses. There is much confusion in the mind of the average Catholic- lay and cleric- because Yoga as promoted among Catholics is neither entirely a health discipline nor entirely a spiritual discipline, but sometimes one, sometimes the other, and often a mixture of both. But in fact, Yoga is primarily a spiritual discipline and I know even priests and nuns in the seminaries and novitiates promote Yoga as help to meditation and prayer. It is sad that now a days, many Catholics are loosing trust in the great spiritualities and mysticisms for prayer and discipline handed over to them by great saints like Ignatius of Loyola, Francis of Assisi, Francis of Sales, St. Theresa of Avila, etc. and are now going after the Eastern spiritualities and mysticisms coming from Hinduism and Buddhism. It is in this regard that a sincere Christian should inquire into Yoga’s compatibility with the Christian spirituality and the wisdom of incorporating its techniques into Christian prayer and meditation.
What is Yoga? The word Yoga means “union”, the goal of Yoga is to unite one’s transitory (temporary) self, “JIVA” with the infinite “BRAHMAN”, the Hindu concept of God… This God is not a personal God, but it is an impersonal spiritual substance which is one with nature and cosmos. Brahman is an impersonal divine substance that “pervades, envelopes and underlies everything”. Yoga has its roots in the Hindu Upanishads, which is as old as 1.000 BC, and it tells about Yoga thus, “unite the light within you with the light of Brahman”. “The absolute is within one self” says the Chandogya Upanishads, “TAT TUAM ASI” or “THOU ART THAT”. The Divine dwells within each one of us through His microcosmic representative, the individual self called Jiva. In the Bhagavad Gita, the lord Krishna describes the Jiva as “my own eternal portion”, and “the joy of Yoga comes to yogi who is one with Brahman”. In A.D. 150, the yogi Patanjali explained the eight ways that leads the Yoga practices from ignorance to enlightenment – the eight ways are like a staircase – They are self-control (yama), religious observance (niyama), postures (asana), breathing exercises (pranayama), sense control (pratyahara), concentration (dharana), deep contemplation (dhyana), enlightenment (samadhi). It is interesting to note, here, that postures and breathing- exercises, often considered to be the whole of Yoga in the West, are steps 3 and 4 towards union with Brahman! Yoga is not only an elaborate system of physical exercises, it is a spiritual discipline, purporting to lead the soul to samadhi, total union with the divine being. Samadhi is the state in which the natural and the divine become one, man and God become one without any difference (Brad Scott: Exercise or religious practice? Yoga: What the teacher never taught you in that Hatha Yoga class” in the Watchman Expositor Vol. 18, No. 2, 2001).
Such a view is radically contrary to Christianity which clearly distinguishes between Creator and creature, God and man. In Christianity, God is the “Other” and never the self. It is sad that some promoters of Yoga, Reiki and other disciplines and meditations, had misquoted some isolated Bible quotations to substantiate their arguments such as, “you are the temple of God”, “the living water flows from you”, “you will be in me and I will be in you”, “it is no longer I that lives but Christ lives in me”, etc. without understanding the context and the meaning of those words in the Bible. There are even people who portray Jesus as a yogi as we can see now a days such pictures of Jesus in convent-chapels and presbyteries - Jesus presented in yogi postures of meditation!
