Is yoga demonic or no?

[Chantal25]

Dear Jim, you know nothing about me and you are making assumption.

I was raise Catholic and extremely faithful to the bible and i got side track. Neither less, Mother Mary, Jesus has always been the center of my life and i never ceased to pray them. I truly naively thought that i was still worshiping God. I never ceased either to believe that the devil exist, but i did question the bible and the Catholic church.

I didn’t realize that i wasn’t worshiping God. The difference between prior that i got caught up with new age, is that i didn’t attempt mass regular. Mother Mary’s message are clear that we need to go to mass, pray and practice the sacrament. I never really done the rosary but when i started, i started to question everything even more that i was doing with new age modality. It is then that i prayed to be shown my wrong doing and i didn’t have guilt but i then pray to have guilt and i was granted.

Father Pio quotes helped me enormously. I didn’t think that i was doing anything wrong. neither you feel that you are doing anything wrong, please it is more important to pray and ask God then try to be right.

Check the origin of yoga, this is the place they worship many gods.

I wouldn’t be surprise that if you pray and ask the same as me to be shown your wrong doing, you may start to question your decision. I truly didn’t feel as you that there was anything wrong with Reiki or yoga.

The exercise itself, seem fine to me but this is about what it is related to it. I recommend for you to read father Pio quote and read Mother Mary’s message during her approved apparition.

All the best to you!

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Chantal25

Dear Jim, you know nothing about me and you are making assumption.

Just an observation based on your post.

I was raise Catholic and extremely faithful to the bible and i got side track. Neither less, Mother Mary, Jesus has always been the center of my life and i never ceased to pray them. I truly naively thought that i was still worshiping God. I never ceased either to believe that the devil exist, but i did question the bible and the Catholic church.

So you had a cultural relationship with religion, rather than a faith experience with Jesus Christ.

I didn’t realize that i wasn’t worshiping God.

Observed.

The difference between prior that i got caught up with new age, is that i didn’t attempt mass regular. Mother Mary’s message are clear that we need to go to mass, pray and practice the sacrament. I never really done the rosary but when i started, i started to question everything even more that i was doing with new age modality. It is then that i prayed to be shown my wrong doing and i didn’t have guilt but i then pray to have guilt and i was granted.

From this I take that your experience is purely on a religious level, rather than a faith level.

Big difference.

Father Pio quotes helped me enormously. I didn’t think that i was doing anything wrong. neither you feel that you are doing anything wrong, please it is more important to pray and ask God then try to be right.

Again, this is religious, not faith related. If it were faith, Fr Pio wouldn’t have to be the source of your wisdom.

Check the origin of yoga, this is the place they worship many gods.

I know the origins of Yoga, but you’re talking about Yoga in the context of Hindu Spirituality.

We in here are talking about Yoga exercise, excluding spirituality that isn’t Christ Centered.

I wouldn’t be surprise that if you pray and ask the same as me to be shown your wrong doing, you may start to question your decision. I truly didn’t feel as you that there was anything wrong with Reiki or yoga.

Well, I’ve been doing Yoga for well over 25 years. I have not experienced anything close to what you have. In fact, when I do my Yoga exercise faithfully, my prayer life is better because I feel more mentally and physically alert.

The exercise itself, seem fine to me but this is about what it is related to it. I recommend for you to read father Pio quote and read Mother Mary’s message during her approved apparition.

I’ve read Fr Pio and have been to Lourdes France. I’m also a professed Secular Order Carmelite. Nothing I do with Yoga has been in conflict and in fact, my OCD Spiritual Assistant, does Yoga exercise.

God Bless
Jim

 

[Chantal25]

Dear Jim, i pray for you and ask God to bless you.

All the best!

 

[Chantal25]

I wish to add one more thing and i hope this will bring light. I pray for all of you to be safe and look after always.

While i was practicing Reiki/yoga etc… everything seem great, feeling good, bringing good thing to others. Why on earth would i second guess anything that do so good and bring love and peace?? I couldn’t second question this. If someone would have posted similar replied as i did, i most like would have reacted the same way as anyone that feel deep down their soul that Reiki or Yoga is safe. Why would i second guess that, i experience many miraculous healing, i witness others with miraculous condition. Also, i always intended to connect to God while practicing this. When i finally received healing from my delusion of doing nothing wrong, i came to realize as i progress to relearn the Catholic faith how many area i have offended God, without realizing it. Today, i wonder, how on earth could i have been so silly to this. I was a teacher for 10 years also.

It took prayer for me and also, i found out that two person were praying for me. I think this is what guided me back to the Catholic church. I never thought that i separated myself from him but i did without realizing it. I always cherished Mother Mary and Jesus, but good grace did i ever committed mortal sin not to count the soul that i sadly misguided. What good is that if we lose our soul and totally hurt God.

Once you get seduce, it is very challenging to see the truth and you become delusional even though you are convince that you are doing nothing wrong but good.

The truth is the truth that we rationalize it or not. God is very clear about this in the bible and he is in perfect title to set the rule. Without question, i believed in the merciful God and love he has for everyone of us NEITHER less, we cannot enter Heaven unless our soul is pure. I know if i was to die to day, i would go to purgatory because i have a few issue to resolve. If i would have died while i was doing New age and not attending the church, i would have died in mortal sin even though, i was generous, helping others etc… I confess those sins and my gift vanished, so if it would have been from God, they would have stayed with me. This was a clear guidance.

Adam and Eve committed their first sin to God by eating this apple of knowledge. New age is the apple of knowledge again. When Human is ready to learn more then what Jesus taught us, he will, until then we are to practice the virtues, loving God more then ourself and with all our heart, to love others, etc… Padre Pio insisted on two virtue, BE humble and charity.

Yoga doesn’t inspire you to be humble but your self master.

Anyway, i hope with all of my heart, that my message will be receive well and people will simply pray God and without forgetting to practice their faith with the Catholic church.

Blessings and love!

 

[letters2mary]

The “by God (sorry!) I must be right” sort of discussion here is what keeps me from visiting this website very often. I get the sense that there is real lot of rigidity in what is acceptable and what is not. I don’t know that Christ encouraged that kind of rule-based ‘orthodoxy,’ particularly in light of his healings on the Sabbath and the like.

I would not disagree that a lot of “New Age” information is hooey, almost laughably so. But that does not mean that every single tradition that varies from what Catholicism teaches is worthy of being vilified. Black and white thinking is not healthy.

 

[CrimsonThorn]

Because you got caught up in the New Age, prior to becoming a Christian is not the result of doing Yoga Exercise, but following the spiritual aspects of New Age teachers.

Also, love of others and acceptance of oneself is part of Christianity.

A person who hates themselves can not love others as Christ did, because in order to love as Christ, we need to be Christ like, which is self-giving, which is love

Self-knowledge is very much part of Christian spirituality.

Sorry you got confused with New Age practices, but it may be that you’re the type of person who is too willing to accept anything that feeds your immediate cause, even false information which some conservative Catholics may tell you.

I’ve done Yoga exercise off and on for over 20 years and never learned or experienced anything you posted above.

Jim

Hi Jim, it seems you bought into the new age mentality you claim had no effect on you, as Chantal asserts.

Self love is not what Christ teaches, but rather selflessness.

Christ teaches to love others before we love ourselves. The only way to love ourself is through the love of God and the way to love God is to love others.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Hi Jim, it seems you bought into the new age mentality you claim had no effect on you, as Chantal asserts.

Self love is not what Christ teaches, but rather selflessness.

Christ teaches to love others before we love ourselves. The only way to love ourself is through the love of God and the way to love God is to love others.

All Christian spiritual masters teach that self-knowledge is necessary for growth in holiness.

Self-love is not selfishness, but understanding the love God has for us which is how we love others.

Even Jesus said, love your neighbor as you love yourself.

It’s not a degradation of ourselves in order to love others, but to love equally, what God has created.

People who hate themselves can’t love others.

FYI, I’ve never been involved with the New Age movement.

Jim

 

[CrimsonThorn]

All Christian spiritual masters teach that self-knowledge is necessary for growth in holiness.

Self-love is not selfishness, but understanding the love God has for us which is how we love others.

Even Jesus said, love your neighbor as you love yourself.

It’s not a degradation of ourselves in order to love others, but to love equally, what God has created.

People who hate themselves can’t love others.

FYI, I’ve never been involved with the New Age movement.

Jim

That sentiment about how can you love others if you dont love yourself first, is always being said by Wayne Dyer. I could be wrong but i think hes a new age motivational speaker.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

That sentiment about how can you love others if you dont love yourself first, is always being said by Wayne Dyer. I could be wrong but i think hes a new age motivational speaker.

Actually, I heard it by Archbishop Fulten Sheen, long before Dwyer was ever known.

Also, I’m not talking about the false self which is created by the ego, but the true self, which a person will only come to know through transforming grace from God…

The ego is the self-serving love that places a person over others.

Knowledge of the true self is how we are able to see Christ in others, even when they are still presenting their false image.

Jim

 

[CrimsonThorn]

Actually, I heard it by Archbishop Fulten Sheen, long before Dwyer was ever known.

Also, I’m not talking about the false self which is created by the ego, but the true self, which a person will only come to know through transforming grace from God…

The ego is the self-serving love that places a person over others.

Knowledge of the true self is how we are able to see Christ in others, even when they are still presenting their false image.

Jim

Sure but this is not the way it is viewed in yoga or Hinduism or new age. So to say this view “also” is found in Christianity would be incorrect.

The new age view is that you become your own divinity first etc. Not very Catholic.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

The new age view is that you become your own divinity first etc. Not very Catholic.

It would be arrogant to presume one’s own divinity but don’t forget even our own holy book says we are made in the image and likeness of the divine. That says something. It may not be the same but if we’re talking about valuing one’s self, our religion hits closer to the point than Hinduism.

 

[soma]

If you will know yourselves, then you will be known
and you will know that you are the sons of the living father.
But if you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty and you are poverty.If you will know yourselves, then you will be known
and you will know that you are the sons of the living father.
But if you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty and you are poverty.

Quote of Jesus

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Sure but this is not the way it is viewed in yoga or Hinduism or new age. So to say this view “also” is found in Christianity would be incorrect.

The new age view is that you become your own divinity first etc. Not very Catholic.

Well, I have no idea what the New Age means by this, for I’ve never been involved with it.

However, you will become your own divinity doesn’t mean what you think. It’s not that you become a god equal to God, but rather, his Divine indwelling within you, will transform you into being god like, or on the Christian sense, Christ like.

St. John of the Cross wrote that a lover takes on the characteristics of his beloved. So it is when we love Christ dwelling within, we will take on the characteristics of our beloved.
It will not be of our own doing, but rather the transforming grace given to us out love, from the divine.

We will begin to love as he loves and will take on the characteristics of the divine.

It no way means we become God or equal to God, for we will always be the creatures of the Creator.

Jim

 

[Blue_Horizon]

But I see the main issue is the question, “can one truly separate Hinduism from Yoga?”

I simply want to do yoga as physical therapy for my neck, shoulder, hip, and ankle.

Haven’t you answered your own question MD?
If you seek a physical result (as you would from a physio) then your motives are fine.
Forget the meditiation mumbo jumbo if there is any.

 

[Shamati]

This discussion seem paranoid to me. I do yoga very often and I can not have any fears that I will invoke demonic “Gods” by simply moving my body in certain ways with an empty mind. This kind of fear would imply that the God of Abraham and Isaac is not an ALL-POWERFUL God. This God of Abraham and Moses is the very God that created all things; the Cosmos, the Universe, All planets, the Earth, Nature, Animals, Mankind & ALL natural laws. He created the human being, Body, Soul & Spirit.

It is a very specific belief for Christianity that not only the Soul & the Spirit but the Body is also Holy, being made by God & through mans free will being possible to use as a vehicle for the Holy Spirit. Therefor I find it troubling that so many christians seem to believe that God would limit, even the movement of the body due to them possibly being forever linked to the invoking of foreign Gods.

The only thing that one should carefully consider while doing yoga as a Christian is the use of Mantras & consider what they mean & what they historically have been used for. When knowing more about yoga you also understand that it is possible to change sanskrit mantras for your own mantras in any language. Personally I prefer Hebrew mantras, but Latin would also work I guess.

For me, Yoga, meditation & contemplation is about “cleaning the inside of the Cup”, so that the outside also will be clean… By denying ones Ego & it’s desire’s can one be made into a Holy Graal for His Holy Spirit & ultimately for the Christ.
To achieve complete union with God is to me the ultimate goal of Christianity.

The hindus see it in another way, as the individual itself being a divine being or part of the one Brahman.

Christians see it as the human being created in the Image of God. God is everywhere at all times in every man & all things. All powers placed in man by God are neutral by design & can be used for good or bad through our free will. But since we are all made in divine image we all also have a spark of the divine within us which can be enhanced by grace through different kinds of prayers. Yoga is only another way of praying to me

 

[Neil_Advani]

Yoga is a form of exercise, meditation, and restorative breathing. When practiced regularly, it brings unity to the mind, body and spirit.

benefits of yoga

 

[Chantal25]

A friend of mine, do one stretch of yoga only and a little bit modify with his martial art skill, to help him physically so he cans avoid to go to the chemotherapeutic treatment. In this case, it is suitable. If you use the stretch or exercise to help you with your health, i feel this is adequate but anything else, is new age and doesn’t go hand in hand with Jesus’s teaching.

Anything that promote you to be equal to God, is new age.

Jesus being the son of God, forgot himself during his passion and carried his cross to the end. Jesus said that he is the way, to me, i feel that we need to read the bible and follow Jesus footstep. Jesus didn’t practice yoga but prayer.

If you want to clean the inside of your cup as someone mentioned, i suggest confession, prayer, practicing charity and kindness. If you want an activity to release stress, walk in nature, beach, gentle sport such cross country, biking, reading the bible, skating or even playing with your children. If you want to feed your soul, receive the Eucharist.

 

[Shamati]

A friend of mine, do one stretch of yoga only and a little bit modify with his martial art skill, to help him physically so he cans avoid to go to the chemotherapeutic treatment. In this case, it is suitable. If you use the stretch or exercise to help you with your health, i feel this is adequate but anything else, is new age and doesn’t go hand in hand with Jesus’s teaching.

Anything that promote you to be equal to God, is new age.

Jesus being the son of God, forgot himself during his passion and carried his cross to the end. Jesus said that he is the way, to me, i feel that we need to read the bible and follow Jesus footstep. Jesus didn’t practice yoga but prayer.

If you want to clean the inside of your cup as someone mentioned, i suggest confession, prayer, practicing charity and kindness. If you want an activity to release stress, walk in nature, beach, gentle sport such cross country, biking, reading the bible, skating or even playing with your children. If you want to feed your soul, receive the Eucharist.

Irenaeus (c. 130-200)
“[T]he Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”[Primary 1]
“'For we cast blame upon [God], because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him invidiousness or grudgingness.”[Primary 2]
“For it was necessary, at first, that nature should be exhibited; then, after that, that what was mortal should be conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and the corruptible by incorruptibility, and that man should be made after the image and likeness of God.”[Primary 2]
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215)
“[T]he Word of God became man, that thou mayest learn from man how man may become God.”[Primary 3]
“For if one knows himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like God”[Primary 4]
“[H]is is beauty, the true beauty, for it is God; and that man becomes God, since God so wills. Heraclitus, then, rightly said, “Men are gods, and gods are men.” For the Word Himself is the manifest mystery: God in man, and man God”[Primary 4]
“[H]e who listens to the Lord, and follows the prophecy given by Him, will be formed perfectly in the likeness of the teacher—made a god going about in flesh.”[Primary 5]
Justin Martyr (c. 100-165)
“[Men] were made like God, free from suffering and death, provided that they kept His commandments, and were deemed deserving of the name of His sons, and yet they, becoming like Adam and Eve, work out death for themselves; let the interpretation of the Psalm be held just as you wish, yet thereby it is demonstrated that all men are deemed worthy of becoming “gods,” and of having power to become sons of the Highest.”[Primary 6]
Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296-373)
“Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us”[Primary 7]
“for as the Lord, putting on the body, became man, so we men are deified by the Word as being taken to Him through His flesh.”[Primary 8]
“For He was made man that we might be made God.”[Primary 9]
Augustine of Hippo (c. 354-430)
“‘For He hath given them power to become the sons of God.’[John 1:12] If we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods.”[Primary 10]

The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”[Primary 11]

Arguably the most prolific of the medieval scholastic theologians, Thomas Aquinas, wrote:
Now the gift of grace surpasses every capability of created nature, since it is nothing short of a partaking of the Divine Nature, which exceeds every other nature. And thus it is impossible that any creature should cause grace. For it is as necessary that God alone should deify, bestowing a partaking of the Divine Nature by a participated likeness, as it is impossible that anything save fire should enkindle.[Primary 12]

Divinization / Theosis; Unity with the supreme Godhead; the Most Holy Trinity is the goal of Christianity

 

[Michael_Mayo]

What if we call the same exercises "Sport Stretching " and not “yoga”? Acceptable?

 

[Chantal25]

Changing name won’t matter, it is the modality itself. Jean-Paul ii wrote an article about this warning others about the danger to go back in the garden of Eden and re-do the whole temptation again.

Here is another article about the hidden danger of New age

catholicassociates.com/leaflets/Hidden%20dangers%20New%20Age.pdf

p.s. The original sin was about to be as all knowing as God, new age is the same truly. It took thousands of year before he finally send his son to save us. Do you really want to take this risk and offend the lord again in the same matter?