Priest explains why yoga and new age are dangerous

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friardchips said:
Hi. I’ve opted out of this thread Michael because it is going to take too long getting anywhere with this… Wishing you the best. God bless. 👍🙂
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OK. I thought it was a good discussion without personal attack and all that.
But for your last question (which is a good one):Iis there a difference between emptying one’s mind and being still - to still and quieten the mind: Psalm 45:11 (in CTS version, Psalm 46 in other versions) - “Be still and know that I am God”.

That other thread on John of the Cross and emptyness might be a good place to kick it around more. There are some insightful contributions there and I have learned a lot.

Thanks for this one also.
 
There is nothing wrong with Perusing this question, even this Yoga website takes this issue seriously:

I’d say a good serious article: yogatrail.com/blog/is-yoga-evil/

And one Christian essay: thebereancall.org/content/yoga-demonic (Note, this story warns about Kundalini. I even listened to a show on Catholic Radio once and the expert seemed to warn more about the variety called “Kundalini Yoga” vs. other forms of Yoga.) On the educational station here, Wai Lana comes on, the Hawaiian Chinese lady, even on the BYU (Brigham Young) TV station, they sometimes have Yoga on the workout show on Saturday morning).

Again, nothing wrong with researching this from all angles, this thread has been a bit like “Apologetics” for Yoga.

So there appears to be tons of articles on this topic.

Doing something like the crow pose, below. To do such a feat is curious, a matter of balance and pressure is on the wrists: http://dressedfordancing.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/bakasana_crow_pose.jpg

Whether we want to associate the Plank Pose with Yoga or not, it is done many places as just plain exercise, it probably has roots in Yoga. When one does it on one’s hands, again, pressure goes there and I think Yoga helped my wrists quite a bit.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

One can do it on the elbows as above or on one’s hands straight out.

Nowadays, I’m not really taking Yoga classes but some of these poses I recognize as being beneficial. I would like to get back into it for its many benefits, I’d personally say it can help detoxify someone as well whether there is research that backs that up, I’m unsure. Yoga classes are often done in a warm environment.
 
What is the full potential of this body/mind instrument that we have? I can sit down at a piano and maybe poke out a little tune even with some chords. But my neighbor can sit down and play an awesome piece with the right hand and left hand in perfect synchrony. It seems supernatural to me.

Yoga can be dangerous physically and mentally. Pushing too much, over stretching, falling, twisting. And the pranayama or various breathing exercises can be extremely effective positive and negative. That is why close supervision by a competent instructor is required. But who is really competent? Best to leave pranayama and kundalini out of our daily routine.

“Kundalini” is a symbol, not of a spirit but of a natural potential of the body. But of course science can say almost nothing about it. It is something subtle and takes a great deal of training with a competent instructor. There is also no scientific varification of chakras.

In all of this I think it best to stick to the fact or at least the evidence of controlled studies rather than to get all caught up in stories we have heard or theological opinions.

Yoga is a tool. It is neither good nor evil.
 
A good thing in Yoga is one is not competing, trying to be better than whomever might be next to you.

The above Crow pose, for me, good for blood circulation took me a long time to be able to do and then, I can’t do it more for say 10 seconds or so. While on the other hand, to some people, these kinds of poses come naturally, some people have a natural gift for balance, agility and so on.

I ride the bike a lot, there use to be times when I would come home, I couldn’t type for awhile on the keyboard, my hands were all frozen up from riding on the handlebars. There are definite benefits to this kind of physical activity shall we say. Yes, I’ve heard people can indeed overstretch their muscles as well.

Just testing balance a la the tree pose: abc-of-yoga.com/images/tutorials/tree-pose-step5.gif , I can’t see anything wrong with that.
 
Hi! Just reporting back - a pit stop. ephesians511blog.com/2013/03/03/the-new-age-catholic-ashrams-movement/

Just found this web page today after I left this thread - same website that was posted by ourladysservant earlier on. I was reading it and thinking: maybe all things being brought to God is great, you know, all of creation, so everything is subject to Him. I think this is the thinking here…

Then I got thinking: isn’t this heretical that we are led to believe that we have to offer things other than what is not stated in the Bible and dogmas and doctrines already, as if creation is not under God now, in His hands, and as if all creation hadn’t already come through Christ?! Why do we have to bring everything to him like a cat bringing in dead mice. We make mistakes, I bring Him my imperfections, sure, but I don’t offer up my sins, I confess them. Some things are not offerings. But all the time I am thinking - all is in God so…, but then we have “Thou shalt not worship false idols.”

What brought me on to this was looking into a teacher, an Indian Catholic priest, who is teaching yoga. I watched his tutorial online, on youtube, and thinking, that this is not the same way that St. John of the Cross speaks about contemplation and meditation. This guy is talking about the "third eye’"and the “higher self”. This is not Catholic teaching even! So I followed this and then found the web page. Back to that:

I was reading and thinking this isn’t so bad, THEN I got to the bit that said that this movement does not celebrate the Eucharist as the central aspect of the faith, hmmm…then it said they chanted to a Hindu god by the name “Ganesha”. From this I start thinking back to: “Thou shalt not worship false idols”. THEN I read this, this gets me mad:

'*Fr. Thomas Matus
OSB, a Camaldolese Benedictine and disciple of Bede, is upset about the Church’s “dogmatic insistence on the Bible especially since the Second Vatican Council.” Fr. Bede himself believed that the piety of “popular devotions like the Rosary and the Stations of the Cross … and the Imitation of Christ… is far from the spirituality of the Gospels.” Fr. J. Mattam SJ records his complete disagreement with the post-synodal document Ecclesia in Asia, but a strong approval of what is going on in Shantivanam and other ashrams. *

In a critique of the October 1989 Vatican Document on “Some Aspects of Christian Meditation which “warns all Catholic Bishops that Eastern forms of prayer and meditation such as Yoga, Zen and Transcendental Meditation are ‘not free from dangers and errors’,“ Sr. Vandana accuses the Church of the “fear of syncretism”, adding “We need to recognize… that no one religion, no, not even Christianity, can claim to have the whole truth.” ’ :mad:

So here you go guys and girls, something to view.

I suggest reading all of this page.

Over and out.
 
I will have a look. But if you really want to know what someone thinks and means you have to read them directly and not just a few quotes cherry picked by detractors.

I actually met Fr Bede once at St Anselm’s Benedictine Abby in Washington, DC. I was there for a summer monastic program in about 1979 or 80. He was a very humble man and very well read, old school English style. He bowed to me and like some young stupid guy I just stood there:o maybe I bowed back. I don’t know. I hope so.

I recall that his main point was that Christ is already there in India and the main task of evangelization is to recognize Him and to help Indians recognize Him. So like we are not bringing yoga to Christ as an offering. He is already in it offering it to us as a tool.
OK, maybe I am putting words in his mouth now.
 
Exact Quote from the Vatican Church document on eastern meditation and new age from the Pope and Bishops to the world:

Christian prayer is not an exercise in self-contemplation, stillness and self-emptying,
Michael_Mayo said:
This “danger of emptying the mind” is much over stated. Please check out the thread on John of the Cross, a Doctor of the Church.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=894914

It is through the mind and its thoughts that we are most vulnerable.

When you say, " the devil can make people seem well only to cause more disaster in the long run." You would need to do a long term study since you would not accept short term results.

In post #62 I had evidence based research indicating that yoga helps relieve anxiety and depression, rather than leading to it through demonic oppression.

Millions of people do yoga. No doubt some of them come to it with mental and spiritual problems. Research indicates improvements not more oppressions. Can you provide objective evidence on yoga making a person worse? The few anecdotal accounts given on the thread so far assume a correlation but do not demonstrate or prove it.

Also see another thread on stretching:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=893310

If you don’t like “Yoga” call it something else.

Instead of supta virasana or lying down hero pose call it what it is “Extension of the hip while seated on the heals”

Instead of Marichyasana call it “sitting knee up rotation”

But God gave us a body. It is a gift and we need to take care of it…
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Guys, you have said yoga is only exercise, and then you both go onto describe how God can be found in it and that it’s good for the soul
The Vatican has said, any eastern meditation is completely incompatible with Christianity as a spiritual path. I’m quoting this from the Pope’s document. Don’t tell me I’m making up comments. All these comments are from the Pope. Don’t accuse me of slandering other religions. If the Pope sees dangers in other practices is he not right to point it out as Head of The Church.

Michael I have read that Vatican document again on eastern meditation and new age.
It is not supportive of new age or eastern meditation at all. It is full of warning of it all. It mentions new age calls upon spirits. And why is yoga put in a document on new age?
My mind is not swayed because Mother Therese supported someone into yoga who used it in the hospitals or even got results.
The devil can heal temporarily. Have a read, the document is a complete warning, I don’t see any promotion of eastern meditation or new age at all in the document the Pope himself released to the world.

Some exact quotes from the Vatican Church document mentioned:
The important thing to note is that God is reduced in certain New Age practices so as furthering the advancement of the individual.
 
Ctd exact quotes from the Vatican’s document about New Age and yoga:

It does not demand any more faith or belief than going to the cinema”,(3) and yet it claims to satisfy people’s spiritual appetites. But here is a central question: just what is meant by spirituality in a New Age context? The answer is the key to unlocking some of the differences between the Christian tradition and much of what can be called New Age. Some versions of New Age harness the powers of nature and seek to communicate with another world to discover the fate of individuals, to help individuals tune in to the right frequency to make the most of themselves and their circumstances. In most cases, it is completely fatalistic. Christianity, on the other hand, is an invitation to look outwards and beyond, to the “new Advent”

But it is a volatile vehicle of misinformation on so many aspects of religion: not all that is labelled “Christian” or “Catholic” can be trusted to reflect the teachings of the Catholic Church and, at the same time, there is a remarkable expansion of New Age sources ranging from the serious to the ridiculous. People need, and have a right to, reliable information on the differences between Christianity and New Age

It has involved a progressive rejection of a personal God and a focus on other entities which would often figure as intermediaries between God and humanity in traditional Christianity, with more and more original adaptations of these or additional ones
 
Ctd exact quotes from the Vatican’s website of the Pope and bishops statement o the world about new age AND yoga

Even if it can be admitted that New Age religiosity in some way responds to the legitimate spiritual longing of human nature, it must be acknowledged that its attempts to do so run counter to Christian revelation. In Western culture in particular, the appeal of “alternative” approaches to spirituality is very strong. On the one hand, new forms of psychological affirmation of the individual have be

An adequate Christian discernment of New Age thought and practice cannot fail to recognize that, like second and third century gnosticism, it represents something of a compendium of positions that the Church has identified as heterodox. John Paul II warns with regard to the “return of ancient gnostic ideas under the guise of the so-called New Age: We cannot delude ourselves that this will lead toward a renewal of religion. It is only a new way of practising gnosticism

more often assuming the characteristics of a religion or a para-religion in distinct, if not declared, conflict with all that is essentially Christian”

her members need to do two things: to root themselves ever more firmly in the fundamentals of their faith, and to understand the often-silent cry in people’s hearts, which leads them elsewhere if they are not satisfied by the Church.

It would be unwise and untrue to say that everything connected with the New Age movement is good, it is on the whole difficult to reconcile it with Christian doctrine and spirituality.

Furthermore, at the heart of New Age is the belief that the time for particular religions is over,

.
 
Ctd Exact quotes from the Vatican’s website of the Pope and bishops stance on new age AND yoga

Some of the traditions which flow into New Age are: ancient Egyptian occult practices, Cabbalism, early Christian gnosticism, Sufism, the lore of the Druids, Celtic Christianity, mediaeval alchemy, Renaissance hermeticism, Zen Buddhism, Yoga and so on

The rejection of modernity underlying this desire for change is not new, but can be described as “a modern revival of pagan religions with a mixture of influences from both eastern religions and also from modern psychology, philosophy, science, and the counterculture that developed in the 1950s and 1960s”

Perhaps the clearest example of this, in terms of the relationship between New Age and Christianity, is the total recasting of the life and significance of Jesus Christ. It is impossible to reconcile these two visions.(1

It may well be one of the signs of a “return to religion”, but it is most certainly not a return to orthodox Christian doctrines and creeds

These spiritual entities are often invoked ‘non-religiously’ to help in relaxation aimed at better decision-making and control of one’s life and career.

It is clear that, in theory at least, the New Age often recognizes no spiritual authority higher than personal inner experience

This is a fundamental point which pervades all New Age thought and practice, and conditions in advance any otherwise positive assessment where we might be in favor of one or another aspect of its spirituality. As Christians, we believe on the contrary that “man is essentially a creature and remains so for all eternity, so that an absorption of the human I in the divine I will never be possible

It was particularly strong in freemasonry, spiritualism, occultism and theosophy, which shared a kind of esoteric culture

People can contact the upper or lower worlds by means of their imagination (an organ of the soul or spirit), or by using mediators (angels, spirits, devils) or rituals.

within New Age, there are some common points:
– the cosmos is seen as an organic whole
– it is animated by an Energy, which is also identified as the divine Soul or Spirit
– much credence is given to the mediation of various spiritual entities
– humans are capable of ascending to invisible higher spheres, and of controlling their own lives beyond death
– there is held to be a “perennial knowledge” which pre-dates and is superior to all religions and cultures
– people follow enlightened masters…

Mind-expanding techniques are meant to reveal to people their divine power; by using this power, people prepare the way for the Age of Enlightenment. This exaltation of humanity overturns the correct relationship between Creator and creature, and one of its extreme forms is Satanism. Satan becomes the symbol of a rebellion against conventions and rules, a symbol that often takes aggressive, selfish and violent forms. Some evangelical groups have expressed concern at the subliminal presence of what they claim is Satanic symbolism in some varieties of rock music, which have a powerful influence on young people. This is all far removed from the message of peace and harmony which is to be found in the New Testament; it is often one of the consequences of the exaltation of humanity when that involves the negation of a transcendent God.

Psychology is used to explain mind expansion as “mystical” experiences. 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 – 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.

New Age has a marked preference for Eastern or pre-Christian religions, which are reckoned to be uncontaminated by Judaeo-Christian distorsions. Hence great respect is given to ancient agricultural rites and to fertility cults. “Gaia”, Mother Earth, is offered as an alternative to God the Father, whose image is seen to be linked to a patriarchal conception of male domination of women. There is talk of God, but it is not a personal God; the God of which New Age speaks is neither personal nor transcendent. Nor is it the Creator and sustainer of the universe, but an “impersonal energy” immanent in the world, with which it forms a “cosmic unity”: “All is one”. This unity is monistic, pantheistic or, more precisely, panentheistic
 
These are EXACT quotes from the Vatican AND the Pope and world bishops on new age. It includes ALL new age. And if you read the document it mentions yoga three times. The whole document is a warning. If anyone reads it. I found not one quote on that article supporting new age or yoga.

If anyone wants to refute this please do not give your opinions but quote exactly from this letter from the Pope and world bishops on the Vatican website

One cannot say ‘The article mentions new age only.’ Because at the introduction it mentions that all new age paths will be mentioned as ‘New Age.’ And then in the letter the Pope mentions Yoga three to four times. All this article is a warning.

vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html
 
OurLadysServant said:
Exact Quote from the Vatican Church document on eastern meditation and new age from the Pope and Bishops to the world:

Christian prayer is not an exercise in self-contemplation, stillness and self-emptying,
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You keep saying exact quote and yet I see no quotation marks or reference.

I cannot tell your words from the quote.

Where do you see, “Christian prayer is not an exercise in self-contemplation, stillness and self-emptying,”?
 
Michael_Mayo said:
You keep saying exact quote and yet I see no quotation marks or reference.

I cannot tell your words from the quote.

Where do you see, “Christian prayer is not an exercise in self-contemplation, stillness and self-emptying,”?
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I gave a reference. The Pope’s Letter to the Bishops of the World. And I gave the Vatican website link to that letter. Read it.

Everything is EXACT quotes copy and paste of the Pope’s Letter to the Bishops of the World on New age and eastern meditation. EXACT words. The above quote and Posts 229 to 231 are ALL EXACT QUOTES OF THE POPE’S LETTER -none of my words, all the Pope’s quotes copied and pasted. Excuse the lack of punctuation. I even gave the website from the Vatican. Quote the Pope’s words from this very article to refute your claims, not opinions of others or yourself. Quote the Pope’s own words from the article to prove your point. Read the Pope’s article yourself and quote it back at me and stop asking where is it in the Pope’s article.

Don’t tell me you can’t tell my quotes from the Vatican’s, I’ve just clearly told you it’s ALL the Pope’s quotes. Don’t tell me I haven’t given a reference. I gave the link to the Vatican’s website to that letter from the Pope. Don’t tell me you cannot find it in the article. Read that article and quote back the Pope’s words to refute your claims.
 
So what. Inter religious dialogue. All the popes meet with other religious leaders. Do you have a quote from that meeting of the Pope saying, ‘Hey everyone lets do yoga?’

Read and Quote the Pope’s words from that Vatican Document released to the Bishops of the world on New age and eastern meditation to prove your point.

QUOTE=Path_Finder;12494203]ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/thich-nhat-hanh-suffers-brain-hemorrhage

Buddhist Leader invited to the Vatican. Buddhist Leader invited to the Vatican. Gee, I thought those Eastern Religions were so dangerous.

I will take Mother Teresa’s words and attitude on Father Joe Pereirra, if there was something wrong with this, he would not be a Priest still.
 
Path_Finder said:
ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/thich-nhat-hanh-suffers-brain-hemorrhage

Buddhist Leader invited to the Vatican. Buddhist Leader invited to the Vatican. Gee, I thought those Eastern Religions were so dangerous.

I will take Mother Teresa’s words and attitude on Father Joe Pereirra, if there was something wrong with this, he would not be a Priest still.
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So you are ignoring the Pope’s own document on Eastern Meditation and New Age,
The saints are bound in obedience to the Pope, our Head of the Church, and are you going to disobey the Pope, Christ’s Vicar on earth, descended in succession from St Peter himself?
Mother Therese is not infallible. She was obedient to the church, if she read that document she would be obedient to the church. She challenged that priest on teaching yoga to her nuns and he told her it was a spiritual discipline. He did not tell her what the Vatican has in that document about yoga. He might never have known. Saints have made mistakes throughout history and were made saints. No saint is infallible.

There are people in the church who are supporting gay marriages, divorce marriages, women priests, -that are not excommunicated though it clearly goes against catholic teaching. Just because it’s not openly condemned doesn’t mean it’s right.

I will obey the Roman Cathiolic Church under the authority of the Pope (our Vicar of Christ).
St Faustina was told by Jesus, not to obey an apparition but rather obey her superior’s commands no matter what she felt.
The Pope is our superior, Head of the Church. Catholics are bound to obey our head of the Church over any priest or saint.
The saints and priests are called to be obedient to the Pope.

Any Catholics reading this know obedience to the Pope is part of the Roman Catholic Faith.
A catholic in disobedience to the Pope is not a catholic.
 
OuadysServent-

If I may interject. In trying to follow this thread I am not lead to believe that Path_Finder or any one else is promoting to be or being disobedient to the Pope. What I believe is happening is you have different understandings of what the Pope’s leadership is saying. Path_Finder is saying they would rather follow Mother Theresa’s understanding of the Pope’s leadership verses yours. I know I could be wrong but this is what I am getting.

Path_Finder, I apologize if I am wrong.
 
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