YOGA: Take your suffering while you do it and unite it to Christ’s and everyone wins:thumbsup:
Hi! Thanks for the post!
I think that what you’ve said there is the other side to the argument.
The question is though: aren’t there certain practices that God likes to see and some that are a bit of a mockery? There is good and there is bad, verbal and physical action, even thought.
Also, another thought, use this example (based on my own reasoning not source material so in advance please respond or dismiss as you wish):
Say you are an ancient spirit to whom a percentage of each generation of peoples for ten thousand years have been giving you signals which in more extreme surroundings are always a clear sign of invitation or respect.
Now take Yoga. First, not just the simple exercise but the eastern meditation mixed in to it and which has been used as a form of worship to false gods for, for the sake of argument, ten thousand years within an eastern cult.
Ten thousand years later, people start doing the exercises in the West. Would you not recognise these exercises if they had been used - albeit with the meditation - as a sign of invitation if you had been in receipt of them for ten thousand years in the East.
So, let’s say you approach this person (or many) who is doing this exercise but, being a venomous type of fellow, you realize to your
annoyance, not joy, that these signals which have been used as a sign of respect in your direction for so long are now being used to offer up to God who IS, how you might react. The one whose angels cast you into the abyss. Do you walk away or stick around a bit? Maybe God is protecting this person from you! Maybe you give up or maybe you see a chance to use this as a snakey-path.
Say you do not give up trying to make room in this person’s life who is using this old form of respect that used to be attributed to you, and now that they’ve got your attention with the recognisable symbols and you’ve have their scent (the scent of crunchy Christians) and despite being given limited room to manoeuvre, you try to work out how else to get a foothold…as the cunning and deceptive do.
So, maybe there are other people who are exercising
with this person who
are bringing the ‘spirituality’ side of things into their symbols to you. This person’s family, friends or classmates are worshipping you via these symbolic patterns by offering you their minds and bodies? So is it not logical to guess that the person who is not doing the meditative side of things, the signs of invitation, will to some degree be in your domain?
To be using symbolic language, communication, that has been used to worship false gods for thousands of years (maybe not ten!) and to rely on God’s protection in order to continue doing these so I can feel nice, in such a repetitively dangerous situation, when does testing the Holy Spirit come into all this? Are we meant to purposefully prod a bear and say: “Hey, God will protect me”. Are we meant to intentionally lie with a beautiful woman at night and say: “Hey, God will stop me”. Or is this testing the Holy Spirit? I don’t know but I could do with some theologian’s answers.
These are just thoughts but welcome your response.
