Thank you for responding to my post.
I have to disagree with your first premise, because stretching and meditating are not intrinsically evil, whereas abortion and euthanasia are. Do you honestly think they are comparable?
You’re welcome. Glad you are in the discussion.
I was using it as an example of thinking not as a subject comparison.
The fact that Yoga and mediation either originated or achieved a level of effectiveness through non-Christian religions does not make them evil.
Any religion that worships false gods contains evil as they distract away from Jesus, even though the reach for the divine in any religion is to be respected. We do still have the Ten Commandments (about “idols”). Not everything in other religions are evil, there is often truth amongst the thorns, and stories of love.
Consider this official statement from one of the very Church documents you linked to, On Some Aspects of Christian Meditation. After advising prudence when considering these practices of other religious origin (and I’m certainly not arguing against prudence), the Roman Curia goes on to tell us:
"This does not mean that genuine practices of meditation which come from the Christian East and from the great non-Christian religions, which prove attractive to the man of today who is divided and disoriented, cannot constitute a suitable means of helping the person who prays to come before God with an interior peace, even in the midst of external pressures."
I think what it meant is that people who reach for the divine, even if their worship is a bit off-centre, God will be there somewhere. And might give some level of peace or even in the meditation they might feel peace. However, a Christian would never be advised to worship using other religion’s ways and means. So this article is obviously written for inter-faith dialogue to show recognition of other religion’s reach for a divine power - transcendence. And this is why one is to be prudent - to not appropriate more than it is one’s duty to do so. Look for Christ but not renounce one’s own religion in the meantime.
The notion that Hinduism and Buddhism have a demonic foundation cannot be reconciled, to my way of thinking, with these words of Saint Pope John Paul II, addressed to the U.S. in 1987: "To the Buddhist community, which reflects numerous Asian traditions as well as American, I wish respectfully to acknowledge your way of life, based upon compassion and loving kindness, and upon a yearning for peace, prosperity and harmony for all beings. May all of us give witness to compassion and loving kindness in promoting the true good of humanity.
Read the CCC, I have provided the link on this thread. Peace works on different levels. Having seen what Buddhism can do to people this post is a bit iffy. St. Pope JPII was no doubt recognising and inspiring peace and harmony in the Buddhist communities. He wasn’t advocating their spiritual practice because the idea of reincarnation is a direct insult to God. He was showing love for their outward expressions of love towards one another not advocating their belief system.
To the Hindu community: I hold in esteem your concern for inner peace and for the peace of the world, based not on purely mechanistic or materialistic political considerations, but on self-purification, unselfishness, love, and sympathy for all. May the minds of all people be imbued with such love and understanding."
Again, he is consoling them for their obvious craving and reaching for divine qualities. He is not saying to Christians: “Go and practice Hinduism!”.
And living my faith as a Catholic follower of Christ is always a challenge, whether I meditate or do Yoga stretches or not. If meditation and Yoga allows me to take some focus off of myself - my worried mind and my aches and pains - so that I can be of better service to God and others, how can this be wrong or evil?
As St. Paul said; “Work out your own salvation”. No one is judging your own intentions.
I think personally that God does look on people mercifully and takes the good from the offerings of all religions as all of Creation came to be through Christ. But I think he turns away anything that is not good or has its roots in bad things. And, Satan acts not in accordance with God. So basically, just because God rewards someone in their religion for being kind and compassionate, does not mean that Satan also has no room to work; when he has been steering people away from the deeper love and truth and path of Jesus Christ. via other cults/religions he is hardly going to stop, is he. So are we to test the spirit?
thank you agnes therese.
