Well, you haven’t shown that yoga actually has one “root.” A linguistic root proves nothing of the sort. Yoga seems to be a set of practices that was used by several incompatible Indian philosophies.
But more to the point, your options allow for the possibility that left-handed tantrism is simply a deviant form of Hinduism. So you need to stop using left-handed tantrism to condemn all of yoga. It just won’t fly.
I have just showed above how unsound your reasoning about “roots” is. And your blatant misinterpretation of Pope Francis has been pointed out several times. Pope Francis mentioned yoga in the same context as catechesis. Yet you keep speaking as if he was condemning the practice of yoga. Logically, this would imply that he was also condemning catechesis, which is absurd.
You have not demonstrated sound reasoning on this thread, only a blind determination to vilify the practice of yoga.
Edwin
I don’t know what is more confusing. Strands that lead to several roots or strands that lead to nothing - no root.
In comparison, Christians know what our authority is, in line with who, and what we have been given for our use, and why.
The Pope Francis remark, what he might have meant or not meant by his words, has already been discussed several times throughout this thread. If you want to read again everything on this then the pages are there to view.
The point is that the Bible is not just philosophy, so when you talk of these Yoga philosophies as being solid grounds for practicing, then not only are you not acknowledging that you don’t know what the root is, you are ignoring that without solid root and authority, Yoga is an ‘unknown’ quantity, and so unsafe ground for the
Christian to tread; Christianity is not based on human thinking or philosophy, or many philosophies. But unfathomably more. Now you might wish to practice Yoga but to suggest it is safe for others to practice I think is not very responsible, if that is what you are indeed doing (?) Because earlier you suggested that for me to think it unwise could only be because you believe I am not “
adventurous”!
Our salvation is a free gift, not gained by some human endeavour. As a priest said today: “
The Eternal One does not love us because of how good we are, but because He IS Good.” If we look at the posts by professors of Yoga which I posted earlier, they lucidly explain how Yoga is different in every aspect to Christianity, in particular, the point about having to achieve a break from our selfishness via some considerable effort on our part, on the part of self (it actually sounds very much contradictory); ‘union’ with the Yoga destination, is ‘achieved’ through personal effort. Again, I reiterate, that salvation in the Christian sense is a free gift not through any external practice which brings it into being, and Christian prayer is not about transforming one’s mind state, as it is not us who orders Him to come to us, so we don’t need to alter our minds to be prepared, but instead we can just sit quietly in His presence as the famous Psalm reads: “Be still and know that I…”. And He speaks to our hearts.
The other point is that Yoga was before Christianity, and so maybe people were just trying to reach their idea of who the Creator is, and in some religions they still practice Yoga, and if they live with
compassion then this indicates the presence of our Creator with them in some aspect of their worship, but the Christian doesn’t need Yoga, because after a moment in history born to us, was our Saviour. He is the whole Truth! We don’t need to search in vain for ‘possibly’ partially true cosmic mysteries or human-made theories leading to self-awareness, we don’t fantastical stories of gods and goddesses which represent characters of some greater ‘impersonal’ god, we don’t need alternate mind states to achieve perfection/ The Christian finds who he is not by looking at himself but at His Saviour, who taught us The prayer. And other prayers are based on Bible theology written by Christian saints and holy men and women, and have also been revealed through mystical events. The Christian acknowledges our sinfulness and seeks forgiveness. But the Christian believes that despite our saying “sorry”, our Creator called us first! We have what we need: Mercy.
The last thing is about our Holy Father. As Roman Catholics, we understand and believe that St. Peter was given the keys of the kingdom and these have been passed on down the line, and now our current Pope is anointed as our spiritual Holy
Father. So when the Pope decrees something or makes a pronouncement, I can understand why I am to listen to him, and sometimes this can be a challenge for people, because sometimes people don’t want to be nudged, or challenged. If he says that spiritual answers cannot be reached by a certain means then I understand that he has a reason for saying this and so I must question my knowledge or simply be obedient and get on with something else.