Is Yoga for the Body or the Mind?

A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.  This week’s item is from the Bend, Oregon Bulletin, with a headline:  “Spirituality, Total Liberation is at the Root of Yoga.”  These days it seems everyone’s doing it, for many, physical fitness and relaxation are the goals of yoga, and certainly those are lofty aims at a culture of traffic jams and fast food drive through.  Most people who arrive at the doors of “Yoga for Help” in Arlington, Texas, enter not because they are looking for religion, but because they are seeking a way to relieve stress, said Leonard Jefferson, who owns the studio.  In his classes, Jefferson said, he does not emphasize the spiritual aspects of yoga, but concentrates on the physical postures, exercises and breathing techniques.  For Carrie Rollins of the wellness center in Fort Worth, yoga is clearly not a religion.  As an osteopathic doctor, Rawlins uses it in her medical practice and teaches it as preventative medicine, she says.  Anyone with any religion can practice yoga, said Rawlins, who teaches some of the center’s 19 weekly classes.  It has a spiritual side to it, but not a religious side, Rawlins said.  However, even for those who practice yoga to improve their health and relieve stress, spiritual elements can surface.  It can be used strictly on a physical level, she said, but that spiritual element creeps in.

Tom:

Dave, it’s not possible to practice yoga without the spiritual side entering in.  The whole concept of it comes out of Hinduism.  As we’ve mentioned in the past, yoga is basically yoking yourself to Brahman, the god of the universe.

Dave:

Tom, but I think maybe that statement you made seems a little bit too strong to some people.

Tom:

Okay, well, lighten it up.

Dave:

No, I’m not going to lighten it up, I am going to justify it, what you said.

Tom:

All right.

Dave:

The whole purpose of yoga, as you said, is to yoke with Brahman.  It’s self realization to realize that I’m god, because everything is god.  I’m a funny kind of a god, I forgot that I was god, so I practice yoga in order to remember that I’m god with self realization.  Yogananda, self realization society, he brought that: well, if I’m god and I forgot that I was god, what good will it do me to remember that I am god when I forget it again.  But anyway, the point you were making is, yoga was designed for this purpose, to escape time, sense and the elements, to reach Moksha.  It’s a technique for dying, not for living, okay!  So all of the positions that this article talked about, the breathing exercise and so forth, were specifically designed to put  you into this altered state of consciousness to get you into this unity with Brahman, with the universe, to reach cosmic consciousness with some of our young people will experience on drugs.  So, how can you take something that was designed for this, and then use it for something else?  So, they are talking about physical fitness.  Well, if you are interested in physical fitness, you should practice exercises that were designed for physical fitness.  I’m not saying that these would not  make you limber, and so forth, but you cannot escape the spiritual aspect of this and the reason you can’t escape it is because that is what if was designed for.  Even the physical positions, the exercises and breathing and so forth are all designed for a spiritual purpose.

Tom:

Right, and it’s more meditation than it is aerobics.  Somebody who wants to exercise, well, aerobics, that might be a value to them.  But there is a spiritual side that is inherent with meditation.

Dave:

Well, meditation Tom, again we have to define the word because meditation in the West always meant contemplate.  In the Bible for example, Psalm 1, In his law, God’s law, doth he meditate day and night.

Tom:

Well, give me another word, these words are being confused.  Sometimes when you say, contemplation, it goes back really to an Eastern idea of looking within.  So really we’re talking about thinking, using your mind, that’s the heart of it.

Dave:

Concentrating upon trying to come to a deeper understanding of God’s Word, or something.  This is what meditation always meant in the West.  Now, as you said, it’s been confused by the influence from the East.  But this meditation from the East is the opposite; you’re not supposed to think.  You’re supposed to arrive at this relaxed but alert state, but without any thoughts running through your mind.  In fact you want to quiet yourself to get to the point where you are not thinking, you are not in control.  That’s not meditation, that is opening yourself to demonic entities.   So, Tom, if we had time to quote from some of the books on yoga by the great yogi’s, they warn you.  They warn you that you could be taken over by another spirit; you ought to have somebody actually monitoring you as you go into this relaxed trance state.  In fact, in much yoga, not all yoga it’s practiced, you have a mantra. For example, those who practice transcendental meditation with Maharishi, they discovered that their mantra, all the mantras are the names of Hindu deities.  And again, read the books on yoga, by the great masters of yoga and they will tell you that the repetition of these mantras is a call to these entities to come and possess you.  So you can’t escape that, although you are told, Maharishi said, this is scientific, it has nothing to do with religion that was a lie!  So they’re getting what they think is good health and they are actually getting into Hinduism.

Tom:

Right.  Dave, most people, if they are going to do something they want to do it really well.  If they are going to put their time and energy into it they want to understand it and do it the best they can.  Now, you go to the YMCA, you take a course in yoga, people from the East, yogis who practice this would laugh at what goes on over here because it  has nothing to do, really with, although it’s built upon it and there are some aspects of it but it’s not yoga as it is practiced in the East.  It has to do, as you said, with a process of dying.

Dave:

So why call it yoga, Tom?

Tom:

Yeah, that’s a good question.

Dave:

That’s deceptive advertising.

Tom:

Dave, my point is, people are getting into something, maybe not expecting it to be spiritual, but that is the heart of this, and they are going to pick up baggage including, in some cases, there are warnings out there by these teachers, demonic possession, not in every case, but at least they are going to have their, if they are Christians they are going to have their Christian world view completely undermined by this process.

Dave:

They are going to take up a world view; there is no doubt about that.  They will pick up an un-Christian, unbiblical world view without a doubt.