I’ve heard about Christians practicing “Christian Yoga.” The problem is that there’s no such thing. If you want to partake in “Christian yoga,” you might as well convert to an Atheist Christianity, right after petting an orange cow that has a trunk.
It’s entirely backwards to say, “Oh, I’ll just take the spiritual aspect out of the stretching poses I perform in yoga.” The eastern mystics would reply that the stretching poses are the spiritual aspects of yoga.
The United Nations agreed with this when, yesterday, they said on the International Day of Yoga, “Yoga is an ancient physical, mental and spiritual practice that originated in India. The word ‘yoga’ derives from Sanskrit and means to join or to unite, symbolizing the union of body and consciousness.”*
The whole purpose of yoga is to position one’s body in such a way that it unlocks spirits and invites them to invade. If our bodies are temples of the Living God, as Paul says they are, then yoga is the ritual that opens the temple doors, enabling unclean spirits to enter and defile it as they please.
The concept of body positions affecting our spiritual state is foreign and strange to western culture, but others would say that’s only because western culture is spiritually strange.
Even for a Christian, there’s a difference between praying on one’s knees and praying standing up. An outward display of submission on our knees frames our supplications in a different light than it would if we prayed with our hands on hips and feet shoulder-width apart.
I’m not saying that sleeping in an awkward position seals our doom; I am saying that willingly practicing the meditative art of yoga, carefully designed so as to open oneself to demonic entities, puts the Christian, or anyone else, in perilous danger.
We also have to deal with a truism that isn’t true. Modern society believes that most religions teach pretty much the same thing, but vary in application and practice.
Nothing could be further from reality.
For example, we hear that, “Yoga’s spiritual, just like Christianity’s spiritual; Yoga focuses on peace, just like Christianity focuses on peace, so both beliefs are already rather similar.” Thus, the dangers of yoga are downplayed because we accept the fallacy that similarities between two things means they’re automatically the same.
In truth, there’s nothing common between Yoga and Christianity except the things that are common to mankind. Yoga and Christianity are both spiritual because people are naturally spiritual; yoga and Christianity are concerned with peace because people are naturally concerned with peace.
Anyone who believes that Christianity and Yoga (which is rooted in Hinduism) are compatible only has to ask, “What does each group believe about Jesus Christ? Do they believe in Christ, or don’t they? Do they believe He’s the Son of God, or do they believe He’s a carpenter from Nazareth? Do they believe He’s been raised from the dead, or do they believe He’s still buried in the grave?”
If a man asks both groups those questions, he’ll find their answers are precisely opposite of each other.
Finally, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, said in a recent address that, “Yoga is not just about exercise; it is a way to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and the nature.”**
If there’s still any argument that Yoga and Christianity can harmonize, let it end here. As the Prime Minister stated, Yoga’s concerned with a sense of oneness between yourself and the world. Christianity, on the other hand, is concerned with one being separated from the world.
The practitioner of Yoga wants to be one with nature; Christians know that humans are created to be superior to nature.
Yoga invites its followers to descend into a trance of abstract spirituality; Jesus Christ rescues His followers from those abstract depths and introduces them to something—someone—tangible and human:
Himself.
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For an excellent discussion on Yoga, see this Youtube video, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFr6G8VwYKo&t=1205s