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Thread: Christians Should Not Do Yoga

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    Default Christians Should Not Do Yoga

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    Should Christians Do Yoga?

    It’s still making headlines in magazines and on television, it’s still being touted by healthcare professionals, and it’s still enticing consumers at local department stores. What am I talking about? Well, yoga, of course.

    Praised by many for its calming effect and wellness benefits, yoga is gaining cultural acceptance—even in some Christian circles.

    But should Christians be practicing yoga, considering the questionable Hindu underpinnings? If not, is there a safer, Christian alternative that could keep our physical bodies in top shape?

    These are the kinds of questions I posed to actress, singer, public speaker, personality trainer, and author Laurette Willis, simply because so many Christians have been confused about this same subject. And knowing that Laurette had been involved in yoga and the New Age for 22 years before coming to Christ, I figured she would know the spiritual ramifications firsthand.

    Plus, she is also a certified personal trainer who has developed a stretching exercise program that incorporates Scripture called PraiseMoves™ that she considers “the Christian alternative to yoga.” I was curious how her postures differed from those of yoga and how she infused Scripture into her workout routine. She covers much of these details in her latest book BASIC Steps to Godly Fitness (Harvest House, 2005) and on her DVD PraiseMoves (Harvest House, 2006).

    Why You Should Stay Away from Yoga

    We are bombarded by messages of yoga’s peaceful and healthful benefits, but what we don’t hear, specifically in the United States, is the true origins of this type of lifestyle. Laurette made it very clear to me in a recent phone interview.

    “These are postures that are offered to the 330 million Hindu gods. Yoga postures really are; they are offerings to the gods. If you do these postures and you do this breathing technique and this meditation, then you will be accepted by a god, little “G.” That’s the real danger,” she said.

    Laurette told me that one of her PraiseMoves certified personal trainers visited India for three months on a mission trip, and she would often see people in the streets doing yoga poses in front of the statues of the gods.

    “Romans 12:1-2 says we are to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to God,” added Laurette. “Here they are doing something very similar with these postures to their 330 million gods, and it is scary. So we abstain from things offered to idols—Acts 15:29.”

    In yoga they do what they call pranayama breathing. Prana is the Hindu word for life force, the same concept as the word chi in some martial arts. Yoga breathing attempts to manipulate that life energy, which Laurette believes is perilous. “That is a dangerous thing,” she said, “because I think that we are coming out from under the blood of Jesus when we do stuff like that, and we are no match for the enemy in those areas. I think of what Paul said in Ephesians 2:2, that Satan is the prince of the power of the air. We are not talking about oxygen.”

    A third area of concern in yoga is the concept of emptying the mind, which is contradictory to what Christianity teaches. As Laurette explained, “We are transformed by the renewing of our minds, not the emptying.”

    Along with emptying the mind, yoga guides people into astral travel, which is where people actually leave their bodies, a practice that Laurette was familiar with and has since questioned. “I wonder with those experiences when I left my body what got in there when I was gone?” Laurette posed. “As a Christian with the Holy Spirit in there, we are not going to be possessed, I don’t think. But one could easily be oppressed.”

    Clearly, with this understanding of yoga, Christians should think twice before heading to the local gym for a yoga class. But if you are a Christian who thinks it’s all right to attend yoga classes because you think you are strong enough not to fall prey to the spiritual deception that’s being taught and you enjoy the physical benefits, Laurette pleads in all seriousness that you to please consider a younger believer or weaker Christian who is watching your lifestyle. If you go to a yoga class, chances are they might be inspired to go also, and they could fall completely off track in their walk with God.

    The ‘Christian Yoga’ Controversy

    Can yoga and its religious roots be separated? Some who have been concerned about Eastern influences of yoga have looked to hatha yoga for answers, since hatha yoga is supposed to simply be the flexibility exercises without the spiritual influences. But Laurette is convinced that yoga and Hinduism are inextricably linked, and beyond that, there can be no such thing as Christian yoga.

    “Christian yoga is an oxymoron,” said Laurette. “It is like saying someone is a Christian Buddhist or a Christian Hindu. What some people are doing is that they are trying to make yoga Christian. Even Hindus are saying that you cannot do that.”

    Laurette’s Story: Sucked into Yoga and the New Age

    Laurette first got involved in yoga as a little girl. Her mother used to give free yoga classes to the college students, and Laurette was the demonstration model. Laurette loved being the center of attention, so yoga was fun. In addition, the exercises really relaxed her mother.

    But Laurette warns that yoga’s ability to bring a sense of calm is one of its deceptive charms: “That’s one thing people look at, too,” said Laurette. “They say, ‘My doctor, my chiropractor, my physical therapist says to do it. It helps me. I feel less stressful.’ Well, it wouldn’t be a hook if it didn’t have something good in it.”

    Yoga also fulfilled a spiritual need in Laurette’s life. Though her family went to church, Laurette says she never heard the message of salvation preached there.

    “We didn’t know about living the victorious Christian life,” she explained. “We were not aware of the deception that is inherent within yoga and its connections to Hinduism. It seemed so spiritual, so it was fulfilling a void that was in our lives. I have found that any part of our lives that is not submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ is an open door for the enemy. … As I look back, that was the open door to the New Age for us. We began getting into Edgar Cayce, Ouija boards, crystals, and all kinds of things.”

    Finding Christ on April Fool’s Day

    An only child, Laurette lost both her parents within the span of a couple of years while she was working as a struggling actress in New York. Grieved and lonely, she decided to move to Oklahoma and join a New Age community there to start her life over. A year after her move, Laurette says she came to the end of herself. That’s when she cried out to God.

    It was April Fool’s Day 1987, and as Laurette likes to tell it, “I went from being a fool for the world to a fool for Christ.” Laurette prayed, surrendering her life to God. “I fell on my knees and on my face, and I felt a physical weight lift off of me that I learned later was the weight of sin,” she said.

    Laurette was delivered from years of alcoholism, an addiction that began at age 13. And four days after praying, she met her husband to whom she has been married for almost 19 years.

    “I found that everything that I was looking for in the New Age and metaphysics and the occult, the wisdom of God was in the Bible,” she said. “I had no idea there was so much in the Bible. I thought that Christianity was just kindergarten, and I was into the higher things.”

    PraiseMoves: The Christian Alternative to Yoga

    Laurette remembers keenly the day God brought her the idea for PraiseMoves™. She says it was February 25, 2001 at 10:35 a.m., and she had just finished working out to a Denise Austin video. Laurette was contemplating in prayer an idea for a form of exercise besides aerobics that wouldn’t be yoga but that would be gentler on her 40-something body. “I thought that something would involve stretching and praising and moving and Scripture, and suddenly the idea of PraiseMoves™ came.”

    For the next two years, Laurette prayed about the idea and put it together. The foundational Scripture for PraiseMoves™ is 1 Corinthians 6:20, which says, “You were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

    PraiseMoves™ postures are stretching exercises with an accompanying Scripture verse. “Every posture in PraiseMoves™ is tied to a Scripture, so that while we are stretching and strengthening the body, we are also being transformed by the renewing of our mind, nourishing our spirit, and praising the Lord,” said Laurette.

    As you do the strengthening posture, you are supposed to think about the correlating verse. For instance, there is a posture called the vine, a pose that strengthens the spine and arms. The matching Scripture verse is John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”

    Just how important is it for the Christian to incorporate Scripture into daily living, even into such mundane endeavors as exercise? Well, for Laurette, the Word of God has been the key to a transformed life.

    “I look at how my life has changed over the years since I turned my life to Christ,” she said, “and it was really after I made a conscious decision to memorize Scripture, to get it on the inside of me, to begin to allow myself to be transformed by the renewing of my mind on the Word of God, that I really noticed a tremendous change in my life.”

    Laurette believes that as Christians we should view exercise as something that can and should be godly. After all, the term “godly fitness” is part of the title of her latest book. What exactly does godly fitness look like at its most basic level?

    “Whatever we do, we do as unto the Lord by focusing on Him, by realizing that this is not a cult of the body. I am not trying to get my body to look a certain way to meet the world’s standards. I want to be a fit witness for Him,” Laurette said.

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    A Mistaken Notion Concerning Co-Death with Christ

    The conditions for passivity in a believer may come about through a wrong interpretation concerning the truth of “death with Christ.” Paul says that “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2.20). Some misconstrue this to connote self-effacement. What they deem to be the summit of spiritual life is “a loss of personality, an absence of volition and self control, and the passive letting-go of the ‘I myself’ into a condition of machine-like, mechanical, automatic ‘obedience’.” (Penn-Lewis, WOTS, 86) They thereafter must harbor no feelings; they should instead renounce all consciousness of personal wishes, interests and tastes. They must aim at self-annihilation, reducing themselves to corpses. Their personality must be totally eclipsed. They misapprehend the command of God to mean a demand for their self-effacement, self-renunciation and self-annihilation so they may no longer be aware of themselves or their needs but may be conscious only of the movement and operation of God in them. Their misconception about being “dead to self” means for them the absence of self-consciousness. So they endlessly deliver their self-consciousness to nought till they sense nothing but the presence of God. Under this mistaken notion they assume they must practice death; on each occasion therefore when they become aware of “self” or are conscious of personal wants, lacks, needs, interests or preferences they consistently consign these to death.

    Since “I have been crucified with Christ,” they argue, then I no longer exist. And since it is “Christ who lives in me,” then I no longer live. I having died, I must practice death—that is, I must not harbor any thought or feeling. Because Christ is alive within me, He will think or feel in my place. My personality is annihilated, therefore I will obey Him passively, permitting Him to think or feel for me. Unfortunately these people overlook what Paul further said about “the life I now live in the flesh.” Paul died, and yet he has not died! This “I” has been crucified, nevertheless “I” still lives in the flesh. Paul, upon having passed through the cross, still declares of himself that “I now live”!

    This confirms that the cross does not annihilate our “I”; it exists forever. It is “I” who will one day go to heaven. How can salvation ever benefit me if somebody else goes instead of me? The true purport of our accepting co-death with Christ is that we are dead to sin and that we deliver our soul life to death; even the most excellent, most righteous and most virtuous soul life we deliver to death. God beckons us to deny the desire to live by our natural power and to live instead by Him, leaning upon His vitality moment by moment for the supply of every need. This does not in anyway imply that we are to destroy our various functions and settle into passivity. Quite the reverse is true: such a walk with God requires us to exercise our will daily in an active, consistent and believing manner for the denial of our own natural energy and the appropriation of divine energy. Just as neither the death of today’s physical body means annihilation nor the death of the lake of fire suggests extermination, so co-death with Christ in the spirit cannot denote effacement. Man as a person must exist; his will must continue: only his natural life must die. This is the teaching of the Holy Scriptures.

    The consequences of a misconception of the truth such as this are (1) the believer himself ceases to be active; (2) God cannot use him because he has violated His operating principle; therefore (3) the evil spirits seize the opportunity to invade him since he unwittingly has fulfilled the prerequisites for their working. Due to his misinterpretation of the truth, and his practicing of death, he becomes a tool of the enemy who has disguised himself as God. Alas and alack, this misapprehension of the teaching connected with Galatians 2 has come to be in many cases the prelude to deception.

    After such a “death” as this the individual is deprived of any feeling. He cannot feel for himself, nor can he feel for others. He gives those around him the impression of being like iron and stone, utterly devoid of feeling. He does not sense the suffering in others nor is he sensitive to how much pain he has given people himself. He has no ability to sense, to distinguish or to discern things within or without. This person is totally unaware of his own manner, attitude, and action. He speaks and acts without exercising his will and knows not from whence his words, thoughts and feelings originate. Without having made any decision through his own volition these words and feelings nonetheless flow like a river. All his actions are mechanical; no knowledge has he of their sources; he is only spurred on by an alien power. Strange to say, however, unconscious of self as he is, yet is he most sensitive to the treatment accorded him by others. He tends to misunderstand and hence to suffer. In any case, this “unconsciousness” forms both the condition and the consequence of the enemy’s penetration. By. it the evil spirits are enabled to work, to attack, to suggest, to think, to press or to suppress without the slightest resistance from the believer who is completely unaware of anything.

    Let us consequently keep in mind that what people commonly term “death to self” in essence signifies death to the life, power, exercise and activity of self; in no way does it refer to the death of one’s personality. We must not efface ourselves and render our personalities non-existent. This is a distinction we must comprehend. When we say without self, we mean without any self-activity, not without self-existence! If a Christian accepts the interpretation which envisages a loss of personality and refuses to think, feel or move, he shall live as one in a dream. Though he conceives himself to be truly dead, entirely selfless, and intensely spiritual, his consecration is ‘not towards God but is as to the evil spirits.

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    Interesting concept. There are many health benefits to the type of exercises yoga focuses on, but it is good to see a better-grounded spiritual alternative.

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    I was thinking this phrase to myself: “’All things are lawful,’ but not allthings are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up” (1Cor. 10.23) which led me to this article then I thought of those people I know who practice yoga or have other bad habits.

    Question: "What is theChristian view of yoga?"

    Answer:
    For many Christiansin the West who don't understand the history behind it, yoga is simply a meansof physical exercise and strengthening and improving flexibility of themuscles. However, the philosophy behind yoga is much more than physicallyimproving oneself. It is an ancient practice derived from India, believed to bethe path to spiritual growth and enlightenment.

    The word yoga means "union," and the goal is to unite one'stransitory (temporary) self with the infinite Brahman, the Hindu concept of"God." This god is not a literal being, but is an impersonalspiritual substance that is one with nature and the cosmos. This view is called"pantheism," the belief that everything is God and that realityconsists only of the universe and nature. Because everything is God, the yogaphilosophy makes no distinction between man and God.

    Hatha yoga is the aspect of yoga which focuses on the physical body throughspecial postures, breathing exercises, and concentration or meditation. It is ameans to prepare the body for the spiritual exercises, with fewer obstacles, inorder to achieve enlightenment. The practice of yoga is based on the beliefthat man and God are one.It is little more than self-worship disguised as high-level spirituality.

    The question becomes, isit possible for a Christian to isolate the physical aspects of yoga as simply amethod of exercise, without incorporating the spirituality or philosophybehind it? Yoga originated with a blatantly anti-Christian philosophy, and thatphilosophy has not changed. Itteaches one to focus on oneself instead of on the one true God. Itencourages its participants to seek the answers to life's difficult questions within their own conscienceinstead of in the Word of God. It also leaves one open to deception from God'senemy, who searches forvictims that he can turn away from God (
    1 Peter 5:8).

    Whatever we do should be done for God's glory (
    1 Corinthians 10:31),and we would be wise to heed the words of the apostle Paul: "Fix yourthoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that arepure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthyof praise" (Philippians 4:8, NLT).

    Recommended Resource:
    The Kingdom of the Cults, revised and updated edition.

    http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-yoga.html

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