THE YOGA BOOM: A CALL FOR CHRISTIAN
DISCERNMENT
PART TWO: YOGA IN ITS CONTEMPORARY WESTERN CONTEXT
by Elliot Miller
The character of
yoga in the West has largely been determined by the men who brought it here
from the East. The late Swamis Vivekananda, Yogananda, Muktananda, and
Satchidananda all played pivotal roles in exposing Western culture to yoga.
Today the leading yogis all teach distinctive styles of hatha yoga: B. K. S.
Iyengar created Iyengar yoga; Sri K. Pattabhi Jois brought ashtanga yoga, from
which power yoga has been derived, to the West; and Bikram Choudhury introduced
Bikram or hot yoga. Yoga has moved over the past two decades from the periphery
to the mainstream of Western culture. It is now established in the curricula of
many American public schools; it is being taught to preschool-age children; it
has become one of the West’s preferred physical fitness regimens; it is being
offered to, and sometimes mandated for, employees by a host of major
corporations; its alleged health benefits have been the subject of much
scientific research and it is now prescribed for a number of physical and
psychological problems; and it has long been embraced by many mainline
Protestants and Roman Catholics for its spiritual as well as physical benefits
and is now likewise being embraced by many evangelicals.
Raja yoga, which
is the classical form of yoga, is incompatible
with Christianity. It is designed to fulfill non-Christian mystical objectives,
it tends to engage the participant in idolatry, and it has spiritually
dangerous connections to the occult. In part one of this three-part series we
examined yoga as it has developed in its native India, including its meaning,
purpose, doctrines, and major forms. We saw that yoga is historically rooted in
Hinduism and was developed as a method for achieving mystical union1 with Hindu
conceptions of Ultimate Reality or God. Other mystical religious traditions
likewise use it for the same purpose. Today in the West, however, many practice
yoga merely as a form of physical exercise, with no thought of religion. Those
who believe that it can be spiritually beneficial usually hold that it is
compatible with any religion, and some have even written books promoting its
use among evangelical Christians (see below). In this installment we will
examine the forms yoga has taken in the West and begin to address the
allimportant question: “Is yoga, or can it be, religiously neutral and
therefore compatible with Christianity?”
SOME MAJOR
YOGIS IN THE WEST
(1) his hot yoga has
been criticized as unsafe for people in poor physical condition;9
(2) he has
franchised his yoga schools and copyrighted his yoga posture sequence and other
“brand” distinctives and threatened legal action against those who use them
without certification;10
(3) he lives in
Beverly Hills, wears Rolex watches, owns dozens of classic cars, including
Rolls Royces, and in other respects does not fit the ascetic profile of an
Indian yogi;
(4) he is an
outrageous braggadocio (e.g., “I’m beyond Superman”11); and
(5) he’s been
involved in sexual scandals with some of his female pupils. “‘What happens when
they say they will commit suicide unless you sleep with them?’ he says. ‘What
am I supposed to do? Sometimes having an affair is the only way to save
someone’s life.’”12 , 4
In part one I
began by affirming that yoga has moved in status over the past two decades from
fringe fad to cultural mainstream. It is now virtually impossible for any
person to avoid encountering and taking a position on it. The number of
Americans presently practicing yoga is commonly estimated to be eighteen
million, which is likely an extrapolation based on the fact that in 2004 the
figure was at sixteen and one-half million, according to a Harris poll
commissioned by the leading yoga magazine, Yoga Journal. 13 This is up from one
million in 1978, when I did my original research on yoga. More than
seventy-five percent of yoga practitioners are women. The same survey revealed
that “Americans spent $2.95 billion on yoga classes, yoga related products like
clothing, books and mats, and on yoga retreats and vacations.”14
Yoga has become
such a booming business, with neighborhood yoga studios being bought out by
budding yoga franchises, that yoga purists lament the commercialization of a
spiritual tradition, dubbing it “McYoga.”15 Yoga
Journal’s readership is over one million,16 a staggeringly high figure for a
niche magazine. Yoga in the Schools The prevailing interpretation of the Second
Amendment’s establishment clause as enjoining a strict separation of church and
state has resulted in a complete ban of such Christian activities as Bible
reading, prayer, and gospel preaching as part of American public school
programs. With the religious nature of yoga made clear in part one of this
series, it should therefore be a cause for concern to Christians that over the
past decade public schools across the country increasingly have been
incorporating yoga into school activities. In 2002, the New York Times reported
that at seven San Francisco public schools “with more on the way— the ‘yoga
break’ has taken its place beside typical school rituals like recess and the
Pledge of Allegiance.…” The schools had trained teachers so that yoga could be
included not only in physical education but in the regular classroom as well.
Furthermore, “in Seattle, 15 of 97 public schools have yoga as a warm-up in gym
class, and it is an elective for high school students….” The Times also reported
that a Los Angeles “nonprofit group called Yoga Inside…sponsors classes in 31
states, many in schools in poor urban neighborhoods.” Lastly, “the Accelerated
School in South Central Los Angeles, an acclaimed public charter school,
introduced yoga classes for all students last year.”17 A couple of years later,
Fox News did a story on tensions that were developing over the incorporation of
yoga into the Aspen Elementary School curriculum in Colorado. Steve Woodrow,
pastor of the First Baptist Church of Aspen, and other parents of children in
the school “complained to the school board, claiming it was a clear violation
of the separation of church and state. ‘If you study yoga its roots clearly are
within Hinduism,’ Woodrow said.… Even some of the most basic yoga terms, he
claims, may cause elementary school students to bring up questions that have
answers based in Eastern religious philosophies.”18 Fox News reported that the
American Yoga Association (AYA) and the school disagreed. It quoted from the
AYA’s Web site, which states: Yoga is not a religion. It has no creed or fixed
set of beliefs, nor is there a prescribed godlike figure to be worshipped in a
particular manner. Religions for the most part seem to be based upon the belief
in and worship of things (God or godlike figures) that exist outside oneself.
The core of Yoga’s philosophy is that everything is supplied from within the
individual. Thus, there is no dependence on an external figure, either in the
sense of a person or god figure, or a religious organization. The common belief
that Yoga derives from Hinduism is a misconception. Yoga actually predates
Hinduism by many centuries.19 Interestingly, a yogi at a yoga Web site where
the Fox News article is posted made the following candid admission in a forum
for responses to the article: In all honesty, I agree with this guy that Yoga
is a religious system. One can try to get around that by saying its just
exercise, but really its not. In India it is definitely religious, and in the
U.S. it certainly is “New Age”. Its a bit like legalizing marijuana. That alone
might not be a big deal, but it leads people down a certain path to harder
drugs. So start out with the soft sell of yoga as exercise, , 5 and you plant
the seed of diverting the child towards certain religious systems. While I may
not personally be offended, I can certainly see how a religious Christian would
object.20 Three years later, in 2007, Steve Woodrow and other concerned parents
not only in Aspen but across the country were losing the battle. Tara Guber,
the creator of the “Yoga Ed.” program that was implemented in Aspen, simply
took the overtly Hindu language out of the program while keeping everything
else intact, and the strategy worked. As the Associated Press reported: Guber
crafted a new curriculum that eliminated chanting and translated Sanskrit into
kid-friendly English. Yogic panting became “bunny
breathing,” and “meditation” became “time in.” “I stripped every piece
of anything that anyone could vaguely construe as spiritual or religious out of
the program,” Guber said. Now, more than 100 schools in 26 states have adopted
Guber’s “Yoga Ed.” program and more than 300
physical education instructors have been trained in it. Countless other public
and private schools from California to Massachusetts— including the Aspen
school where Guber clashed with parents—are teaching yoga.21 For Children
before and beyond the Schools The push to teach yoga to the young is not
limited to the schools or to school-age children. Yoga studios across the
country have been adding kids’ yoga to their schedules, and several booming
businesses have popped up,22 such as Marsha Wenig’s Yoga Kids International
based in Michigan City, Indiana,23 Jody Komitor’s Next Generation Yoga on
Manhattan’s Upper West Side,24 and Helen Gerabedian’s Itsy Bitsy Yoga in
Marlboro, Massachusetts.25 The stated plan is to teach preschoolers hatha yoga
at first and thus pique their interest in yoga, and then when they’re older teach
them how to meditate and the philosophy behind it all. All of this is spelled
out in Jody Komitor and Eve Adamson’s The Complete
Idiot’s Guide to Yoga with Kids. The book claims yoga is “spiritual” but
not “religious” and is therefore compatible with all religions, but then
proceeds to teach about the eight limbs of yoga, karma, prana, chakras, and
other doctrines unique to the religion of Hinduism.26 In Sports and Physical
Fitness Yoga has become one of America’s most popular exercise regimens for staying
fit. Seventy-five percent of health clubs in the United
States offer yoga classes.27 Athletes are also increasingly using yoga
to limber up for other sports, such as golf. Furthermore, yoga asana
competitions, which have long been held in India, are becoming increasingly
popular in America. Bikram Choudhury has established regional and international
Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup championships and he is also leading a campaign to have
competitive yoga included in the Olympics. In the Workplace It is becoming increasingly
common for major corporations to provide yoga for their employees as a means of
reducing stress and promoting general health. Entrepreneurial yoga teachers
have formed businesses to service this market. One such company, Yoga at Work,
states on its Web site, “Join a rapidly growing list of major companies like
Nike, HBO, Apple, Forbes, General Electric, PepsiCo and Chase Manhattan that
rely on yoga to keep their employees healthy, happy, focused, fully engaged in
their work.”28 According to a blog entry titled “Mandatory Yoga at Work” by law
professor Paul Secunda, the National Law Journal reports that “employers are
increasingly mandating that employees have healthy lifestyles, or face
repercussions. Mandatory wellness programs are popping up everywhere, lawyers
say, requiring everything from cholesterol screening to weight-loss plans and
yoga classes. Several employers are starting to reward employees with extra
cash for meeting certain company health goals. Others
are fining those who refuse to take part in programs.”29 , 6 In Health
Care and Medical Research A 1990 study showed that yoga combined with other
healthy practices was effective in treating arterial blockage. In recent years
further research of yoga has yielded some tentatively positive results for
relieving carpal tunnel syndrome, asthma and other pulmonary conditions,
substance abuse, depression, anxiety, insomnia, multiple sclerosis, lower back
pain, and obesity. Further claims have been made for yoga’s beneficial effects
in preventing or managing numerous additional afflictions. It is becoming
increasingly common for mainstream physicians and psychiatrists to prescribe or
recommend yoga as therapy, and for hospitals and physical therapists to
incorporate it in their treatment regimens.30 There are some proven health
benefits to yoga practice, but most of those claims have only anecdotal
support; thus, they should not be magnified out of proportion. Further, the
press has noted a “surge of muscle and ligament sprains, disk injuries, and
cartilage tears,” “mild to moderate sprains of the knees, shoulder, neck, or
back,” and “soft-tissue and joint injuries” associated with yoga, with some of
the injuries sustained being quite serious.31 A New York Times article raises
the question whether yoga’s negative effects may at times outweigh its positive
ones: “‘The extreme range of motion yoga develops does not necessarily have an
advantage, and it may be counterproductive,’ said Dr. Shirley Sahrmann, a
professor of physical therapy at the Washington University School of Medicine
in St. Louis. Like dancers, practitioners of yoga cultivate overly flexible
spines, which often cause problems in resting posture. ‘In my business,’ Dr.
Sahrmann said, ‘I have more problems with people who have excessive mobility
than limited mobility.’”32 Yoga’s effect on behavior is not always positive,
either. At Ringerike Prison in Oslo, Norway, a trial yoga program was stopped
after some prisoners became more aggressive and agitated, while others
developed sleeping problems. “[The warden] said that deep breathing exercises
could make the inmates more dangerous, by unblocking their psychological
barriers.”33 In the Church At 7:30 a.m. every Saturday for the past eleven
years, a Yoga Ministry is held for members of Trinity
United Church of Christ in Chicago (the church Senator
Barak Obama attended for two decades).34 Yoga has been embraced as an
edifying practice in many Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant churches since
the 1970s. For example, the late George A. Mahoney SJ, who authored several
books on Catholic spirituality, wrote in 1976: The ultimate worth of any
technique must be measured by the fruit produced. Hence no Christian ought to
condemn out of hand any technique, be it yoga, the use of music and prayer,
chants, Silva Mind Control, Arica, T.M., or
whatever unless for that person it has not been a help but a definite hindrance
to prayer. A technique has no meaning unless we ask the question: “How is it
being used? What are the fruits that come from such use? Does it help us or
others pray with greater consciousness, beyond the habitual superficial level
of controlled discursive prayer?”35 Acceptance of yoga as both spiritually and
physically beneficial has surfaced in evangelical churches only over the past
five to six years.36
This new movement
should be differentiated from the unquantifiable but probably large number of
evangelicals who for many years have practiced hatha yoga merely for its
physical benefits, either believing that it is religiously neutral or confident
that they can withstand its Eastern religious influences. The latter would only
describe what they practice as yoga, while the former claim to be practicing “Christian yoga” or some other equivalent term. In 2005
Time magazine described this trend as “a fast-growing movement that seeks to
retool the 5,000-yearold practice of yoga to fit Christ’s teachings. From
Phoenix, Ariz., to Pittsburgh, Pa., from Grand Rapids, Mich., to New York City,
hundreds of Christian yoga classes are in session. A national association of
Christian yoga teachers was started in July, and a slew of books and videos are
about to hit the market.”37 Those books and videos have since been published.
The most significant titles are Yoga for Christians by Susan Bordenkircher (W
Publishing Group, 2006) and Holy Yoga by Brooke Boon (Faith Words, 2007).
Bordenkircher, who previously had taught power yoga as a Christian, created her
Outstretched in , 7 Worship classes, which combine yoga with Christian faith,
in 2001. She developed a video ministry the following year. Boon had previously
been a yoga teacher and, after her conversion to Christ in 2001, she
immediately began to weave her new faith into her yoga practice through
insights she attributes to the Lord. She has built Holy Yoga into “a worldwide
ministry that includes classes, teacher training, and audiovisual
resources.…”38 Both Bordenkircher and Boon acknowledge their profound
indebtedness to Nancy Roth, author of An Invitation to Christian Yoga (Seabury
Books, 1989). Roth is an Episcopal priest with “an ecumenical ministry in
spirituality.”39 She clarifies that “while my own journey has been greatly
enriched by the wisdom of other traditions, most notably the mystical
traditions of the east such as the one in which yoga was born, my particular
way is the Christian way.”40 Roth explains how this Christian approach to yoga
first developed: “The period of relaxation and visualization at the end of
class became for me a doorway into prayer. It did not matter that we had
chanted ‘Om’ or that the exercises had Hindu names.… The One I encountered, as
I lay on the gym floor with my body relaxed and my mind and spirit attentive,
was the God I knew in Christ Jesus.”41 She concluded that “there needed to be a
new Christian asceticism that respected the integration of body and mind and
reflected both the newest research in psychology and physiology and the wisdom
of other, even more ancient spiritual traditions.”42 Roth’s words appear to
reflect an inclusivist theology that is common in mainline churches such as the
Episcopal church. Inclusivism holds that salvation is through Jesus Christ
alone, but Christ’s salvation can extend even to those who do not consciously
believe in Him, imparting to them gifts of grace or spiritual riches that can
benefit those of other faiths, including Christians.43 Bordenkircher and Boon
seem to be evangelical and more theologically conservative than Roth, but
Roth’s interfaith exploration and synthesis of East and West laid the
conceptual and practical foundations for Christian yoga, and the marks of her
influence are evident throughout the movement. After becoming accustomed to
arguing that yoga is inherently a spiritual practice and that Christians run a
spiritual risk in taking classes at the local yoga studio, I was surprised to
find that Bordenkircher and especially Boon agree with me.44 Where they differ
from Christian critics of yoga such as me is in their belief that yoga can be
redeemed and made a holy practice to the Lord. They maintain this, furthermore,
without revamping yoga into something essentially different than what we find
in the Eastern varieties: there are the same postures, breathing exercises,
and—to a significant extent—meditation techniques.
What makes
their versions of yoga Christian?
For all advocates
of Christian yoga the answer is the same: intent. They are worshiping the
Triune God of the Bible throughout the practice, offering their bodies to Him
as a “living and holy sacrifice” (Rom. 12:1). The background music has
Christian rather than Hindu associations, although it is similarly conducive to
meditation. They have given several of the standard asanas Christian significance,
renaming some of them (e.g., for Roth, the Sun Salutation becomes the Son
Salutation). They associate pranayama with the Holy Spirit (since Spirit is
derived from the Hebrew word for breath) or with the creative power of God.
Instead of using the names of Hindu gods as mantras in their meditation
practice they repeat short Bible verses, biblically based positive
affirmations, or chants from Christian mystical traditions. Their belief is
that as long as yoga is practiced as “body prayer” to the living God, with the
mind constantly focused on Him, the Christian runs no risk of committing
idolatry and the Devil has no room to move. The kind of
meditation practiced in the Christian yoga movement is called centering prayer
or contemplative prayer, which has its roots in Catholic mysticism but is also
practiced by mainline Protestants and is rising in popularity among “emerging
church” and other evangelicals. Roth writes that “it involves a paradox:
the paradox that attention to the inmost self is attention to God.…focusing the
mind and the heart in the practice of meditations is a means of exploration
both of our own nature and of the mystery of God.”47 Thus far in this series we
have surveyed yoga both in its original Eastern and in its contemporary Western
contexts. We are now prepared, in the remainder of this installment and in all
of part three, to begin formulating a comprehensive Christian response. If we
as Christians find ourselves in a culture in which , yoga is becoming
institutionalized, we must first determine whether yoga in any form—from
classic raja yoga to Westernized hatha yoga to novel “Christian yoga”—can be
truly compatible with Christian faith.
The problem with
George Mahoney’s position quoted above is his assumption that raja yoga can be
used for Christian purposes just as effectively as for pantheistic Hindu or
other Eastern mystical purposes. The Hindu understanding of God is
fundamentally different than the Christian one, and yoga was developed to
achieve oneness with the Hindu God—a God that is impersonal and does not engage
in thoughts, conversation, or relationships but exists in a state of pure
awareness. The Hindu concept of oneness with God is also radically different
than the Christian one, since it involves mystically realizing that one is God.
To achieve such union with this God one must achieve a state of pure awareness
that excludes thoughts, conversations, and relationships. Yoga systematically
achieves this by ultimately emptying the mind of thought, which leads to a loss
of the subject-object distinction so that the meditator now feels “one with the
Universe,” which in pantheism means “one with God.” The discipline of yoga was
developed to enable the practitioner to realize Hindu beliefs experientially,
and such experiences at times can be quite powerful and convincing (which is
why yogis who were sent here to promote Hindu spirituality commonly are more
than happy to accept yoga students who have no initial interest in
spirituality). Christian spirituality, by stark contrast, seeks a oneness of
will and not of being with a personal God who thinks, converses, and has
relationships. Christian meditation therefore involves an active rather than a
passive mental state. Meditation according to the Bible is filled with content,
such as the works, Word, and attributes of God (see, e.g., Ps. 1:2; 63:6;
77:12; 119:15, 27, 148; 145:5). It never creates a mental void, into which
spiritual forces that are not of God can rush—as does yoga. The two forms of
meditation could not be more different, seeking, as they do, such radically
different conceptions of union with such radically different conceptions of
God. The Idolatry Entanglement Another problem with Christians practicing raja
yoga is its complicated involvement with idolatry. Not only is one seeking
union with the impersonal Brahman of Hinduism, but the mantras one is given to
repeat in meditation are usually the names of Hindu gods. Furthermore, the
practice of puja, which is ritualized worship of Hindu gods or gurus, is often
intermixed in raja yoga and is not always easy for the novice to detect. Some
professing Christians see no reason for concern, however, such as defrocked
Catholic priest turned Episcopal priest Matthew Fox, as Yoga Journal reports:
But what if the religious people in your life won’t let you sidestep the
doctrinal controversies (for instance, the propriety of chanting a Hindu
deity’s name)? [Matthew] Fox sees no problem
with challenging them back: “….If there’s been too much God-talk in our brains,
then other names, whether it be Brahma, Shiva, Shakti, what have you, can add
to our repertoire. It’s not a subtraction. If our God is so fragile that He or
She is threatened by new names then we ought to look at that.”48 This is an
amazing thing for an ordained Christian minister to say. Has he read the
Scriptures of his own religion? God’s First Commandment was, “You shall have no
other gods before me.” His Second Commandment was, “You shall not make for
yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth
beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of
the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me” (Exod.
20:3–5). Throughout the Old Testament the emphasis remained the same, with
Yahweh visiting severe judgments upon the Israelites when they invoked the
names of other gods (see, e.g., Deut. 18:20; Judges 10:14; Zech. 13:2). The New
Testament takes a similarly unfavorable view of idolatry (see, e.g., 1 Cor.
6:9–10; 1 John 5:21; Rev. 22:14–15). The God of the Bible has made it quite
clear that He does not identify with the gods of other religions or receive
their worship as His worship. Fox may feel qualified to psychoanalyze God’s
dislike of idolatry, but , 9 I’d say that as the Creator and Sustainer of the
human race the Lord has good reason to be displeased when we deny Him and
disobey His law and instead worship and serve gods of our own creation. The
“jealousy” that non-Christians so often belittle simply means that God wants a
relationship with us. That’s good news.
The further we
delve into the world of yoga, the clearer it becomes that it overlaps with the
world of the occult 49 at several points. The concept of a psychic force
(prana) coursing through psychic centers (chakras) in the body, and the attempt
to manipulate that flow, is essentially occult, and, from a biblical
standpoint, spiritually dangerous. It is dangerous because whenever one
attempts to engage a spiritual force other than the Holy Spirit one opens
oneself up to demonic influences. It should go without saying that attempting
to arouse the serpentine kundalini energy believed to be sleeping at the base
of one’s spine is both occult and dangerous. Our look at kundalini yoga
revealed something that is generally true of yoga practice: it can involve both
wanted and unwanted contact with spirits, which are believed to range from
departed humans and demons to demigods and deities. As for tantra yoga, we’ve
seen that everything about it is occult in nature, and its practice at times
can involve the most extreme forms of occultism. Surprise! Raja Yoga Is
Hinduism In an unguarded moment, when its concern was to argue for the
superiority of yoga for psychotherapy over Freudian psychoanalysis rather than
to maintain yoga’s compatibility with all religions, Yoga Journal revealed the
thoroughly Hindu philosophy behind the practice of yoga: From the yogic
perspective, all human beings are “born divine” and each human being has at
core a soul (atman) that dwells eternally in the changeless, infinite, all-pervading
reality (brahman). In Patanjali’s classic statement of this view, tat tvam asi
(thou art that),50 we already are that which we seek. We are God in disguise.
We are already inherently perfect, and we have the potential in each moment to
wake up to this true, awake, and enlightened nature. This is a far cry from the
struggles of ego, id, and superego suggested by Freud. In the sophisticated
psychology of yoga, avidya, or ignorance of our true nature, is the central
problem of the human self and the source of all suffering. In other words,
we’ve simply forgotten who we are. We’ve forgotten that we’re the fantastic
dance of energy and consciousness, the divine play (lila) of being and
becoming. And what is the source of this alienation? Not sin nor wrongdoing nor
psychopathology of any kind. We’re simply misidentified.51 The article proceeds
to argue that Western culture is terribly haunted by the psychological effects
of Calvinist doctrines that human nature is depraved and that God is
ontologically separate from human beings. Our attempt to destroy the dark side
of our nature, which the author believes was carried over from religion to
psychotherapy, is fragmenting our psyches, but yoga offers the solution. It
teaches that we are in fact “saturated with the divine” and therefore we need
to embrace our dark side as well as our light. “This is known as the ‘unitive’
rather than the ‘separative’ approach to spiritual and psychological growth.
The radical notion in the unitive view is that there is nothing at all
dangerous hidden in the basement of our unconscious.”52
In other words, if
the Christian practices yogic meditation and becomes a full-fledged raja yogi
he will be cured of his Christianity.
Who needs a Savior
God if we ourselves are “saturated with the divine” rather than saturated with
sin?
A radically
different diagnosis of the human problem (ignorance rather than sin) results in
a radically different solution (embracing ourselves rather than embracing a
transcendent God and His gift of salvation).
We have yet to
answer conclusively the questions
(1) Is hatha yoga
religiously neutral?
(2) Can yoga be
Christianized?
(3) Are there any
biblically acceptable alternatives to yoga? and
(4) What can and
should Christians do about yoga’s incursion into such places as public schools
and the workplace? These will all be the focus of the third and final
installment in this series.
NOTES
1. Mystical union
means an experiential realization of one’s already existing (according to the
belief system) ontological union with Ultimate Reality. Under this common
definition, it does not apply to Christian or other theistic religious systems.
2. See Elliot
Miller, “Swami Yogananda and the Self-Realization Fellowship: A Successful
Hindu Countermission to the West,” Christian Research Journal 22, 2 (1999):
32–41, http://www.equip.org/DS213.
3. SYDA
Foundation, “Swami Muktananda,” Siddha Yoga Meditation, http://www.muktananda.com.au/muktananda.htm.
4. See William Rodamor,
“The Secret Life of Swami Muktananda,” LSY, http://www.leavingsiddhayoga.net/secret.htm.
5. See Geoffrey D.
Falk, Stripping the Gurus: Sex, Violence, Abuse and Enlightenment (e-book:
Million Monkeys Press, 2007), chap. 7, http://www.strippingthegurus.com/.
6. Yee was
featured prominently on an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show devoted to yoga,
June 29, 2001.
7. Ann Pizer,
“Power Yoga,” About.com: Yoga, http://yoga.about.com/od/poweryoga/a/power.htm.
8. Paul Keegan,
“Yogis Behaving Badly,” Business2 Magazine, September 2002, http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general478.html.
9. See Lorraine
Kreahling, “When Does Flexible Start to Mean Harmful? ‘Hot’ Yoga Draws Fire,”
New York Times, March 30, 2004, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905EFDE1F30F933A05750C0A9629C8B63&scp=1&sq=yoga+Lorraine+Kreahling.
10. See Douglas
LeBlanc, “Putting a Patent on YOGA,” Christian Research Journal 31, 2 (2008):
41–42.
11. Keegan.
12. Ibid.
13. “The Yoga
Journal Story,” Yoga Journal, http://www.yogajournal.com/global/34.
14. Susan Moran,
“Meditate on This: Yoga Is Big Business,” New York Times, December 28, 2006,
available at Yoga Journal, http://www.yjevents.com/yjevents/images/NY_Times_
Yoga_Business_28dec06.pdf.
15. Hilary E.
MacGregor, “Assuming the Profit Position,” Los Angeles Times, September 10,
2004, available at Yoga Works, About Us, Press,
http://www.yogaworks.com/about/assets/ LATimes092004.pdf.
16. “The Yoga
Journal Story.”
17. Patricia Leigh
Brown, “Latest Way to Cut Grade School Stress: Yoga,” New York Times, March 24,
2002,
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9500E1DC173BF937A15750C0A9649C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topic
s/People/B/Brown,%20Patricia%20Leigh.
18. “Yoga Causes
Tension in Public Schools,” FOXNEWS.COM, Oct. 1, 2004 (no longer online; copy
on file).
19. American Yoga
Association, “Yoga and Religion,” General Yoga Information, AYA, http://www.americanyogaassociation.org/general.html#YogaandReligion.
20. Guaracandra,
“Yoga Causes Tension for Public Schools,” Audarya Fellowship, Main Forum, World
Review, http://www.indiadivine.org/audarya/world-review/30762-yoga-causes-tension-public-schools.html.
21. Rachel Conrad,
“Yoga Stretches into Public Schools,” January 28, 2007, FOXNEWS.COM, http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Jan28/0,4670,FitnessYogainSchools,00.html.
22. “Yoga Craze
Spills over to Preschools,” CNN Student News, July 25, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/07/25/offbeat.yoga.ap/index.html.
23. See http://www.yogakids.com/.
24. See http://www.nextgenerationyoga.com/.
25. See http://www.itsybitsyyoga.com/.
26. See Jodi B.
Komitor, M.A., and Eve Adamson, “Part 2: Growing with the Tree of Yoga,” in The
Complete Idiot’s Guide to Yoga with Kids (Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2000),
43–84.
27. Richard
Corliss, “The Power of Yoga,” Time, April 23, 2001, http://www.time.com/
time/magazine/article/0,9171,999731,00.html.
28. “Stress
Management Is Smart Business,” Yoga at Work, QuikPage, http://www.yogaatwork.qpg.com/.
29. Paul M.
Secunda, “Mandatory Yoga at Work,” Workplace Prof Blog, November 26, 2007, Law
Professor Blogs, http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/2007/11/mandatory-yoga.html.
30. Carol Krucoff,
“No Longer a Stretch: Yoga as Healing Tool,” Los Angeles Times, August 14,
2000, S3–4. Yogis all over the country are providing such service to mainstream
health facilities; see, e.g., http://www.lifeasyoga.com/about-robyn.html.
31. Alice Dembner,
“Stretching Has Its Limits,” Boston Globe, January 8, 2003, http://
www.religionnewsblog.com/1869/stretchinghas-its-limits. See also Carolyn
Kleiner, “Mind-Body Fitness,” U.S. News and World Report, May 13, 2002, 54.
32. Kreahling.
33. The Associated
Press, “Yoga Stirs Tempers in Norway Prison,” WCCO TV, CBS Broadcasting, http://wcco.com/watercooler/Yoga.Temper.Water.2.256227.html.
34. Maureen
Jenkins, “Taking God to the Mat,” Chicago Sun-Times, July 30, 2004 (no longer
online; copy on file).
35. George A.
Mahoney, Inward Stillness (Denville, NJ: Dimensions Books, 1976), 227. 36. See,
e.g., Karen Garloch, “Yoga Gaining Popularity with Christians,” The Billings
Gazette, February 22, 2003,
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2003/02/
22/build/life/val-40-yoga.inc.
37. Lisa Takeuchi
Cullen, “Stretching for Jesus,” Time, September 5, 2005, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/
article/0,9171,1098937,00.html.
38. Brooke Boon,
Holy Yoga: Exercise for the Christian Body and Soul (New York: Faith Words,
2007), xi.
39. Nancy Roth, An
Invitation to Christian Yoga (New York: Seabury Books, 1989), back cover.
40. Ibid., xvi.
41. Ibid., 1.
42. Ibid., 2. , 11
43. See Ronald H.
Nash, “Is Belief in Jesus Necessary? The Answer to Religious Inclusivism,”
Christian Research Journal 27, 3 (2004): 22–30, http://www.equip.org/JAJ772.
44. Roth, on the
other hand, sees no problem with a Christian practicing yoga in an ashram where
God is called by another name, as long as the Christian is worshiping Christ.
(Roth, 12.)
45. On this see
Agnieszka Tennant, “Yes to Yoga: Can a Christian Breathe Air That Has Been
Offered to Idols?” ChristianityToday.com, May 2005,
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ ct/2005/mayweb-only/42.0b.html.
46. Roth, 85. I
will be writing a feature article for the Christian Research Journal on
contemplative prayer in the next year or so.
47. Ibid., 85–86.
48. Alan Reeder,
“Reconcilable Differences,” Yoga Journal, March/April, 2001, 84, http:// www.yogajournal.com/views/284.cfm.
49. The occult
consists of biblically forbidden attempts to contact and/or utilize supernatural
or paranormal beings, power, and information through such means as divination,
magic, and spiritism (see, e.g., Deut. 18:9–14).
50. The author
here wrongly attributes this classic saying to Patanjali. It actually first
occurred in the eighth century BC Hindu scripture, the Chandogya Upanishad, pt.
6, chap. 8, v. 7.
51. Stephen Cote,
“Standing Psychotherapy on Its Head,” Yoga Journal, May/June 2001, 104.
52. Ibid., 105.LINKS: Yoga Part 3