The Labor of Prayer - Meditation Exposed

The religions of the world teach many ways to pray, but there is only one true way. The Bible tells us how to pray, but if we listen to men (guru’s, teachers, theologians or pastors gone astray) on how to pray, we’ll be tangled in disciplines without having a personal experience with God. My prayer life prior to accepting Christ was a burden, so difficult that most nights I went to bed without even attempting it!

I’m going to explain it to you in some detail here so you can remain vigilant in your churches. Someone might explain it as a way to deepen your knowledge of God, and use phrases like Christian meditation or Christian Yoga. Always refer to the Bible about prayer, never the ways of man, no matter how educated or well connected that man may be.

This looks peaceful, and it should be, but... 

In my guru laden church, praying was a series of works. Prior to prayer we were to practice a series of Yoga “energizing” exercises. They were relatively easy to do, but took between 20 – and 30 minutes. After this, you sat down to mediate. Usually this included chanting for another 20 minutes. Next you practiced 3 different series of “yoga” techniques.

The first was a breathing exercise that used a repetitive phrase called Hong-Sau. You were to mentally say the first word as you breathed in, and second word as you breathed out, all the while paying close attention to your breathing. After about a ½ hour of this, you would switch to another technique, called The Om Technique. This one involved closing your ears and eyes with your fingers. To make this easier they sold a special bar you used to hold your elbows. You were to listen for the OM vibration and look for the “third eye.” They taught us this was the “comforter” taught in the Bible, or their idea of the Holy Spirit.

(This is an artists rendition as the picture I used was removed by Blogger...gee, I wonder who complained about it? Could it be a church that wants to hide it's techniques from the public eyes?)

An OM BAR is not a place to have a drink!

The last technique was their highest and took a year of lessons and a special secret initiation. It was called Kriya Yoga (you can Google this for more information), and this was a technique where you visualized energy in your spine while using a breathing method to “draw” it around the spine, starting from the base (coccyx) to the base of your brain (medulla oblongata). Each revolution was one Kriya and the amount of them depended upon how far along you were. They start you at 12 and increase you by 12, but not without permission from a monk certified to increase them. He would watch and listen to see how well you were practicing Kriya before allowing you to do more.  After the initiation they throw rose petals on you and sing, "Roses to the left, roses to the right, roses, left and behind...om, om, om..."

After doing 24 to 120 Kriya's, each taking about one minute to perform, you would then “sit in the silence." All of this took about two hours, but I would manage to cram this into one hour. You were instructed to do this at least twice a day, in the morning and at night.

These are Kriya beads count each Kriya

If you think it’s hard to find 20 minutes to pray to God, imagine having to go through those hoops to talk to him, and then not be able to really ask him for anything, just “feel his presence.” What does Jesus say about such prayers?

"When you pray, don't babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered only by repeating their words again and again." Matthew 6:7 (NLT)

After I denounced my guru, it took me years to even attempt to pray, and I had no idea what kind of “religion” I should try. I started walking every morning and praying: “Dear God, restore my faith in you and define that faith and belief.”

If you or anyone you know practices techniques of prayer, I hope this message will release you from that bondage.

I want to leave you with a warning. Eastern and New Age philosophies and techniques are present in American Christen churches. We must be vigilant about “blending philosophies” into Christianity. Tolerance for other religions has nothing to do with standing firm in Biblical Truth.

The Big Guru Breakup

Here is a never before shown picture of me at my guru church. This was taken in Hollywood, California in 1973 at the temple of my guru.

Over the next few weeks (in between other interests) I'm going to share some of my personal experiences of life on the inside of an dharmic religion that makes claims to be a church of all religions, thereby including Jesus in their teachings, and what I know of why they added him, and how they successfully re-wrote his teachings and published parts of the New Testament.

Pantheistic  (Eastern) religion and Christianity can't be reconciled. I've written about this exclusively on this blog but it bears repeating. I will share some of why I broke up with my guru after a 30 year relationship, and how I returned to Jesus Christ.

I try (now more than ever) to remember that all of my experiences are the sum total of who I am, and that I must love all parts of my life to love the whole me. Thus, I embrace the memories of it "all" but see now how I was out of step with God in this church. We each only have our own experiences. I can only write about mine. But, I can also say I witnessed a swath of suffering in the lives of other devoted devotees striving for perfection under the iron hand of discipline.

What I've learned as a Christian is there is no perfection in this world. Stay tuned.

Damage Control

Throughout the world our Christian image is in the toilet, thanks, in part, to G.W. latching onto various Christian leaders and proclaiming that God chose him to rule the country, and look at our country today. Few US Presidents have been as openly religious as Bush, but this didn’t help the Christian populace when he couldn’t justify the Iraq war or explain our current economy. But this isn’t a political site, and we continue to pray for our leaders.

A year ago the Barna Group did a survey showing that 16-to 29-year-olds were more skeptical of and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago. They also do not believe that there's one moral objective truth. The same report indicates more and more people view Christianity negatively and with out-right hostility. Don’t think this viewpoint just happened. There’s an agenda at work to tear down Christianity. It’s never been more urgent that Christians act like Christians.

High profile evangelical leaders have damaged our credibility, too, leaving us to hold the explanation bag when they fall off their holier than thou bandwagons. Thanks to the lightening fast media, Blogs, chat rooms and bulletin boards, everyone has a good laugh, and these fallen preachers are representatives of all Christians.

Todd Bentley for example, the tattooed healing preacher from Florida was recently caught having an affair with one of his parishioners, and people are having a good “I told you he was a fake” moment. Ted Haggard founded one of the most successful mega churches in the country, yet was having a homosexual relationship with a male prostitute while furiously preaching against homosexuality.

There is a large and growing body of Americans who believe that Christians are armed with ignorance and hate and they're waiting for the "old guard" to die so new ideas can flourish. These new ideas include new age, eastern religions, wiccan, astrology, and atheism, to name a few.

If we’re doing the works of the righteous, we must be righteous. We must forsake sin even in the presence of adversities and popularity. We must spread the message that God is the creator, the ruler, judge, savior, father, preserver, and benefactor. We must grow in God’s Word, in Grace, and pray without ceasing.

Fact: I get more hits when I write about atheism than when I write about Christianity.

Bad Vibrations - More on Love

Much of what I've shared on this blog relates to the stark contrasts between my life in eastern religion and conversion into Christianity.

If I can't take 30 years of striving for perfection in a yogic life, and the pitfalls I encountered with eastern religious logic, and share this with others heading "east," and warn them, then those 30 years were a waste. But we know that's not true, right? Nothing is a waste if we glorify it in Christ. We are the sum-total of our experiences. Jesus told me not to "hate" any part of my life. That's how most of us live. Denying big chunks of self and trying to do something with the part we like. We run very fast from our sins, bury them as deeply as we can so they remain hidden, lest we have to face them again and again. Horror of horrors.

The Bible's message will set us free, even though some Christians struggle with believing God hates sinners, and is angry with them. The Bible plainly explains we're not perfect, we're not going to be perfect, so stop trying. Jesus loves every single hair on our heads. Jesus wants us to embrace our true selves.

Eastern religion does not teach that there is a savior who loves us and wants to redeem us. Instead their message is that only through yogic works can we be "free" of the ego and attain a state of enlightenment, or oneness with God.

As I've shared before, leaving my eastern religion was extremely difficult simply because I'd been such good devotee of the program. My unending quest to connect with God, to seek that eternal joy within, kept me attuned with Indian philosophy and the striving for perfection. That eternal joy I embraced wasn't eternal, I eventually learned those moments of peace were as long as the meditation.

I struggled for many years with a "holy" life or "holier-than-hell" life. Eastern religion is more attuned to isolation, meaning that though Hinduism is ancient, it does not have a blueprint for those living in a modern world.

Now, where does love fit in? Being a yogi requires intellectual study and meditation, not the cultivation of relationships, which is where you'll find love.

Because karma can't be forgiven, you work out your karma through yoga, but yoga is a means not an end. There are many disciplines in yoga. I followed Raja Yoga, a "royal yoga" that is, a highway to self realization and enlightenment. The royal highway means you have work to do; you have to transform and purify yourself until all karma is burned, releasing you from the chains of this world. The ordinary man could not conceive the absolute spirit, only a self-realized yogi.

,

Meditation was the place to seek wisdom, yoga postures is a way to attain the discipline of body, Bakti yoga is a way to attain devotion. Many practices but no official word from God. They often use the Bhagavad Gita as God's word, there's nothing in the document that can be verified as an actuality. It's a wonderful poem about man doing his duty, but it's not the word of God.

The Bible is roughly ignored in eastern religion. Because the church I belonged to referred to Biblical scripture on Sundays and limited it to an interpretation by their founder, no one considered reading the Bible on their own. Often we were told that it took a "master" to understand a "master," and therefore we would not understand the Bible without the guru's interpretation. I honestly didn't realize the Bible was God's word, or that it's alive. It's called a living Bible. There are over 37,000 promises to be found in the Bible, as well as history, prophecy, wisdom literature, letters and instructions.

Okay, so, again, where was the love in eastern religion? Did God love us when we went to that temple? How did we love God if we were bungee corded to the earth in a dreadful karmic cycle?

What I came to learn was God wasn't the image of man, rather we were told he was a vibration and was part of everything, including this computer screen. It was the vibration of God we loved and were to mold the vibration into an image we could understand and desire. To love God we were to cultivate the desire for God by coming up with a concept such as a guru or a statue of Krishna or a picture of a God, even the picture of Jesus. We were taught that ordinary love is selfish and rooted in desire, so we did not love in an ordinary way. We were told to talk to God in the language of our hearts, that "wanting to love God--was loving God." God would not deny anyone his love if we made a sincere effort. We were told there is no sin, and no Satan, that the world is made up of light and darkness. Good and bad. That the laws were universal and applied to everyone.

When did the holes get poked in my eastern religion faith?

The night my mother died. Sitting in a stairwell at Long Beach Memorial hospital, clutching my cellphone, having just hung up with an arrogant monk, I knew my guru was a god impostor. Sometimes life changes in a stairwell.

My eastern religion leaders told me my mother deserved to die a horrible cancer death, and that she really didn't mind dying in this way, that her soul understood. She had done something to someone, somewhere and she was paying her karmic dues. After she suffered and died, her soul would be whisked off to be reborn again in the body of her choosing. I would never see my mother again. While I sobbed on the phone, the monk told me to be happy for her. Her soul was going to be released. He felt he could do more by meditating in the Pasadena hills, where the ashram resided, than coming down to the hospital.

None of the devotees knew how to comfort me, for to show grief was to show ego earth-binding inclinations. They almost seemed afraid of me, as if I had seen what was in store for them.

No, I was to pick up and carry on in my quest to find God and let the dead bury the dead.

All those years, I'd believed dying to be part of the karmic wheel. Well, here was death. I can say I lived in shock for a good long time after mom passed. The one person I needed to accept me, died, and her last word to me was "shit." I was trying to make her more comfortable, telling her it was okay to pass, to let her pain go, and she jerked her hand from mine and said, "shit," and then she lapsed into her final coma.

I found a bathroom and vomited. I heard someone tell my father of my state and I heard him say in an angry voice, "she'll be fine." I was not fine. There was no way out. There was nothing I could do. It was absurd. 30 years of meditation was not going to save my mother nor give me an ounce of grace. I was on my own. The pain was so unbearable that I was chewing pain pills and Xanax.

It was my inability to reconcile mom's death--or find peace about it, that eventually, though not entirely at once, turned me toward Christ. Because I had been so completely brain washed about the nature of God, when I first began reading the Bible I couldn't grasp the message. In talk therapy I learned I'd formed a religious addiction. Through meditation I sought escape, and so did everyone else I knew that was striving for this oneness, perfection with God. Within their lives, broken marriages, alcohol, drugs, affairs, deceptions, continued but while in they meditated they could numb out, and all these other problems would go away--but they don't go away. They cling to you like tar and feathers.

We would escape into this unreal mythical world where a guru, his monks and nuns, along with rules and regulations put a divide between us and God. There was so much perfectionism running amok that it became alarmingly difficult to do anything within this church without someone pointing out that it wasn't good enough. Silly things like using a ruler to measure the exact location a plastic spoon and fork should be set on a table. The devotees used this perfection system to humiliate and wound "lesser" devotees and to pump their egos. These helpers would be reduce to tears and told they were ego bound, and that "master used to upbraid his devotees," and they were only doing what the master would do. Or, "they were doing (fill in the blanks of abuse) because they loved the master, and we should be more understanding if we loved him.

My eastern religion prescribed to toxic shame in the name of God. They severed my soul. They brought me feelings of distrust, worthlessness, inferiority. Because I came from a shameless home, where abandonment, ridicule, abuse, neglect and perfectionism existed, eastern religion became my new family. Many devotees were from similar abusive families and they passed it on to others through control, perfectionism, contempt, criticism, blame, envy, judgment, power and rage.

When I began to seriously question the flaws of the teachings, I was excommunicated. They excommunicated me by abandonment. I was so wounded I wasn't aware I was being excommunicated. They didn't need me. Not really, there was another putz who'd just joined. Why keep the trouble makers? Hadn't they been really good at getting rid of them? What about those mysteriously missing monks who quit? Where'd they go? Where do people go when they are excommunicated? Don't think we didn't ask! We lost many monks to mystery. The really good ones never stayed.

Spiritually, I was a zombie. I could not pray, nor meditate. I drifted. I tried to read the Bible.

Everything I'd studied was now in direct conflict with the God of the Bible. The Bible was telling me I didn't have to do anything but accept Jesus Christ, that Jesus loved me. He loved me so much that he died for me. I didn't understand this kind of love. I didn't believe it. The Bible is just something made up, I told myself because that's what my church told me. They said Jesus orchestrated his Crucifixion, like a play, that he cast his own characters, that it was just done as an example of how much one could be devoted to God. We could all be Christ-like, or attain Christ consciousness. Jesus Christ had gone to India and had learned Kriya Yoga and that's what he'd taught his disciples, but the secret teachings were written out of the Bible, don't you know? And now Jesus was working with an Indian Avatar named Babaji, and together they were running the World. They were the CEO's. I believed this remake, and so does thousands of world wide devotees, even still, if not more.

The Bible says love compensates for our sin. Eastern religion says you have to work off karma to know God. There's no hall passes. The guru can not release of the work you must do; he's more of an adviser.

While I was in spiritual recovery, I came across this poem, and it seemed to be Jesus speaking to me.

Welcome to the world, I've been waiting for you.
I'm so glad you're here.
I've prepared a special place for you to live.
I like you just the way you are.
I will not leave you no matter what.
Your needs are okay with me.
I'll give you all the time you need to get your needs met.
I'm so glad you're a girl.
I want to take care of you, and I'm prepared to do that.
I like feeding you, bathing you, changing you, and spending time with you.
In all the world, there has never been another like you.
God smiled when you were born.

(John Bradshaw, Home Coming, Bantam Books)

When I began to do inner child work, I began to develop a new relationship with God. It didn't come quick, and God dropped a few wake-up calls into my life to move things along. Jesus' warnings about false teachers hit me hardest. The closer I examined the Bible the more I realized that though some eastern religion has nice-sounding messages, they do not agree with God's message in the Bible. I learned God's love is truly complete. How great is the love of the father! Never had I read so much about love, or how it could change my life. In just a few years as a believer my life is completely changed.

Now I know I will see my mother again. She believed in Jesus Christ. She is already glorified in heaven.

The Lord our God is a merciful God. 2 Sm 24:14

Modern Day Guru’s Part II - Big Sale Today!

All modern day gurus are selling something. It might be a service, a get rich quick scheme, mediation techniques, flat abs, shoes or a fountain of youth.

Today’s gurus are honed pitchmen that know how to manipulate the general public, usually through physiological methods. They make promises that work for a small percentage of the population (usually when diet is concerned). For the most part what they’re selling is a hoax, usually repackaged from older hoaxes, and it’s perpetuated on a suffering group of people, as Thoreau said, “the mass of humanity live lives of quite desperation,” and the modern day gurus bet on this pain—not plan, pain.”

Modern day gurus use a method to sell their products and their religions. They’re master pitchmen (or women).

Jesus Christ is free.

Modern day gurus all follow a pattern for top marketing.

Brand Description - Usually a symbol
Personality – Modern gurus have dynamic and charismatic personalities
Key attributes – Usually enthusiasm and interest in your well-being
Packaging – Study guides, lessons, books that always cost money
Presentation or persuasive presentation – This can range from a guru walking down a blue carpet and rose peddles tossed by veiled women to an austere stage, a fashionably dressed person with a German accident, or full blown tattooed maniac in the spirit revival. However he/she’s packaged her “stuff,” you need it to be skinny, happy, saved or healed.
Mission Statement – Usually to unite something, or enlighten you, help you lose weight, change your life, become one with God.

This is the pattern of Jesus Christ:

Everyone has sinned
The penalty for sin is death
Jesus died for our sins
To be forgiven we must believe and confess that Jesus is Lord
Salvation comes through Jesus Christ

There is no money to be made from Jesus’ marketing plan, so modern gurus think up a different plans—or marketing strategies to sell their ideas, religion or products. Sometimes they mix up several other programs, religions or philosophies, but they’re never a unique idea but an uneducated person won't know this--they'll think this guru is phenomenal, unique, modern, it. All eliminate truths that will not attract followers.

Sin and hell is removed from false religious lexicons. There is no hell or damnation. Doesn't exist, just what's inside of your bliss mind -- Jesus just got nailed on a cross for nothing other than he "staged it" and "man" wrote the Bible so it's flawed.

The do not advise you to read the Bible but they'll surely miss quote it.

Your failure is their cornerstone to success. It’s your fault and you need to take step two, or buy this book, teaching, food, whatever they’re selling. It then requires your study and application, usually filling all of your free time so you have no time to think about the insane thing you're involved in, and when you fail they’ll blame your inability to understand the program. You’ll leave and find another modern day guru who will promise you the same thing.

In what ways will you fail?

You will not lose those ten pounds - and keep them off forever
You will not find the truth inside of you
You will not free yourself from your mind without a lobotomy
You will not find cosmic consciousness
You will not be stress free
You will not appreciate every moment of your life
You will not see a flower growing

Jesus Christ does not make promises he can’t keep. Once he said it, it’s done, so strong is his promise.

He gives assurance that you’re saved eternally. “These things I have written to you so you believe on the Son of God; that you know you have eternal life.”1 John 5:13

If gurus promise you’ll feel “something” as proof their brand of religion is real, remember this: “Do not say, I don’t feel it? Feeling is not the evidence, or proof for you to trust. Your feelings may change like the wind, but God’s Word never changes. He says: Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away.” Matt. 24:35

Which words would you rather trust? God’s unchanging Word, or your ever changing feelings?

Jesus promise is simple – accept Him and be saved.

Guru’s programs are complex and there’s a lot to do and remember. Gurus will tell you it’s an inner world to strive for, but Jesus says we are not saved by trying, but by trusting in what He has done for us.

Stay tuned for part III - Who are Modern Day Guru's

Kundalini - Fashion or Foe?

People Magazine has an article this week about a young actress who overcame an eating disorder and now draws her strength from Kundalini yoga. What concerned me most about this story is Kundalini is described as simply meditation and chanting. This lack of information is typical of our culture.

We’re obsessed with eastern religion, and if you read much of my Blog you’ll see I’m quick to point out the erroneous mistake in promoting it so blatantly.

Even more ironic is the message from this story is to go from one addiction to another. Yoga can be an addiction.The writer of the People Magazine article didn’t consider a common thread that yoga has with addictions. Control. Eating disorders are about control, and so is yoga, especially Kundalini yoga, which is a meditative discipline. The addicts I knew who clung to yoga as their means of recovery, failed and are now dead. 30 years in an Eastern Church gives me some authority on the subject, and a bird’s eye view of the wreckage that a yogic life can leave behind.

Here’s what People Magazine didn’t tell you.

Kundalini yoga focuses on moving energy through the spine, or what yogi’s call the chakra system. How do they do that? They imagine moving energy around the chakras (spine), and this is done in conjunction with certain breathing exercises. It is done in repetitions, usually starting out with a small number and increasing as you practice.There is an additional concern for addicts. Self-hypnosis is very addicting. It produces endorphins that mimic the same kind of high that cocaine can produce and stopping it suddenly can cause withdrawals. Practicing yoga can become an emotional obligation, something yogi’s might feel forced to practice, and when oneness is never found, depression can follow. Finally, the yogi self-hypnotizes isolates and disconnects from their world in the same way addicts isolate and disconnect. It’s important to remember that the word yoga is “union,” meaning one. Kundalini yoga is said to enable the person to merge with or "yoke" the universal Self, resulting in union with the Divine.

All yoga classes introduce meditation in some form. Breath control, affirmations and incense are often included. These caveats are part of Hindu mysticism. Christians especially should know that any form of pagan rituals, dressed up in cultural style and paraded by Hollywood is a dangerous message. This lovely actress founded a national eating disorder association and I wonder how much of Kundalini yoga will be introduced to other young women struggling with this cultural disease, or those reading People Magazine. Recovery requires something yoga can’t offer: Grace. Forgiveness.

Yoga is not just exercises; it’s a life-style, a practiced and believed philosophy. In the end, yoga can alienate people from the God of the Bible. It might not happen overnight, but it can change beliefs through hypnotic states. Repetitive yoga techniques interspersed with chanting, mantras or affirmations, has direct access to the subconscious mind without any interference from the conscious mind.“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” Proverbs 11:17

(This is a reprint from the old TD 8/23/07)

The Selling of Yoga

Looking into New Religion Part II - The Selling of Yoga

The medical world touts yoga and meditation as the cure for everything from flatulence to cancer. Yoga teaches you how to move the energy in your body, and since everything is made of energy, animal, vegetable and mineral, we can control our health, well-being and our spiritual life. Since energy vibrates at different levels, and depending on the rate of vibration, you can either see it, such as rock, or not see it, such as wind. A table is energy re-arranged. We are energy, not souls, according to yoga.

This makes perfect sense and is believable, scientific even, and is usually the hook to drag people into yoga classes. We know there’s a life force within us and Christians call that the soul. The spirit that lives within us is part of the Holy Trinity. The problem with yoga, is this philosophy (which trickles into the classes) teaches that all life force, both that which vibrates at high rate and that which vibrates at a low rate, is God. We used to say, “God is in the lamp post.”

The duty of a good Yogi is to get in touch with that energy and control it’s flow. But, we’re told, we can’t control the energy if we’re freely operating in duality, or in this three-dimensional world. What this means is, if we’re hyped up, we can’t tune into God. Thus, in order to sit for hours in meditation, one prepares ones body by doing Hatha (system of physical) yoga, or what we now recognize as a yoga class. What’s the harm?

Eastern healing arts always work with “energy channels and states of awareness.” Yoga can not exist without this philosophy. Classes always combine postures and meditation. Yoga teaches that unless we’re in a motionless, erect state, our eyes focused between the eyebrows (called the 3rd eye) we’re not centered, or out of balance to the energy–or God. Yoga classes can call this practice anything they want, but it’s a Hatha Yoga.

Just who's teaching the class?

Over the years, I’ve known many yoga instructors. All of them were involved in some form of eastern religion or thought. You can’t be a yoga teacher if you’re not seriously instructed in the history of yoga. Before you start the class ask the instructor if he/she believes Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and if he died for our sins. I can almost guarantee you, you'll get an explanation something like this:

"I believe in Jesus, but Jesus isn't the only way, I mean, think about it. What about those poor souls in the amazon who never heard about him? What kind of God abandons innocent people? God loves everyone. Krishna and Buddha taught the same message as Jesus. Besides, there's proof Jesus knew yoga and taught it to his disciples. He was only a great yogi, or sage. Doesn't it make sense that the lord responds to all, and works for all?" Then they might quote Carl Jung:

"The deeper your understanding of self realization the more influences we have on the whole universe by our spiritual vibrations. Yoga offers the possibility of a controllable experiences and this satisfies our scientific need for facts--and besides this, by reason if its breadth and depth, its venerable age, its doctrine and method, which includes every phase of life, it promises undreamed of possibilities!"*

All Yoga classes use eastern lexicon freely and over time introduce more of the philosophies into the class. Talk of higher power and chakras (energy centers in the spine), burning of incense, playing or singing chants, and nearly always, at least at the end, some kind of guided meditation. They often teach yoga breath work which may or may not include a mantra, such as Aum. You may see an altar with flowers and statues, along with incense, even food, an offering to their Gods. There may be gongs and Thangka's hanging around. They might sell books, soap stone elephants, lotus chains and sandalwood beads. You might see yogic symbols on the walls, such as the Aum (OM) sign, lotus flowers, and pictures of India Gods, such a Lord Krishna. Or, the other extreme, you won’t see anything but blank walls and yoga mats.

The Yoga class environment depends on where the classes are given and what kind of yoga is being taught. In Indian philosophy, yoga is the name of one of the six orthodox philosophical schools. There isn’t just one kind of yoga class, but all systems of yoga do not harmonize with Christianity.

“What is the big deal about yoga? Who cares what it’s called, right? It’s just exercise to lower my blood pressure–my doctor recommended it! You’re another intolerant right-winged Christian full of yourself!”

As Paul said in Galatians 4: 16 “Have I now become the enemy by telling you the truth?

Yoga is a Sanskrit word and it encompasses a group of ancient spiritual practices originating in India. Its disciplines of asceticism and meditation are believed to lead to spiritual experiences and a profound understanding or insight into the nature of existence.

If you practice yoga of any kind, the understand the root:

Pantanjali

Patañjali ** is the compiler of the Yoga Sutras, a major work containing aphorisms (original thought) on the philosophical aspects of mind and consciousness... In recent decades the Yoga Sutra has become quite popular worldwide for the precepts regarding practice of Raja Yoga and its philosophical basis. "Yoga" involves inner contemplation, a rigorous system (works) of meditation practice, ethics, metaphysics, and devotion to the one common soul, God, or Brahman. (You are God.)

Physical movements of yoga practice in combination with pranayama (life control), constitutes a form of yoga referred to as Hatha Yoga. In the Yoga Sutra, Patanjali describes asana as a "firm, comfortable posture", and referring specifically to the seated posture, most basic of all the asanas. He further suggests that meditation is the path to samadhi (state of perfection); transpersonal (mystical states) self-realization (one with God).


The Sanskrit term yoga has many meanings. It is derived from the Sanskrit root yuj, "to control", "to yoke", or "to unite". Common meanings include "joining" or "uniting", and related ideas such as "union" and "conjunction." Sanskrit is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism.

Satan loves ignorance, and practicing an ancient yogi discipline is ignorance of the Bible's message of freedom in Christ.

“But now that you know God–or rather are known by God–how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?” Galatians 3:16

Cancel the yoga class and take a stretching class.

To be Continued...


* CG Jung, Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda, Self Realization Fellowship
**Patañjali is known to be an incarnation of A-di S'esha who is the first ego-expansion of Vishnu, Sankarshana. Sankarshana, the manifestation of Vishnu His primeval energies and opulences, is part of the so-called catur vyu-ha, the fourfold manifestation of Vishnu. (Wikipedia)