~~~Fr. Conrad Saldanha
(May Jesus bless you as you read it
prayerfully. Also Pray and reflect on God's Word daily with Fr. Conrad @ http://dedicateddiscipleship.blogspot.com/ )
The
practitioners of yoga have often claimed that Yoga has nothing to do with
religion. They could be right in their own eyes because they who practice it
look at the world in such a manner. But
for a Christian, it does not communicate the mind of Christ and His body, the
Church. Yoga is the lie of the devil and
his deception that is infiltrating the church under the guise of being
un-harmful and propagating health benefits which in some cases may be true. What should be understood is this: what is contrary to the Christian faith
has to be contrary to the very nature of man and thus in the final ending,
harmful for humans and the human race as a whole. Health is not the highest value of life but
faith is. One cannot exchange ones eternity for apparent good health and
relaxed body here on earth.
And
then, one can enjoy better health benefits when one receives the sacramental
grace offered through the ministry of the church. Similarly, some claim to have
tamed the stuff and call it Christianized yoga, this is a greater deception
when one understands the relationship between Truth and lie; a relationship which
I am also discussing in my article.
There
have been many who have written about the evil of yoga and the reason why one
should shun it, though I am unaware of how many have striven to write about it
from an existential anthropological angle. Thus the aim of this exercise is to
analyze the whole issue from an existential-anthropocentric point of view.
The
reality of ourselves from an anthropological perspective: How are humans
different and what makes them different from other living creatures?
Human
by nature have the capacity to reason and express themselves in varied languages and words. They have a capacity to remember, imagine and create which is unique
to their persona. Each is so different from the other that no two human beings
even if they look alike are the same in every attribute. They may be similar to
each other yet not the same as each other.
Hence
in the light of the above, the spirituality a human being imbibes has a marked
impact on his persona. If he practices a spirituality that is
steeped in mantra, concentration and focus on one object, which could be the
breath or a mantra or bodily sensations, then it in no way promotes the
uniqueness of his creative abilities. There are better ways to achieve the goal
of concentration and relaxation rather than having concentration as its goal.
On
the other hand, the aim of Christian prayer is not concentration, though the
ability to concentrate better could be the fruit thereof. Jesus
never gave his disciple a mantra to utter. To approach God by way of a mantra
and / or to think that we should attain God by using a mantra is not only an
insult to the persona of the created being and also to a God who has created us
with such varied wisdom. We who
communicate using a language with many words have to reach such pitiable state
in order to communicate with God our creator, is an inhuman exercise. This
method of communicating means to go against our very persona; which expresses
in varied words and language, with emotions and feelings, with non verbal
gestures and expressions. The animal and bird kingdom speak in a mono language
each according to their nature speak their own sounds (mantras) to communicate.
Some
are foolish enough to compare the Rosary or the holy ejaculatory prayers to a
Mantra. If one understands the Christian doctrine on God then one would be
both watchful in its practice and welcome the beauty of such devotions. While the Rosary is based on sound
Christian doctrine, repeating the words about Mary as revealed in Scripture,
its recital never invites one to concentrate. Rather it is an invitation to
ponder like Mary on the Mysteries of the life of Jesus, with Mary with us on
the pilgrim path. Thus, it should lead us into that contemplation which
allows the mystery to work in us through constant revelation. Hence, we do not
lose our persona in order to claim oneness with the universe or the cosmic
creation whose consequence is often a make believe world ridden in escapism or
a form of detachment that suits one’s mindset.
Therefore,
Christian meditation or pondering is not an abstract activity that trusts
itself but a reliance on a creator in a creator-creature relationship. It is
relationship in which we allow the creator to communicate with us his wisdom without
which we cannot grow; our vocation to transform the world is thus carried out
in union with the God through the Holy Spirit. This is contemplation and is
unique to Christianity. A Christian who remains stagnant at only meditation is
still a yogi and has not understood the reality of his faith. There are many
practitioners of yoga who claim that they now understand faith and scripture
better. I pity them for such pride which prevents them to be open to the revelation
of God, as in contemplation. This makes them trust their own reasoning’s, with fabulous
logic and yet with a sound foundation in falsity and lies.
On
the other hand, all the formulated Christian prayers have their sound root in
the doctrine of Christ and his tradition. All Christian prayer that is approved
and based on sound doctrine is valid and acceptable to God, even if the one
reciting it is not doing so with efforts of meditating nor concentrating. It is
nevertheless considered effective irrespective, but this degree of effect may
vary to the extent to which one is fervent. Thus in Catholic circles we have
the concept of ‘ex opera operato’, the heart that is fervent and the intention
with which it is prayed adds to the effect. As explained, the rosary is also a
prayer that recognizes the limitation of the created being and humbly
acknowledging this, calls on God to intervene through the intercession of the
Blessed Virgin Mary. But if one meditates on the mysteries and recites as per
the doctrine of the Catholic Church and then one enters into a state of
contemplation allowing God to speak through the Mysteries which are a
compendium of the Gospel.
There
are other areas of differences too between a Rosary and a mantra but this
should suffice.
Unlike
a yogic approach, the Christian approach to God is personal. One approaches God
with the aim of either asking or communicating or seeking a relationship. Hence it is not an abstract approach to an
abstract concept of god. On the other hand the yogic approach ends up ‘with me’
as the centre of the universe; tat tvam asi or aham brahamaasmi (Sanskrit: you
are that/ I am he or I am the universal being/ ultimate reality)
In
a Christian approach every bit of surrender and submission is strongly rooted
in one’s ego which seeks to die to itself and in the end is raised up to a new
person, in God’s own image and yet with one’s own uniqueness and quality. Never
will a Christian at the end of his prayer experience claim that he is ‘He’ or
“I am one with creation.”- Pantheism!
Yoga’s
origin is Hinduism and is steeped in a mystery of incoherent understanding of
the truth. The Hindu concept of the
universe and life can often lead one to doubt in its many beliefs. Yoga comes
as an aid to rescue such a mind set of confusion. Doubt in Hinduism is looked down upon as
negation of the rational mind that is not still. Therefore it has to be calmed
by either the discipline of exercises, mantra or hyper activity as in karma
yoga or focusing on objects, a word or breath.
The mind that is hyperactive needs to be controlled and focused on in
order that one may achieve concentration and altered state. This practice is a great affront to the
assimilation and understanding of truth.
Human
beings are born to relish and celebrate beauty and truth. Yet truth eludes the human mind in the many
reasoning’s of the mind. A glimpse of
the truth is enough to give a false sense of satisfaction and to be deceived
and be led astray. It is like being so enamored
by the beauty of the rose that one fails to see the beauty of the plant. The
Christian understanding is this: Truth is not immanent to man and hence he
cannot arrive at the truth even through a brain storming session of high
profile intellectuals. Yet it is seeking and in
knowing and understanding the truth and acting on truth that he finds his real
freedom and happiness. In truth is his fulfillment.
Truth
is objective and to be understood not as we choose to understand but for its
own sake. The moment we seek to understand truth as we want to understand it
then we are not doing justice to truth. For the Christian truth is also dynamic,
constantly revealing itself and contemplation in the power of the Holy Spirit
is the way to assimilate it.
Whereas
the Hindu concept of truth and its understanding is this : one is in the truth
already and it has to be realized through meditation and yoga, i.e. by
attaining knowledge, achieving enlightenment and realization through yoga is
the method to arrive at such consciousness. Good and evil are almost non-existent
concepts and truth diminishes into an abstraction wherein everything is
considered to be a part of the cosmic universe. Morality which is an important
component of truth is low on the quotient and is ignored totally in the
spiritual achievements of the yogi. Suffering and poverty, the existential
reality, is attributed to one’s karma or previous life and one’s destiny is
already pre-ordained. Detachment here means being separated from the realities
and confrontations of daily life. Pain, hunger, desires or carnal
manifestations are part of the manifestation of the universal being. How to
explain concrete realities of poverty and pain and sufferings? Attribute it to
one’s Karma=deeds done in previous life.
How
then does one handle matters of truth and morality and the existential
realities of life? An ordinary human being confronts this reality or may
rationalize about it and if necessary may even take an aggressive posture to
deal with it. The Yogi on the other hand deals with it through the structure
and methodologies which boastfully is affirmed as being well rooted in ancient religious
wisdom. This yogic methodology ignores the basic reality of life and enters a
world of experiences which is termed as the god experiences by some or a state
of bliss or nirvana, etc. by others.
Truth
sought through the subjective human conscience is totally ignored. Hence
many among the Clergy who have trodden this path have been highly wary of the
confessional and have even abused the confessional making a mockery of the
sacrament besides suppressing the truth of Christ. Morality, which communicates
truth, is the dynamic ray of the truth of life.
They
who have dabbled with such occult practices have often been in the forefront of
attack against the prayer group spirituality, retreat centers and the sound
teaching of Christ and the Catholic faith in matters of sin and morality. “They induce guilt” is the popular allegation
and why will they not when they are in a state of deceptive bliss achieved
through human effort, i.e. yoga, vipassana, etc. They ignore the reality of the self that finds
true fulfillment in truth; which includes the moral element too.
The
most deceptive element of this spirituality is the love that they often talk
about. Of being kind to everyone and doing good but the most practical aspect
of this love and kindness is overlooked: morality, truth, forgiveness and commitment is of
no or less value. Relativism and perspectavalism are objective truths, a contradiction
in the contradictions they hold on to. It is a way of willfully shutting out
the truth about God arising in the conscience of every human being. “Undeniably, those who
willfully shut out God from their hearts and try to dodge religious questions
are not following the dictates of their consciences, and hence are not free of
blame” (GES. Para 19:3, Vat II).
Jesus,
the perfect one, reveals man to himself (cfr. GES 22, Vat. II) which includes
his sinful and immoral state cut off from God. He came to set this imbalance of
relationship right with God and one another through the reconciliation of the
cross. He speaks to the conscience of
every man especially those who have submitted to the obedience of faith to lead
a life worthy of his calling by the power of the Holy Spirit received in
Baptism. The Holy Spirit constantly working a programme of renewal, through repentance
faith and surrender, transforms us from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor.
3:18).
Hence,
reason and doubts are not shunned but meet their satisfaction in the search for
truth in Christ Jesus who claimed to be the way, the truth and the life and the
one way to the Father and no one goes to the Father except through him (Jn.
14:6).
In
the light of the above we can say that Yoga then deceives at two major levels. In
the first major and immediate way, it deceives the self through its
methodologies whereby one through its practice unknowingly walks the path of
escapism in an experience which can be compared to that of a drug addict; a
altered state of mind. There are some who have come out of it and acknowledge
this element of the psychedelic experiences. This is further affirmed by experts who vouch
that the experiences of yogic arousals are the same like that of psychotropic
hallucinatory drugs. In India, in some place there are a band of yogi’s who
achieve their spiritual goal through the use of such drugs.
The
second major deception is that of relegating everything to the deep, the
subconscious, and building a wall surrounded by an experience of
deception. This wall is often difficult
to break through both for the practitioner or the one seeking to help the
victim of yogic philosophy through the truth of the gospel. Unless the
practitioners cry unto God to liberate them from such self imposed bondage which
they have put themselves in they will never be free.
In
my experience in ministering to people with such background of dabbling with
the New Age, I have often come across cases of such deception. They reason and
have great confidence in their ability to reason out things scientifically and
logically. But they have forgotten the
important drawback of logic, viz. that of basing oneself on a wrong premise:
All that is logical is not necessarily the truth but the other way is true, all
that is truth is always logical, but the yogi finds it difficult to grasp
it and sees them as foolish.
There
was this person who was involved in the art of living. He had come with
problems in interpersonal relationship wherever he went. He was often discouraged from practicing the
calming exercise, the yogic methodology of calming oneself. But after many reminders and prayers and not
without much arguments with logical reasonings that he came one fine day to confess that
though he practiced the calming exercise yet within himself he always had this
raw feeling of agitation and becoming boisterous often.
A
total renunciation doesn’t comprehensively handle the problem. At our retreats
I would encourage those who had dabbled with such occult to renounce or strictly
follow the discipline of the retreat. I would tell them that Christian silence
is different from that of the yogic silence. Here in the Christian silence
you are still communicating to the living God while the yogic silence is
communication with an abstract reality with abstract techniques and
methodologies. Those who obeyed the
discipline of silence as followed at the DD retreats emerged successfully
contemplating the beauty of God in all that they did but others went away
empty.
Another
case was of a woman who had gone for a vipassana (Buddhist form of yoga, which
focuses on the breathing and bodily sensations. Since her conscience was
compromised and was into activities which have its roots in Marxism, she had
great difficulty to comprehend the truths of the faith and hence couldn’t deal
with her larger fears and anxieties since they were suppressed in the deep
subconscious and hence suffered many fears and pains.
As
mentioned at the outset, one may ask; how come they who practice these New Age
practices receive healing. My contention is this, the healing may be real but
it is again rooted in deceiving the body.
While the healing received through the practice of Yogic exercise is
different from those received from the practice of yogic meditation. When a certain nerve causes pain the doctors
have two broad options whether to allow the processes of healing through
medicine or other forms of palliative care or go for a surgery to cut the pain causing
nerve. Both options are not of equal value and significance, the former, if
possible, is always a better option. Yet
the doctor and the patient could say; “look I want quick results”, this can
lead to long term disaster. Likewise the yogic healing is for this life and
cuts us one off from the eternity of life which God has prepared for those who
seek their Salvation from him who paid a great price to offer it to them; the
Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.
Similarly,
the effect of yoga can lead to immediate gain but an eternal disaster for
ignoring the truth which Jesus came to reveal in order to give us eternal life.
The Catholic Church warns about the evil of yoga
through its various documents. Here below I would like to mention the two
documents:
1) In 1989 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (SCDF)
came out with a letter called “Orationis Formas” on some aspects of the
Christian meditation.
2) The second one was written by PONTIFICAL
COUNCIL FOR CULTURE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE, on 6th
Feb. 2003, “JESUS CHRIST THE BEARER OF THE WATER OF LIFE” A Christian
reflection on the “New Age”
Some ask whether we could separate the exercise
from the yogic meditation. If you want to eat the food products of Fukushima
after the radiation risk in spite of knowing it then it is to your destruction.
Similarly, since we know for sure that the exercises, however healthy and
beneficial it may be, but, ultimately has its roots in Hinduism, leads to
destruction, then we are opting to walk the treacherous path. “It is difficult to
separate the individual elements of New Age religiosity –
innocent though they may appear – from the overarching framework which
permeates the whole thought-world on the New Age movement.”
(JCBWL: A Christian reflection on “NewAge”: Chp. 4:1)
Some prefer to practice what they call the safer
and good elements of yoga, yet the above document, which I have quoted from, clearly
warns about the dark and grim reality. Similarly, you cannot say to yourself I
will take the name of Jesus while doing the exercise. It is like using a vessel used for unclean
purpose for a noble purpose. Do not abuse the most Holy name of Jesus and
crucify him again in your hearts for shortsighted selfish gain.
Truth has to be sought for its own sake. We
cannot say now we understand truth better because of yoga. A contaminated
vision cannot make us see things better even though that person may claim that
he can see well. Similarly, those immersed in yoga and its philosophy may see
things better through the glasses yet it is not a perfect vision in comparison
to the direct vision. If the glass is tainted then the seeing also becomes
tainted, though the one seeing through the taint may think that it is normal to
see in such fashion. It is like this Alcoholic, with wife and children left to
fend for themselves, who once told me that he was not wrong by drinking; because he
was only harming himself, so why should his wife and children complain and nag him. The self
was more important to him than the others towards whom he had a responsibility and
commitment.
Yoga’s base as discussed above is a deception
and not based on truth. A lie can’t make truth better. Whereas truth can
enhance a lie to make it look better and more convincing; a good lie
always contains a good bit of truth. In other words; lie added to truth only makes it a greater lie full of deception, likewise truth added to lie again qualifies
for the same state. Truth stands alone and does not require the help of lie to
qualify or enhance it.
Jesus is the truth that saves. The incarnate eternal Word of God is also the revelation of God to the human race in need of
the truth that saves. He fully reveals man to himself and has given us knowledge
about himself and us. He has revealed to us our true worth and yet in his great
mercy and love revealed to us the great mercy of God to save us from our state of
sin; a state that prevents us from knowing the truth unless we turn to him in
faith. Faith is the foundation to know him; faith is also the beginning to receive
this revelation of God. Faith which is expressed through all humility can even
lift us up to his level because God is pleased with such humble trust. He does
this by pouring into our hearts his life and love (Rm.5:5) so that through his
Spirit of Sonship we may continue in the grace, daily nourished at his Eucharistic
table and striving in the world.
If you have dabbled in yoga, vipassana or any
other New Age spirituality then it is high time you said no to it and renounce
this before the living God and turn to Jesus in all humility for help. Wait on
him and ask him to guide your life by giving you his Holy Spirit, who he
promised will guide us into all truth. (Jn.16:13)
Prayer: Father
your Word is truth, forgive me for not accepting your word as your word and
thus not allowing you to speak to me through it.
