Emergent Monday: Unbiblical Choreography

Yoga is not for everyone

When Mars Hill Pastor Mark Driscoll says something's heretical, you know it's REALLY REALLY heretical. When Mark Driscoll thinks something is beyond redemption, it's a bad thing, a very bad thing. And I find myself in agreement with Mark Driscoll on this one item - Christian Yoga.

It's called by many names; Christian Yoga, Holy Yoga, Scripture Yoga, PraiseMoves, all of them are oxymorons. Yoga has been and always will be a pagan rite, and trying to "Christianize" yoga would be like trying to invent Christian Wicca - it's not going to happen. While Yoga's primary goal is to become one with the universe, Christianity's primary goal is to worship and glorify the creator of the universe. Yoga's primary method is inward looking meditation, Christianity's primary method is conversation with God. Yoga is all about self, Christianity is all about God.

First of all if you keep nothing else in mind, try to remember this: Yoga is Hindu. It cannot be anything but Hindu in the same way that the rosary cannot be anything but Roman Catholic and moon worship cannot be anything else but pagan. If you find yourself in a Methodist church with a handful of beads chanting Hail Marys, no matter how you dress it up, you're performing a Catholic rite. If you find yourself on the back lawn of the Presbyterian church banging drums and beseeching the moon for blessings, no matter how much you say it's because God made the moon yadda yadda yadda, you're performing a pagan ritual. In exactly the same way if you find yourself stretching and twisting and getting in touch with your inner self, it doesn't matter of Pastor Slaphappy is calling out bible verses to meditate upon, it's still a Hindu ritual.

The staff of the Classical Yoga Hindu Academy in New Jersey quite plainly says  'Yes, all of yoga is Hinduism. Everyone should be aware of this fact.'

There's nothing wrong with stretching ones muscles and calming ones breathing, but that's just a small part of Yoga, Yoga is aimed at transforming human consciousness to experience the Hindu god, a pagan god. The process of Yoga is a process of bypassing the body to get in touch with the inner self, the human spirit, similar to transcendental meditation. Once you reach inner peace you can calm your body until reality breaks that inner peace and then you have to run back to yoga class and get a refill.

However Jesus isn't calling us to get in touch with our inner selves, he's asking us to get in touch with Him and let Him get in touch with the inner you. John 15:4-5 tells us, 

4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

The primary result of Yoga is idolization of the human spirit, you create a idol for yourself contrary to the will of God. You are now following pagan principals by worshiping the creation rather than the Creator. Yoga's primary philosophy is that we are part of a greater whole, part of a Universal Consciousness. The term Universal Consciousness is another term for God. Considering ourselves a part of God rather than a creation of God and a subject of God is worshiping the creation rather than the creator. Human beings cannot merge with the true God, He made us from the dust of the earth and therefore claiming that we can become part of Him is heresy, and no where in the bible is a hint of the merest possibility of such a thing.

Yoga is more than dabbling with paganism, it is opening yourself up to demonic oppression. The position of the body is highly important to opening yourself up to the spirit. According to Hindu mysticism the body has spiritual points of energy called chakras, some of these points are the head, mouth, chest, navel, and groin. In yoga you sit with these areas open and unblocked, the hands need to face upward and out. Once the physical positioning is done then chanting and opening the mind is done in order to open up the body to receive greater spiritual energy, and the easiest position for this is the Yoga Lotus. Practitioners insist that the lotus position works, people are left with a feeling of euphoria, but is that feeling coming from God? There's nothing in the bible to indicate that God is involved with this form of thing, however;

No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14)

About 2,000 years ago modern day yoga emerged through the Hindu Indian sage Patanjali. Patanjali was the lead advocate of the Yoga tradition and he's known as "the father of Yoga" because of his development of the Ashtang Yog. The Ashtang Yog is an eight limb system that Patanjali introduced into yoga for achieving "salvation". In his book "The Yog Sutras of Patanjali" he states that there are many ways to reach God including controlling the activities of the mind. This is in direct opposition to the words of Jesus Christ Himself:

Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. (John 14:6)

There is little knowledge of the origins of Patanjali, he lived some time between 200 BC and 400 AD and ancient texts indicate that Patanjali is the human incarnation of the serpent god Ananta. He is quite often depicted as half human and half serpent as illustrated here. In yoga the means of becoming one with the Universal Consciousness is to reach the serpent within each of us, the Kundalini. The Kundalini is a serpent bound three and a half times around the base of the spine and when you reach the proper state of consciousness it springs up and manifests itself through the chakras, up through the top of the head, and you reach enlightenment. For Christians the serpent has a different name other than Kundalini

² And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; ³ and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time. (Revelation 20:2-3)

So what is wrong with "Christian Yoga"? Yoga seeks to lower a persons spiritual resistance in order to open them up to the spiritual realm. Not only is yoga spiritually and mentally dangerous, it is another way that pagan/demonic practices are infiltrating the Body of Christ through ecumenism. Christians are bound not only to spread His word but to defend and protect the Gospel of Christ and Yoga is founded on the opposing belief that there is more than one way to God (through the inner self) rather than the one true way, through Christ. So why is it in our churches? We've been given ample warning:

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons (1 Timothy 4:1)

 ⁹ “When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations. ¹⁰ There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, ¹¹ or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. ¹² For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive them out before you. (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)