We already have a thread here on Yoga, good or bad for the body and spirit . But before that let us come to a conclusion, whether a Christian can practice yoga at all? No matter how Good an option is, if it's against our Spiritual growth, no practicing christian would like to pursue.
Anything that is ancient and particularly from another civilization and culture will always have a Religious subtext or connotation attached to it. It doesn't matter whether its a herbal medicinal science, physical trainings like yoga, martial art forms (karate, judo and other forms too have a lot of religious/spiritual subtexts to them) and in some cases even their dresses have mythological stories attached to them.
Now in this internet age, where the world has become a global village, it is confusing to many people when they are confronted with anything that is from other civilizations and cultures.
The Old testament Jews did not have a numeric system at all, they used to write the numbers in words. The system that they adopted was from the Sumerian/babylonian civilization. Sumerians had two numeric systems one is based on 6, 12, 30, 60 ... and the other was the metric one i.e. based on 10 by 3100 BC. And we all know even the numeric systems have a lot of gods and goddesses attached to them. Each number is represented by a god and also by a planet.
But certainly the Israelites only adopted the numbers and left the religious subtext. When they said 'one' they were not thinking of Sun for sure
The days are named after planets, moons and sun even today in all cultures and languages.
Many English words are derived from the Greek mythology (names of gods and goddesses)
The thing I am trying to point out is that today we are a mixture of lot many things that we have borrowed from the ancient civilizations and cultures and everyone of them had a religious subtext to it.
When we go to the doctor we often hear ' do this religiously'. We use this phrase because we know anything that is religious is followed blindly and that was the main objective behind putting a religious connotation to everything in the ancient world.
Just because Push ups are known as Surya Namashkar in yoga terminology (means salutation to the sun) that doesn't mean every christian who hits push ups is worshiping the sun.
Yoga is a great physical training discipline. It's high time that Christians who are well versed in Yoga start classes which mainly focuses on the physical benefit aspects. If you insist to your yoga teacher he/she will be ready to leave the so called supernatural aspect.
The remaining things about Kundalini and stuffs, just put them in the back burner. I am in India and trust me i have never seen an enlightened, kundalini awakened guru in my entire life.
Just do your yoga with the mechanical precision that we follow while doing our curls and bench presses.
The most progressive and bold statement made by apostle Paul was about eating the food offered to idols and he goes on to say in
1 Cor 8:8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.
Now imagine, he is talking about food offered to the Idols, for the jews it was nothing less than joining the Church of Satan in today's comparison.
Like St Augustine said, " Unity in all essentials, Liberty in all non enssentials and Charity in everything " let us work for the furtherance of His kingdom.
(I am bringing this debate from fitness and health category to this one; moderators hope this is not against the forum rules)
Be blessed.
Edward G
Anything that is ancient and particularly from another civilization and culture will always have a Religious subtext or connotation attached to it. It doesn't matter whether its a herbal medicinal science, physical trainings like yoga, martial art forms (karate, judo and other forms too have a lot of religious/spiritual subtexts to them) and in some cases even their dresses have mythological stories attached to them.
Now in this internet age, where the world has become a global village, it is confusing to many people when they are confronted with anything that is from other civilizations and cultures.
The Old testament Jews did not have a numeric system at all, they used to write the numbers in words. The system that they adopted was from the Sumerian/babylonian civilization. Sumerians had two numeric systems one is based on 6, 12, 30, 60 ... and the other was the metric one i.e. based on 10 by 3100 BC. And we all know even the numeric systems have a lot of gods and goddesses attached to them. Each number is represented by a god and also by a planet.
But certainly the Israelites only adopted the numbers and left the religious subtext. When they said 'one' they were not thinking of Sun for sure
The days are named after planets, moons and sun even today in all cultures and languages.
Many English words are derived from the Greek mythology (names of gods and goddesses)
The thing I am trying to point out is that today we are a mixture of lot many things that we have borrowed from the ancient civilizations and cultures and everyone of them had a religious subtext to it.
When we go to the doctor we often hear ' do this religiously'. We use this phrase because we know anything that is religious is followed blindly and that was the main objective behind putting a religious connotation to everything in the ancient world.
Just because Push ups are known as Surya Namashkar in yoga terminology (means salutation to the sun) that doesn't mean every christian who hits push ups is worshiping the sun.
Yoga is a great physical training discipline. It's high time that Christians who are well versed in Yoga start classes which mainly focuses on the physical benefit aspects. If you insist to your yoga teacher he/she will be ready to leave the so called supernatural aspect.
The remaining things about Kundalini and stuffs, just put them in the back burner. I am in India and trust me i have never seen an enlightened, kundalini awakened guru in my entire life.
Just do your yoga with the mechanical precision that we follow while doing our curls and bench presses.
The most progressive and bold statement made by apostle Paul was about eating the food offered to idols and he goes on to say in
1 Cor 8:8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.
Now imagine, he is talking about food offered to the Idols, for the jews it was nothing less than joining the Church of Satan in today's comparison.
Like St Augustine said, " Unity in all essentials, Liberty in all non enssentials and Charity in everything " let us work for the furtherance of His kingdom.
(I am bringing this debate from fitness and health category to this one; moderators hope this is not against the forum rules
)Be blessed.
Edward G
You can if you want.
