This is still in my ThinkChristian.net conversation on Yoga.

“All things are permissible, not all things are beneficial.”

There are a lot of things that help cope with the difficulties of life. A nice drink at the end of the day. The thrill of flirting. A bit of self indulgence with the credit card. Loosing yourself in music from your youth. A championship run for a sports team. A high adrenalin outing. A good movie.

There’s probably nothing wrong with most of it, in fact a good amount of it should be received as good gifts from our creator God. Problems develop when these things start become regular pieces of my “make life work” strategy and when they become fixtures of my narrative and become deeply attached to my identity.

The question here as I understand it is “Is Yoga a good idea for a Christian?”

Yoga makes no sense if you do it once, kind of like going to church. The payoff of the discipline, of the system, is in the repetition and the devotion to it. What does Yoga offer? How does it claim to deliver on its promises? What will it require of you to obtain those promises?

My understanding of Yoga is that it asks you to give it your time, your heart, your attention, your allegiance and in return it offers to give you a new perspective on your experience of living, a perspective on your existence, a power and an energy to achieve what you want to achieve. It doesn’t demand that you submit your will to it because “the universe” has no will, it is impersonal. This gives you power. It offers to put you in the driver’s seat of existence. You are the center.

I find this antithetical to Christian devotion, much of which is designed for submission of our will to the will of the Father. The Christian path is not one of self-actualization, or of being awake to the illusion of diversity and differentiation, but of living out the life of the age to come in the present age of decay. Of embracing the cruciform life of “your wellbeing at my expense” towards God and our neighbors and receiving the first fruits of the resurrection while the age of decay robs us of life.

The goal of the Christian life is not finding your power but releasing your claims and receiving from the Father your inheritance.

Yoga, like many things, makes claims and offers and asks for something in exchange. Do you want what it offers? Are you willing to pay what it requires?

I would suggest that the more you invest in yoga the more you will not only appreciate what it offers but you will also believe its view on the world. Why would you invest in it if you didn’t initially embrace its claims and what it is promising to give to you?

Many things offer to give life in the age of decay. I say it can’t be done. You will stretch, you will have experiences of peace, of power, of seeing, of community, of hope for greater well being in the future. I have no doubt of this.

But the age of decay will rob you of your youth, your ability to stretch. You will lose your friends. Your relationships, your achievements, your desires will all break down and be taken from you. This world can’t get by on maintenance, it needs resurrection.

You may imagine that the greater sense of peace, control, confidence, etc. that Yoga is offering you gives you more patience with your neighbor, it may even seem to help you love your enemy, but I’d suggest that what it is in fact doing is offering this to you at the expense of desire. Most of these systems, including Buddhism offers greater control at the expense of love. Your desire of an outcome is diminished by greater contemplation on oneness or on the idea that your differences are illusory. In the end, you may need to separate yourself from people whose presence seem to disturb your sense of peace and control.

Christianity works differently. In the gospel we are in training to love our enemies, which means that we have love AND loss at the same time. Loss is endured and is fruitful in our participation in the cross and then more than compensated in our resurrection.

So, what do you want to train in? For me, that is the question. pvk

The posts in what turned out to be a series:
Christians and Yoga
Is Yoga a Religion?
Is Yoga Helpful?
Should You Give Yoga Your Heart?