Yoga at the 'Y'...Why Not?

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You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Coming up, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth examination of the doctrine of salvation, so please stay with us. Now, Contending for the Faith. In this regular feature of our program Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and subscribers. Here’s this week’s question: Recently, I joined a yoga class at the local YMCA for the exercise and peace of mind. A friend of mine who is a Christian doesn’t think it’s a good idea. What do you say?

Tom: Before we answer that question, Dave—you know I’ve toyed with the idea of starting my own aerobics class at a local YMCA featuring dances to the demons found in the Haitian voodoo ceremonies. Now, I’m sure I could get the Y to approve it. After all, as outrageous as it may sound, it’s really no different than the practice of yoga, is it?

Dave: Tom, I hope you’re kidding us when you….

Tom: Of course I am. I mean…

Dave: As far as organizing this dance...

Tom: I’m trying to point out how ludicrous—but people would go along and say well, wait a minute, I don’t see what the problem is with yoga.

Dave: Well, yeah, because yoga—remember when they say it’s scientific...

Tom: Yeah. Right.

Dave: It’s good for health.

Tom: But if they were aware that we’re talking about the same thing, they would recognize the dangers…

Dave: Mm-hmm.

Tom: Of taking a yoga class.

Dave: Exactly. Well, you could say, what’s wrong with physical fitness? [There’s] nothing wrong with physical fitness. But if you’re interested in physical fitness, you should involve yourself in something that was designed for physical fitness. Yoga in fact, is designed, well--the yoga is a Sanskrit word that means “to yoke”. It’s designed to yoke you with Brahman. The goal of yoga is self-realization. To realize that you are god. To realize that Atman, the individual soul, is identical with Brahman, the universal soul. And in fact, yoga is a technique not for good health, but for dying. It was brought over here from the East. You say, well, but I’m not really going to get...

Tom: Dave, wait, what do you mean dying? These people, I mean, they look like good physical specimens to me. What?

Dave: Well, you know, one of the things that a yogi can do—I mean the real experts from India. You can confine them to a very—I mean they can get themselves contorted up into a very small box.

Tom: Right.

Dave: Very small container.

Tom: Mmhmm.

Dave: And you can shut the thing down so there’s no air in there and they can get along without any air for an amazing length of time. Some of them can stop their hearts and just sort of go into a suspended animation.

Tom: Now what’s the philosophy for that?

Dave: Well...

Tom: The thinking behind that?

Dave: Okay, well the philosophy is that yoga—you see, they want to escape the wheel of reincarnation.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: So, they want to reach what’s called in Hinduism—we have nirvana in Buddhism, but in Hinduism “moksha”. Escape from time, sense, and the elements.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: Because we want to get out of this life.

Tom: So, this problem with our physical makeup, right?

Dave: Yes, but they want to get off the wheel of reincarnation because according to their philosophy you keep coming back again, and again and again and who wants to come back again and again and again? Gandhi said reincarnation is a burden too great to bear. And it’s like  a wheel...

Tom: Right.

Dave: And you can’t get off—the only way to get off...

Tom: Samsara—the wheel of sorrow.

Dave: That’s right. So, the only way you can get off of it is through yoga, supposedly. Now yoga was taught by Krishna, Shiva the…

Tom: Destroyer.

Dave: The destroyer in Hinduism. The horrible god. He is called Yoga Shwaa. He is the teacher of yoga. So, you could say one of the main sources of yoga is from the destroyer. Vishnu of course, who comes reincarnates as a part boar, part man, part fish, part man, you know, all these things and the mythology of Hinduism—he comes as Krishna and he’s teaching yoga again. But the goal of yoga is self-realization. So you had Yogananda. Paramahansa Yogananda who founded the self-realization fellowship and you had various ashrams all over the world. And once again, the whole idea is to realize that you are god; that there is no reality, that you create your own universe with your own mind; you want to escape maya, this illusion that we’ve all created for ourselves out of which our suffering comes. And so you’re going to return to the void which is where the whole thing began.

Tom: Now, Dave...

Dave: So that’s yoga. So...

Tom: Can’t we just sanitize that? Can’t we strip it of it’s spiritual elements and put it in the Young Man’s Christian Association and say no problem here?

Dave: Well, why? Why would you want to do it? In other words, why would you want to take something that is specifically designed…

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: …For contact with the demonic world? In fact, the people that take it at the YMCA don’t know this and they’re not going to learn it from their teacher. But if you want to read the books on yoga by the great yogis, they will warn you that it is very, very dangerous and you should have a teacher along with you monitoring you because for example, in transcendental meditation which is a form of yoga—we probably need to go into that in more detail, but you learn a mantra. Each mantra is the name of a Hindu deity and the repetition of the mantra over and over like aying, aying, aying, aying…that is literally a call to this spirit entity behind every idol, behind every deity, pagan deity—Paul says there’s a devil! And so the repetition of a name of this pagan deity—this mantra is a call to this being to possess you. Now you read this in the major works on yoga by the great yoga teachers. And they warn you it’s very dangerous. So, Tom if fifty years ago I’d said you mark my words in the last days—we’re heading for the last days—you’re going to have people all over this world who in the name of science and supposedly for good health, they’re going to be learning techniques for dying and they will be calling upon demonic entities to come and possess them, you’d say that I am out of my mind. It’s exactly what is happening today and so this yoga that’s being taught in YMCAs, YWCAs, maybe has been sanitized to some extent, but if you’re interested in good health and physical development, then take some exercises that were designed for that.