Not for Blainism.
I am New-Agey, and proud of it. I don't think like how paranoid religious (mostly Christian) fundies think – that New Age concepts are satanic, and I don't get anal about mind-calming stuff like, Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong and Meditation. So when I stumble upon sites by religious researches claiming to study the 'rights and wrongs' of how a true believer of a certain One-True-God only should behave, I react quite badly towards all the bashing up of the New Age movement.
However, over the years I have grown to understand that many people in the more developed (and surprisingly, unexposed) western, 'I am better than you are' regions of the world consider thousand-year-old practices like Zen Buddhism and Yoga Meditation 'New Age', padahal the concepts within these teachings have been around far longer than both Jesus and Muhammad.
My peeve about the anti-Yoga conscience especially, is how their argument about 'why you cannot do Yoga' can get ridiculously illogical, as if when considering whether to redeem or not redeem these ancient practices, they've grown a mushroom in place of their neural cells. I don't know about you, but I have personally received many concerned e-mails about how yoga is crazy dangerous because it 'invokes the snake at the bottom of your spine', and the bible says the devil comes in the form of a serpent.
Or the other concern that, Yoga has this particular pose called the cobra, and you mimick the actions of a spine, and 'Why Christians must be careful not to pretend to be serpents like the cobra.'
Also the part where Christians who like Yoga anyway, and try to be apologetic about their choices, start writing about what they do during their yoga practice: 'I get a bit worried when the yoga teacher tells me to empty my mind. We cannot empty our minds as Christians, so I choose to think about Jesus when the teacher tells us to empty our minds. I thinks its better that way.'
All these apologizing and blaming doesn't seem in anyway spiritual or bible-loving, IMHO. I don't know about you, but I am hardly evangelized into a faith purely because I see miraculous actions, experience massive floods that kill millions, attend funerals and suddenly get worried over where I will go to after I die. I don't watch David Blaine levitate and get converted into Blainism, you know? Religion is pure man-made, God is in the realm of the spiritual, and I doubt that the currently available man-recorded conceptual understandings of yoga (or tai chi, or qi gong) will even bring us close to who God, or what God really is. Whether He is One or Three or Many, I'm of the belief that most of us have already made up our minds about that, or, that by the time we die, we'll have some sort of concept about who God is like. And that belief will take us to where we belong, and we'll have to just live with (or die with) whatever and where ever we end up.
I wonder what will the fundamentalists think when they realize at the end that reincarnation is the real deal? Will they struggle like mad, or will they be insistent that they now belong in hell?I
I really wonder.
June 5th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.” We are to use our “Christian Freedom” wisely. The question here is not whether Yoga is a sin or cult, etc but if one feels that by practicing yoga would stumble our weaker brother and sisters in Christ, don’t do it. Otherwise, it is just like a form of exercise. The “Stumbling Block” principle is very important in many gray areas in christianity.
People also wonder we should eat food offered to idols. Should we? Here, the stumbling block applies. Should we listen to rock music or even christian rock music? Again, the stumbling block applies. It’s really a matter of conscience.
June 5th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
gosh, I could babble on a decade about the medieval Christians. The problem with them, is they’re stuck in the medieval times (not ancient, not old, simply medieval).
in the same line of thinking in regards to rock, I wonder if Jesus would’ve approved these ‘medieval’ time music? (just about 500 years after him)
June 5th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
We can delude ouselves or face FACTS concerning the mirepresentation of Yoga/Hinduism. In other words we can live possitively or negativelly in this duality we are all in:
~Sanskrit: The ancient language of the Hindus [Webster's] Note: all subsequent terms are Sanskrit (Skr.) and thus Hindu
~Aum/Om: The most sacred syllable in Hinduism [Oxford World Religions]
~yoga: Skr. “Hinduism” [Webster's]
~yoga: Oneness of Atmana and Brahman [Dict. of Skr. Names]
~yogi/yogini: (male/female) Hindu Ascetic [Oxford World Rel.]
~Atmana: Skr. Self/Spirit; Hinduism [Webster's]
~Brahman: Skr. Hindu Religion [Webster's]
~yoga: Skr. A Hindu discipline [Oxford Am. Dict.]
~ yoga: Skr. A system of Hindu religious philosophy [Thorndike Barnhardt]
~yoga: Skr. general term for spiritual disciplines in Hinduism [Columbia Encyclopedia]
~Swami: Skr. Title of respect of a (Hindu) Holy man or teacher. [Oxford World Religions]
~Guru: Skr. A teacher of worldly skills…more often of religious knowledge…liberation (Moksa). [Oxford World religions]
~Moksa: Release/liberation – the fourth and ultimate goal of Hinduism. [Oxf. World Religion]
~Veda Skr. The most ancient sacred literature of the Hindus. [Webster's]
~The first recorded evidence of the Skr. word “yoga” is found in the Vedas.”Seers of the vast illumined Seer yogically control their minds and intelligence.” Rig Veda V.81.
~Upanishads: Text in Hinduism which ends or completes the Vedic corpus (body of [Hindu] laws)[Oxf. World Religions]
June 7th, 2009 at 10:03 am
very wise post…really salute u. if only everyone thinks like you. Then people wont become so arrogant and think that theirs is better than others. I just dont get those fundamentalists who criticises people just because they dont agree with their views.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
And you don’t ‘arrogantly’ think that yours is better than theirs?
Or maybe you do it ‘humbly?’
June 7th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
What do you mean by “stumble” here? Does it mean “offended,” or making them “disbelieving the faith?”
June 7th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
When speaking of Yoga/Hinduism or any other religion, the fudamentalist is equally as wrong as the new-age “yogi/yogini.” Claiming one’s way is the ONLY way is wrong and claiming one’s religion fits into ALL other religions is equally as incorrect…one’s choosen way is ‘A’ way. The practices of Hinduism are the various Yogas and not a universal health/exercise just like Baptism is not a religion, it is part of a specific one and not a general term, subject to uprooting it from its source, then twisted into a swim class. Statements in article like “I wonder what will the fundamentalists think when they realize at the end that reincarnation is the real deal?”…is prime ex. of a fundamentalist/universalist mind…they are one in the same, both deluded, none of us can proove reincarnation, although we can respect someones belif or disbelief in it!
As to “whether Yoga is a sin or cult..”, it is neither. However, what is more or a “cult” than someone following a dead leader, making presumptions of what he meant, creating a religion after stealing from another and saying that the dead person is God and the ONLY way to salvation…let’s get the “Kool-Aid.”
June 8th, 2009 at 12:16 am
Yati: were you actually looking for a ‘you sangat pandai lah, you are so right?’
Actually i have no idea what you are rambling on about.
June 8th, 2009 at 1:43 am
Do not feed the uneducated and ignorant troll.
June 8th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
hi, i came across your blog while surfing around and sad to say, i know one of these christian “talibans”. i am a non-practising christian and i love what yoga as an exercise does for me. i was told by an ignoramus disguised as a missionary, that yoga poses open your spirits to the pose that you are in, be it cobra, lion, crane etc. and thus is similar to worshipping animals. my question then is, is swimming wrong then, if we imitate the frog & butterfly? should we not jog because such movements also imitate land animals? i do pray for such souls!
June 8th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
WITW is a non-practising Christian??? Ok, though it sounds ridiculous, prolly there’s actually such thing, like an IT programmer that doesn’t program, teh o ais dowan ais, or a blogger that doesn’t blog.
Hmm… Wait, is a non-blogging blogger, still a blogger?
I assume that you’ve done your research of what yoga actually is in Hinduism, or you never cared because you don’t care because you think it’s irrelevant, and that whoever that think it’s important and has prolly actually did their study on it is an ignoramus?
June 10th, 2009 at 11:15 am
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:18 am
I think what yati is saying is: whatever you believe in, its a personal matter and we shouldn’t criticize others.
As for ‘I’m a non practising christian’, i think what that means is…this person was born into a Christian family and just not following the manner of a christian.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Err, what is this “manner of a christian?” Are you referring to churching, or following Jesus?
June 15th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Lol, whoops nice catch there. I meant not following the standards of the organized religion of christianity itself.