As I read over her comment, and attempted to formulate a response I discovered that I couldn’t do it justice with only a few short sentences. I felt that it needed more, so here’s my open response to her.
Join me in prayer for her, she’s bought into so many lies, it’s heartbreaking.
Her comment comes from “Yoga on the Mormon Channel”.
“Yoga strenthened [sic] my faith in god and has helped me become a more dedicated member of the church. When i practice yoga, i am not worshiping brahman, but i am worshiping and taking part in christs compassion, and atonement for me. Yoga can be ascribed to any belief system. That is why millions of people practice yoga. Yoga is my body prayer. All mormons should practice yoga.”
Amie,
First of all, I don’t understand why you had to look outside of God’s Holy Word as a way to strengthen your faith in Him? If you’re truly converted to Jesus Christ you need nothing else but the Holy Spirit, and the Bible as a means to draw closer to Him, and to strengthen your faith.
You say that when you practice yoga you’re “worshiping and taking part in Christ’s compassion, and atonement”. How so? How can engaging and participating in something that is so far removed from Jesus Christ, and is in fact based in the worship of a false god(s), draw you closer to Him?
You said,
“Yoga can be ascribed to any belief system. That is why millions of people practice yoga. Yoga is my body prayer.”
I’m sure you can try to do that, but the same goes for anything secular. Unfortunately, society likes to take the worldly things, (like yoga) and flavor them up a bit to entice any persuasion.
Sadly, yoga has infiltrated almost every main line religion. Many Jews are embracing Torah Yoga, Catholics have as well, and under the catch line of “an alternative to Yoga” Christians can participate in something called “Praise Moves”. It’s truly sad when religions grounded in a belief in God would choose to practice something that will only take them further away from Him. Seeing things like this reminds me of the scripture that asks “what part does light have with darkness” (2 Cor 6:14)
It’s seems that all someone has to do to get a follower of Christ involved in something like yoga is to Christian-it-up-a bit by tossing some Christian vocabulary, and throw the name of Jesus a few times just so the Christians can feel at ease embracing something that was meant for the worship of other gods.
People who truly understand the history of yoga know that was never designed as a way to exercise but as a way to worship one of the many gods in Hinduism. So how can it ever be meant as a way to worship the one true God when it’s meant to worship one of the million other gods in Hinduism? If you want to stretch, stretch, and if you want to exercise do that, but don’t knowingly form your body into poses that are prayers to a Hindu god(s).
Knowing what I do about yoga it’s very troubling for me to read that you see it as your “body prayer”. Where is it exactly that God told us to worship Him/pray to Him with our bodies? That’s not scripturally sound at all. You may think when you do those poses you’re offering a prayer to God but you’re not, you are in fact worshiping Brahma, the highest god in Hinduism.
If we’re truly followers of Jesus Christ we are His temple, our bodies are the temple of God. His spirit dwells inside of us. We don’t need to contort our bodies in different poses, or breathe a certain way as a prayer to Him.
It’s just heartbreaking to me that people actually buy into all this nonsense, especially people who claim to be a Christian and followers of Jesus Christ.
You really need to check who, and what you’re worshiping when you strike those poses and breathe that special way, because it has nothing to do with worshiping Jesus Christ.
In Christ,