{"id":9153,"date":"2013-08-30T07:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-08-30T14:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=9153"},"modified":"2018-11-16T15:00:08","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T22:00:08","slug":"yoga-and-catholicism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2013\/08\/30\/yoga-and-catholicism\/","title":{"rendered":"Yoga and Catholicism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s post might be a little controversial, but I survived the dating series<\/a>, so I figure I may as well \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I’ve recently been catching up on my Catholic Stuff You Should know<\/a>\u00a0backlog. I’ve just finished listening to the podcast episode entitled,\u00a0Yoga: Is it okay?<\/a><\/p>\n

\"yoga\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is one of those topics which has always fascinated me. I remember that during my time in the Evangelical world, yoga was generally regarded as pagan and something\u00a0in which no right-thinking Christian would ever participate.<\/p>\n

Among Catholic circles, however, I’ve noticed that yoga is generally not such a “hot button topic”. However, I have come across Catholics who are very seriously anti-yoga and repeat many of the arguments I heard in my Evangelical days. I recently saw a discussion take place on Facebook which demonstrated just this.<\/p>\n

I’m open to correction on this subject, but I would like to respond to three common comments I hear on the subject:<\/p>\n

1. “Yoga is pagan”<\/em><\/strong>
\nI don’t think there’s any doubt that yoga has its roots in Eastern religions, but…so what? Hindus and Buddhists have prayed using beads long before the rise of Christianity – does that put the rosary off-limits?<\/p>\n

\"Hindu<\/p>\n

But I think there’s a more important question to ask. What are we actually talking about here when we say “yoga”?\u00a0Are we talking about the physical stretches or are we talking about physical stretches coupled with<\/span> certain spiritual and philosophical ideas? I would suggest that there is a big difference between the two. This brings me on to my next point…<\/p>\n

2. “The postures worship different gods. You can’t separate the pose from the spiritual worship”<\/em><\/strong>
\nThis statement quite frankly doesn’t make any sense to me.\u00a0Is it really being suggested that when people do\u00a0Yoga X<\/a>\u00a0or exercise with\u00a0Wii Yoga<\/a>\u00a0they are accidentally worshiping other deities (which Christians don’t even believe exist)?<\/p>\n

It is\u00a0emphasized again and again in Christianity that simply “going through the motions” is not enough, that our worship needs to be an interior reality as well as an exterior one. Yet, when applied to yoga, some would appear to assert that we can somehow accidentally worship another god simply by our physical posture.<\/p>\n

\"Child's<\/p>\n

The other problem I have with the above statement is that I’ve been a member of several different gyms and attended many exercise classes where we have done warm-down stretches which look an awful lot like yoga poses: downward dog, child’s pose, cobra, swan… When we did these stretches, was\u00a0that<\/span>\u00a0yoga? It wasn’t called<\/span>\u00a0yoga, but if it’s not possible to separate the physical stretch from spiritual worship did I unknowingly worship some false god while I was trying to loosen my shoulder muscles?<\/p>\n

3. “The Vatican has condemned yoga”<\/em><\/strong>
\nThis is the only objection which would really matter to me were it true. I’ve heard this assertion made a lot, but when I’ve asked for a citation, I’ve never been given a solid reference. I usually find out that it’s not so much “the Vatican”<\/em> <\/span>that has condemned yoga, but some priest who is particularly vocal on the subject.<\/p>\n

Although certain high ranking priests<\/a> have condemned yoga, it doesn’t exactly make it binding dogma. Even in these cases though, it’s unclear as to whether this is a broad-reaching condemnation of all stretching exercises, even if devoid of spiritual content.<\/p>\n

\"Father<\/p>\n

After a little bit of searching I finally tracked down the often-quoted letter<\/a> sent by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It urges caution in this area (and rightly so) but as far as I can see it doesn’t appear to condemn yoga outright either.<\/p>\n

So, depending upon what you mean by “yoga”<\/em>, I personally think it is something which can be critically accepted; some things are okay, but others are not.<\/p>\n

Closing thoughts…<\/h2>\n

Just to make it clear, I’m not giving carte blanche <\/em>to all yoga classes. Many, particularly those here in southern California, have a substantial spiritual component with which I would urge caution.\u00a0However, as far as I can see, certain forms of stretching classes are entirely permissible for Catholics as long as there is no heathen religious component. For me, this is an eating-food-sacrificed-to-idols<\/a> kind of situation.<\/p>\n