So today the BBC published an article “Does doing yoga make you a
Hindu? As a born again Christian and
deeply in love with Jesus, I have fought the common dilemma that sadly so many
Christians face; does doing Yoga make me a bad Christian?
If you had asked me 2 years ago, if Yoga was for Christians, I would,
without hesitation, say; I wouldn’t advise it.
My lack of experience at the time would have led me to a conclusion that
yoga involves worshiping Hindu Gods, chanting mantras, mediating to an ‘om’
sound, loosing my mind, never mind just emptying it and becoming a tie-die
wearing, ‘peace man’ saying, hippy. Ignorance is a terrible terrible thing.
For 18 months now I have been regularly practicing Bikram Yoga, there I
said it, I’m a Christian and I practice Bikram Yoga. Now before you drag me in
for some ‘casting out of demons’ sessions, or throw me out the ‘church’ for
worshiping false God’s, let me tell you that taking part in Yoga has been, without
doubt, of the most spiritually enlightening experiences of my life…
1)
Not all types of yoga are weird! Indeed, there are types of yoga that I wouldn’t touch
with a barge poll. Deciding where to
start was tough!
I went into yoga cautiously and prayerfully.
In some yoga sessions I had a great sense of peace, the classes were primarily
stretching, a bit of silence to allow for meditation (which simple means
breathing by the way!) and some relaxation techniques. Other styles were different and in these I
felt, a level of spiritual darkness as I walked into the room, those classes I
never returned to. So while I advocate some forms of yoga, I recognise that all
yoga it is a spiritual experience and
should be handled cautiously. I pray a
simple prayer each time I enter my class – Lord, protect me from anything not
of you and let me meet with you in this time. I trust that He will keep to His
promises, He always has.
I can see why the churches mentioned in the
article are nervous or against having yoga in church buildings and fully
understand why the NLCP are opposing the bill to have yoga taught in schools as
part of the curriculum. As a Christian I think I would feel the same, as I
wouldn’t know what style of yoga was being taught. But I would fully endorse some of the
techniques used in yoga as a way of allowing the next generation a chance to
experience focus, relaxation and a mind that isn’t stressed and fried but full
of truth and peace.
2)
Christ tells us to take every thought captive. One of the hardest things about yoga is not
bending yourself into all types of postures, but stopping the mind from
wandering off. Within seconds of the
class starting I’d find myself thinking about work, the dinner, the phone call
I had to make, the presents I forgot to buy.
It’s incredible when you stop and be still, just how much your brain is
still going at a hundred miles an hour.
Each day you listen to that brain and try and keep up with it, is it any
wonder we’re all stressed out of our heads?! Are we listening to that voice in
our heads telling us to try harder, do more, be better and don’t stop until
it’s all done?! Because if we are, we ain’t listening to God. Because when I read God’s word I read of
someone who sat at God’s feet, who rested in Him, who knew who he was, who’s identity
was in Him not in work, who surrendered to Him, who was so full of the fathers
love that it poured out of Him into others.
When I see Gods church, I’m afraid that a lot of the time, I see stressed
out, tired leaders who have burned out from trying to do it all. Is this what God wants? By being still every
day in Yoga, by telling my mind to slow down, to stop and remember the truth of
who God is and therefor who he says I am, I am aligning my thoughts with His
and moving into life out of a place of rest and security not pressure and a
sense of chasing.
3)
Lastly, the whole focus of any Yoga is the breath – Pranayama. You are told it’s the life force. That when you align the mind and body with
the breath everything functions as a whole.
I can’t tell you how much focussing on my breathing has revolutionised
my world. Whenever I would get stuck striving to get into a posture, I would
try harder, dig deeper, work tougher.
But never did it work. When I
asked my yoga teacher about this he said “stop striving and just breathe”. “Hippy”
I though, what a load of guff. But one
day I found myself striving again, trying so hard to get into this posture and
nothing! I got to the end of my own efforts and gave up trying. All I could do was breathe, my body wasn’t
doing much else. When I just breathed,
something incredible happened, my body relaxed and moved into positions it had
never reached before. Incredible. Just from breathing. Isn’t this what God tells us to do? Stop striving? To get to the end of ourselves
because it is there that we find him? Just from breathing. When God created Adam, he was nothing before what? Before God breathed into him. Before the world was created what was
present? RUACH, God’s spirit, His BREATH.
God is breath. Each time you breathe in you are literally
breathing in God himself. How incredible,
that as we walk around the world, searching for God, he is in fact, in the very
air that we breath in with every single breath.
Yoga has brought me closer to God and into more of a real relationship
with him than ever before. One that is
dependant on him, one that grows from the foundation that he is love and has me
securely in his arms and one that only moves when he leads me. In short it has given me a deep rooted,
assurance and confidence in his word when he says – “Be still and know that I am
God”.
