I am always a bit surprised when I hear people say that yoga is offensive to some Christians. Or that someone of Christian faith cannot possibly practice yoga because it is against their beliefs, or what they have been led to believe is true. Perhaps I shouldn't be, given the way religion has been used throughout history - and continues to be used. And Christianity is certainly no different to most other religions in its' use of dogma. I simply write of it because it is these responses I have encountered both online and in some members of my extended family.
As an illustration, when I was about 20, I had practiced oki yoga with some shiatsu practitioners and yoga instructors I knew then. I was also studying shiatsu at the time, and so had a reasonable knowledge of the particular health effects associated with each type of oki yoga pose. Oki yoga was developed in Japan and has a particular emphasis on healing the body, utilizing the Traditional Chinese Medicine meridians. The meridians can be thought of as channels similar to blood vessels, in that they have a particular location on the body, and a perceivable form. But instead of holding blood, they hold energy, or 'ki'.
They don't hold the energy of a particular religious affiliation. There are not Muslim meridians, Christian meridians, Jewish meridians, Hindu meridians, Buddhist meridians, or any other particular group's. These meridians are shared by everyone who has a human biology. And the yoga exercises are simply a way of facilitating the organic flow of energy in each individual. They are designed to release any blockages, and improve the circulation of energy, in the same way that exercise does for blood.
It was in this spirit that I suggested some oki yoga exercises to my cousin when I was 20. My cousin, however, declined. That branch of my family held a particularly strict interpretation of Christianity. When her brother's girlfriend fell pregnant whilst they were both at university, her brother secretly dropped out of university to get a job to support them both, and they hid it from both of their parents. I believe they also secretly wed.
They were childhood sweethearts who were legally adults, they had sex as an act of love, were utterly devoted to each other, yet when their parents found out, he was made to apologies in front of the congregation for having sex before marriage. Their love was made into a shameful act because they broke the doctrine of sex before marriage. Incidentally, over 10 years later, they are still together.
Yoga exercises alone - without any chanting or prayer or invocation that may be associated with some yoga practices - are simply a means of healing the body. The reason that this is associated with certain faiths is that by healing the body, and improving the flow of organic energy, a clearer connection with the intrinsic spirituality we each have is facilitated. This capacity for a personal relationship to the Divine (or whatever each faith calls it), is something most of us share, though it is certainly not encouraged in the fundamentalist interpretations of all religions.
One could ask the question of why there has been this divorce between religion and spirituality in some quarters, why any means that encourages a personal relationship with the Divine is discouraged. One could perhaps surmise something about the balance of power it fosters. In this light, it is little surprise that yoga is discouraged in certain quarters. The truth of the matter is that the exercises alone will not make a Christian any less Christian. But they can help a person gain a clearer understanding of what it means to be truly spiritual, in a deeply personal way, whatever the outside religion they follow.
As the pop band U2 sung - "What more in the name of love?"
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