Question About Yoga

[GraceUk]

I was watching EWTN and just caught the last bit of a programme where they were discussing Yoga. I was quite astounded when I heard that Catholiics should do not do Yoga and it was an Occult practice. I don't actually do Yoga now though I have tried a few exercise years ago, but have been thinking for a while about joining a Yoga class a couple of my friends go to. And I just thought of it as a way of keeping fit and supple. This wasn't so much a query about the rights and wrongs of Yoga but I just wanted to know if the Church strongly disapproved of it because I just haven't heard this before. The lady on the programme said go to confession and say you have been involved in Yoga and then do another form of exercise. In the UK there's hardly a village or town than doesn't have a Yoga class and I just haven't heard this before that the church disapproved so strongly of it. Could you advise me please. Thanks very much.

[cappie]

If people are simply using Yoga relaxation and stretching and breathing techniques, there is no problem. But Catholics must not engage in any Yoga theory or belief system.


In the Document: PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR CULTURE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

JESUS CHRIST THE BEARER OF THE WATER OF LIFE a Christian reflection on the “New Age” [url="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html"]http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html[/url]

We read: Yoga, zen, transcendental meditation and tantric exercises lead to an experience of self-fulfilment or enlightenment. Peak-experiences (reliving one's birth, travelling to the gates of death, biofeedback, dance and even drugs – anything which can provoke an altered state of consciousness) are believed to lead to unity and enlightenment. Since there is only one Mind, some people can be channels for higher beings. Every part of this single universal being has contact with every other part. The classic approach in New Age is transpersonal psychology, whose main concepts are the Universal Mind, the Higher Self, the collective and personal unconscious and the individual ego. The Higher Self is our real identity, a bridge between God as divine Mind and humanity. Spiritual development is contact with the Higher Self, which overcomes all forms of dualism between subject and object, life and death, psyche and soma, the self and the fragmentary aspects of the self. Our limited personality is like a shadow or a dream created by the real self. The Higher Self contains the memories of earlier (re-)incarnations.

So, physical exercises that are common to yoga that promote health and physical well-being are fine. What Catholics should not do is participate in non-Christian Eastern spirituality. If yoga contains non-Christian Eastern spirituality, one can do the physical exercises but refrain from the prayers. As a general rule of thumb, Christian spirituality is interpersonal (between persons) while non-Christian Eastern spirituality focuses the practitioner on the self.