Diego MSN conversation 3

Diego: So how was lunch?
Dale: Not bad. We missed you. I got your email though
Diego: Okay so clear this up for me.
Dale: I’ll do my best. First of all we need to recognize that Yoga itself is a spiritual pathway most closely associated with the Hindu religion (although it has some strong connections to Buddhism as well). Yoga’s main philosophical principal goes sorta like this: God is inside of you because you are God and concentrating on yourself puts you in touch with the God in you.
Diego: Whoa – that is a pretty bold claim…
Dale: Well sure it is and really you have to know that I am way over simplifying the practice of Yoga but…
Diego: Okay so that would definitely go against the Christian belief that we are all sinners – rotten to the core.
Dale: Yup pretty much. But here is the other thing. Most of the yoga exercise programs that are out there are quite different from the actual Yoga practiced within the Hindu traditions. In fact many of the gurus of Yoga would be embarrassed with the way Yoga has been cheapened in our North American culture.
Diego: Kinda like we are embarrassed by some of the people who call themselves Christians on TV and stuff…
Dale: Exactly. So we have to careful that we don’t assume one is the other.
Diego: But isn’t it kinda like drugs. You know you start with pot and it leads to acid and then to crack and then to Meth? You know…
Dale: Well, that is one of the main arguments that Christians have used over the years, to convince themselves that doing yoga is wrong. The idea is that you start innocently enough in the exercise form of yoga and then drift in to the deeper ‘stuff’ of the actual yoga teachings. And to be sure this is something we need to be careful about. I can’t stress this enough: If you are going to allow yourself to be ignorant about all this stuff or even just let your curiosity get out of control, it might be easy to get sucked into all kinds of stuff you don’t intend to. I mean just look at how materialistic everyone is these days. We start out at Christmas with the idea that we need to show love to people by giving them gifts and we end up with people being trampled trying to get the best deal at Wal-Mart on Black Friday. You gotta know that some kind of progressive crap is going there…
Diego: So are you saying to stay away from Yoga in any form because it will lead you to investigate the deeper forms?
Dale: Well, no. I’m just saying that we can’t underestimate the power of suggestion that some of these things tend to have. So a lot of it has to be an analysis of your own personal boundaries on this stuff.
Diego: Okay point taken. But I am still not clear on this…
Dale: Uh, maybe this can help. Mark Oestreicher posted a pretty good response to some critics who accused Youth Specialties of getting to cozy with Yoga. Anyways read the whole response here but check this out: “Sure, yoga, I suppose, could focus on Hindi or Buddhist gods or something – but it can also focus on Christ. We received a couple stomping-mad complaints about the yoga at the National Pastors Convention, saying “putting your body in those positions invites Hindi gods to enter your body.” I’m sorry – this just sounds like heresy to me. If we don’t believe Hindi gods actually exist, then why are we concerned about them entering our bodies? And even for those who would say this is about other dark spiritual forces in the world; well, as believers, we have no fear of them. So the whole “don’t put yourself at risk by doing these stretching exercises” argument is just lost on me.”
Diego: That makes some sense to me. If we don’t believe that these gods exist what are we afraid of?
Dale: Exactly. Again this isn’t the whole answer on the topic but it’s a start.
Diego: Just curious have you ever done yoga?
Dale: Me – No! Are you kidding about the only yoga position I could do is the beachball and its just no that popular.
Diego: LOL!