Posted on 05/01/2007 9:24:30 PM PDT by Coleus
Bishop's yoga ban is a stretch, parishioners say, Complaints end classes at south Fort Myers parish
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When practiced strictly as a form of exercise, there’s nothing sinful about yoga. While it’s true that many yoga practitioners are middle-aged hippie/granola-munching suburban types who think it’s “speerchul” to pretend to be Hindus for an hour a week, they don’t force anybody to pray to Ganesh or anything.
My wife does yoga for health reasons (it’s one of the few kinds of physical exercise a lady can do while pregnant), and while the rest of the class does their Hindu meditations or whatever, she just says an Ave and waits for the stretching to resume. Meanwhile, dad (me) sits outside with Baby Chan reading a library book.
As long as priests and bishops are careful to ensure that Hindu or other religious practices are not part of the course of instruction, I see no problem with the holding of yoga classes at a church gym.
Interesting.
Catholic Bishop learns a parish once had a yoga class scheduled at the same time as a church service, though in another room, and that people attending the service could look through a window and see the people doing yoga.
Let’s make this fun and do a multiple choice quiz.
The Catholic Bishop declares:
(a) The church can’t schedule yoga class during church services if the class will be in view of people attending the service.
(b) The church can’t schedule yoga class during church services even if the class cannot be seen by people attending the service.
(c) The church can’t schedule yoga class during church services even if the class can neither be seen nor heard by people attending the service.
(d) Yoga classes are forbidden at all times and under any circumstances, but I swear I have no objection to yoga per se.
Don’t bother reading the article. Just guess ;-)
Do you think it might have something to do with people feeling bummed out about being in church if they can see people having fun doing yoga instead?
I mean, what if instead of doing yoga they were exercising on treadmills with a nice row of 1040P HDTV’s to watch while they work out?
Thanks for that link.
Pope Benedict is a funny guy.
Maybe. I’m not completely comfortable with yoga myself — in its pure form, it’s definitely a religious practice. As practiced in America, it’s more of a light workout with meditative overtones. As long as due care is taken to keep the Hinduism and the stretching separated, yoga is fine. That being said, it’s important for Church officials to keep an eye on yoga. Syncretism is everywhere.
Bestimmt. Er ist der typische Deutscher nicht.
I’ve never, ever heard of anyone “going Hindu” because they took up Yoga.
Is there an epidemic I don’t know about?
His personality isn’t what makes him funny; it just accentuates it.
And what about running on a treadmill while watching ESPN and a game on ABC at the sime time on nice new 1040P HDTV’s?
No connection with Hinduism. Do you think if they were doing that instead of Yoga the Bishop would have been a bit more keen on the whole idea?
Yoga, Transcendental meditation and eastern mysticism are in the crosshairs of the Church. The church has finally woken up to the fact that they are in competition for the minds and hearts and spiritual well being for the New Age seekers.
The power of prayer is not the same thing as the spiritual void of Transcendental Meditation.
TM is inner directed and prepares the mind - through self-directed emptying to be a tool for unseen spiritual forces. TM secures the human body and soul to be a portal. Yoga as an excercise is not the problem - its the other spiritual baggage that is finally being examined and found wanting.
A sign that the Church is waking up from its winter sleep to a new spiritual springtime.
An unidentified woman stumbled upon a Friday morning class and was incensed to see yoga in a church, DiLorenzo said.
The woman returned the next Monday, armed with holy water that she sprinkled on the participants as they started their class.
"This is sinful. This is evil," DiLorenzo recalled her saying.
DiLorenzo and her students had never seen the woman or her companion who handed out leaflets in the parking lot condemning yoga as anti-Christian.
Some fundamentalist Christians object to yoga because of its Eastern spiritual roots and its philosophy of reflecting on the self rather than God.
DiLorenzo said the woman also condemned it as being "sexual."
Gee, she sounds very rational. Who wouldn't take her complaints seriously?
I love the one comment about there being nothing in the Bible that says we can't do yoga. Also very rational.
Since the bishop seems to have responded to the squeaky wheel, maybe they should complain about the complainer and see where that gets them.
I go back and forth on this whole yoga issue.
You are right that no one can force anyone in a yoga class to practice hindu.
On the other hand a good friend of mine is literally losing her mind because of the path that began with yoga.
Yoga stretches are based on an underlying philosophy and religion.
If a person wants to stretch - then what is wrong with simply stretching? Or with a basic workout.
Yoga brings more to the class than just working the body, and I’m sure in most cases there is no harm done.
However, if someone really “gets into it” - like my friend, and pursues yoga with a passion, and manages to release their “kunalinga” energy (do a google search of kunalinga!)
That’s when you get into some pretty scary territory.
As soon as I saw that VOTF had gotten involved in this, I wondered about the accuracy of the report. The article is very confusing, and if the situation was actually this confused, I can understand why the bishop may simply have wanted to put a stop to it.
That’s certainly within his rights and in fact it’s his responsibility. It doesn’t seem that he came out and said anything about yoga in general (which is perfectly harmless if it’s just a form of exercise) but he obviously realized it was causing problems there and decided the easiest thing to do was to put an end to it.
I must say I couldn’t see why they initially had it in the “chapel” - do they mean the Blessed Sacrament chapel? That would have been highly inappropriate. Even for running on a treadmill!
Hindus definitely believe that yoga is a religious practice and they are beginning to get ticked off about its popularity as exercise.
I don’t see any reason why it should be supported by any church. There are many forms of exercise that involve gentle stretching so dropping yoga in favor of something else isn’t exactly a hardship.
Hindus per se have no say in who does yoga. It was invented in Tibet. The posture names are Sanskrit, not Hindi. It’s every bit as much Buddhist as Hindu. Or Christian for that matter.
The question is this: why would a Catholic church offer classes in yoga? Frankly, if they were offering classes in C++, I’d question it, unless, say, the parish had a need for C++ programmers...
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