Question by jummy: Is the yoga practicing contradictory to the catholic beliefs?
I heard in a catholic healing meeting a healer said to renounce to yoga. According to this yoga and catholicism don´t go together. Yoga doesn´t seem harmful and on the contrary its benefits are plenty.Why is this opposition to yoga in the catholic church showing up nowadays?
Best answer:
Answer by Carmen R (Now a Koala)
I´ve never heard of Catholics denouncing yoga, although I have heard plenty of fundies doing so. Interesting question.
Give your answer to this question below!
Yoga as exercise is fine. Religious Yoga, used in conjunction with Transcendental Meditation and other mind-altering methods of Eastern Religions, is not a recommended practice for Christians.
There is nothing wrong with stretching exercises, in fact they are most beneficial to a healthy body which the church encourages.
The problem comes with much of the Eastern mysticism usually associated with it…chanting mantras..looking inward to ones “third eye” etc.
There is a spiritual side and a physical side of Yoga, the spiritual side is against our faith, where as the physical side is just fine. So as long as you don’t consider Yoga as your religion, then you are just fine.
Never heard of a “Catholic healing meeting.” I sense that whatever you went to wasn’t sanctioned by Catholicism. No Catholic would call him/herself a “healer” or denounce Yoga.
The posture really does not matter. It depends upon what you are meditating.
This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. (Joshua 1:8)
But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:2)
Tremble, and do not sin; Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. (Psalm 4:4)
Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. (1 Timothy 4:15)
Catholics have been meditating for almost 2,000 years.
Mediation as prayer is encouraged by the Catholic Church.
For Catholics meditation is a quest to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking.
One way this is done is by reading scripture, asking God to give you understanding of it, and then pondering it in your heart.
Here is the Pope promoting meditation on the Scriptures: http://www.catholic.net/global_catholic_news/template_news.phtml?news_id=76678&channel_id=2
For more information, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, sections 2075-2078: http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt4sect1chpt3.shtml#art1
With love in Christ.
Yoga for the purpose of exercising is okay… the problem comes when there is a “centering” prayer involved… this is where yoga goes out the door.
Only is denounced if using yoga as a meditative, religious practice. Many people get into yoga and then start thinking they need to change to Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, whatever.
If you are only practicing yoga as a stretching and physical fitness discipline – like in P90X – you are fine. It only becomes problematic when you start taking in some new age, hippie, philosophy.
Hope this helps clarify.
Yoga the exercise is not the same as yoga where you meditate and chant.
Holding a position in exercise for a few minutes isn’t the issue.. its meditation and chanting that
is the issue.
Yoga is against the Church teaching due to demonic influences.
Father Jeremy Davies, exorcist for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, says that activities such as yoga, massage therapy,
reiki or even reading horoscopes could put people at risk from evil spirits.
In a new book, he also argues that people with promiscuous lifestyles could find themselves afflicted by demons.
And he says that the occult is closely linked to the scourges of ‘drugs, demonic music and pornography’ which are ‘destroying millions of young people in our time’.
The 73-year-old Catholic priest, who was appointed exorcist of the Archdiocese of Westminster in 1986, was a medical doctor before being ordained in 1974.
He has carried out thousands of exorcisms in London and in 1993 he set up the International Association of Exorcists with Fr Gabriel Amorth, the Pope’s top exorcist.
Yoga is how the Hindu’s worship their god. They feel the many different positions bring them closer to their god.
Christians and catholics should not practice yoga.