Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed said that yoga, referred as "a living fossil", was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization.

The Trinity Cathedral, in Easton (Maryland), was founded 1783, is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Read more

People love yoga.

People love the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola.

Mash the two together, and you have created a nice, marketable concept that can sweep a bundle of folks into the arms of the Lord and/or the Society of Jesus.

A Jesuit yoga teacher in a cobalt blue T-shirt ("IHS" nestled in the middle of a lotus flower) guides students through Christian spirituality and then mesmerizes them with yoga poses.

They do this in a church sanctuary, rubber mats spread on marble floors.

It seems perfect for a world in which anything can become anything, in which all spiritualities and traditions are completely fluid and can bleed into each other with little self-awareness or sense of fundamental boundaries.

It seems perfect because the Catholic faith is spiritual and yoga is spiritual.

Both have to do with people and people are good and they have souls and a corner of a good person's soul touches Jesus and another corner of the soul brushes against yoga because yoga exists, and thus Jesus and Patanjali, Francis Xavier and Swami Vivekananda, Rome and Delhi, the empty tomb and the emptying of desire are essentially in some broader cosmic sense part of, if not the same thing.

Why make distinctions between the two when to distinguish is to deny, to exclude, to create harsh boundaries?

And so yoga and Christian spirituality can be in some ways two co-equal wings of the same Creator and his entire recommended path of living, and so it all works out.

It all works out. Time for final savasana.

The practice of Ignatian yoga in the United States began in 2013 at Fordham University with a Jesuit scholastic named Bobby Karle.

Karle, a certified yoga instructor, Karle began offering sessions in yoga framed by Jesuit principles before weeknight liturgies at the campus church.

By 2017, Ignatian yoga had taken shape as an established organization.

Karle and his teaching partner, Alan Haras, have held workshops and retreats in Hollywood, Detroit, Milford, Ohio, Worcester, Mass., Boston, New York, Cleveland and even Australia.

Last year, I gave a talk and led a chapel meditation at one of these Ignatian yoga retreats.

It took place at a retreat center about an hour north of Manhattan.

I had never attended an Ignatian yoga event, and I admit, even though I was one of the speakers, I was a bit skeptical of the whole thing.

In contradistinction to the above litany of modern spirituality, it seemed that with "Ignatian yoga" you could end up with either a corruption of yoga or a corruption of Catholic spirituality. Continue reading

Fr Joe Pereira told AsiaNews that he has been practising Iyengar Yoga for 50 years, adding that his Kripa Foundation has used it "to help in the rehabilitation of people with alcohol and drug problems. Read more

The One Giant Practice event was held in Christ's College auditorium on Tuesday night - and International Yoga Day. Rows of chairs were shifted by students to make way for colourful yoga mats and even more colourful people.

Instructor Hamish Kenworthy, from Apollo Power Yoga, led a 90-minute session for the Christchurch yogis - some who were trying it for the first time. Continue reading

"It is a beginning of a new era in education, an era that we are trying to develop to contribute towards character building, towards securing a physically and mentally stable fitter Fiji."

Is Yoga a religious practice?

Given its close connection to Indian Vedic tradition some people think yoga by nature is a specifically religious practice.

Deepak Chopra says that "If by we mean the religious experience of transcendence, the loss of fear of death, and the emergence of platonic qualities such as truth, beauty, goodness, harmony, and evolution, then yes, yoga can give us a religious experience."

"It is not religion in the form of ideology, dogma, belief systems, or compliance; it's a spiritual experience that gives us access to a universal domain of reality."

Rights of individuals protected

"Fiji's president, Jioji Konrote has stressed that the rights of individuals as enshrined under the Constitution must always be taken into consideration when contemplating yoga so that there are no other repercussions.

Reddy says it won't be compulsory, "but we as educators would want to provide a bundle of choice, a bundle of opportunity to our children,"

He said the Ministry of Education, Heritage and Arts have taken on the enterprise to implement this program in schools around the country via the physical education programme.

Reddy said the practice of yoga would develop the students' physical and mental health.

Indian High Commissioner to Fiji, Vishvas Sapkal believes the introduction of yoga in schools around the country will boost students' physical, mental and spiritual discipline.

He said this while officiating at the International Day of Yoga celebrations in Labasa last week.

Sapkal said yoga embodied the unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfilment; and harmony between man and nature.

"Yoga, which originated in India more than 6000 years ago, is a combination of physical, mental and spiritual discipline with which one can transform the body and the mind," he said.

Source

• fijitimes.com
• fijitimes.com
• fijitimes.com
• yogajournal.com
• Image: fijitimes.com

Retired Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb said yoga is rooted in the Hindu religion, which is a "a pagan religion based on heathen beliefs and false doctrine of revelation involving such things as transmigration of souls, and so forth."

He made his remarks in a May 18 blog on the Women of Grace website, a Catholic organization for women in which Bruskewitz sits on the board of directors. Read More

Comments from Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, who used to lead the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, were published last week on a US blog for women.

" ... The practice of yoga, if it does not begin that way, eventually morphs into an acceptance of points of view, and even doctrinal and moral matters that are distant from Catholic truth and from genuine and authentic Christian revelation," Bishop Bruskewitz wrote.

He suggested that there are other forms of exercise that do not present dangers to the faith.

A 2003 document from the Pontifical Councils for Culture and for Interreligious Dialogue stated that people could discern whether New Age spiritual practices are permissible - "provided [it] is severable from the religion or philosophy that first motivated it".

Continue reading

The controversy came after Fr Roland Colhoun preached a sermon in Drumsurn in Northern Ireland earlier this month.

The priest said he warned about several aspects of the new-age movement, including yoga and Indian head massages.

Fr Colhoun told the Derry Journal that, while people may decide to take up yoga with good intentions, they could set themselves on a path towards "the bad spiritual domain" and even "Satan and the fallen angels".

He told the Journal: "Pope Francis said 'do not seek spiritual answers in yoga classes'. Yoga is certainly a risk. There's the spiritual health risk.

"When you take up those practices from other cultures, which are outside our Christian domain, you don't know what you are opening yourself up to.

"I'm not saying everyone gets it, or that it happens every time, and people may well be doing yoga harmlessly.

"But there‘s always a risk."

The president of Universal Society of Hinduism, Rajan Zed, urged Pope Francis to take disciplinary action against Fr Colhoun for linking yoga to Satan.

Mr Zed noted that the Vatican Library itself carries books on yoga.

He said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was "a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilised by all".

In a homily on January 9, Pope Francis said that only the Holy Spirit can teach true love.

"You can take a million catechetical courses, a million courses in spirituality, a million courses in yoga, Zen and all these things," Francis said.

"But all of this will never be able to give you the freedom" of being a child of God, he said.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he was Pope Benedict XVI, warned Christians that yoga, Zen, and other forms of transcendental meditation could "degenerate into a cult of the body" that devalues prayer.

In 2011, the Vatican's chief exorcist said practising yoga is satanic.

Sources

• The Independent
• Belfast Newsletter
• Image: The Sport in Mind

In an interview with the Telegraph, Fr Gabreile Amorth, who for four years held the position of the Vatican's chief exorcist, and who has cleansed hundreds of people of evil spirits, said Yoga is Satanic and JK Rowling's Harry Potter books are no less dangerous.

Amorth says the problem with Yoga is it leads to worship of Hinduism and "all eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation", and Harry Potter books, that on the face of it seem innocuous, but actually encourage children to believe in black magic and wizardry.

"In Harry Potter the Devil acts in a crafty and covert manner, under the guise of extraordinary powers, magic spells and curses," Amorth said.

"Satan is always hidden and what he most wants is for us not to believe in his existence. He studies every one of us and our tendencies towards good and evil, and then he offers temptations."

Amorth says science is incapable of explaining evil, and not worth a jot.

"The scientist simply explores what God has already created."

Giorgio Furlan, the founder of the Yoga Academy of Rome labelled the claims as "outrageous", and said yoga had nothing to do with religion, "least of all Satanism."

"Whoever says that shows that they know absolutely nothing about yoga," he said.

Father Amorth has also claimed that the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Catholic Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries was proof that the Anti-Christ is waging a war against the Holy See.

Source

• The Telegraph
• The Sun
• Image: Landover Baptist Church