What is the attitude of the Orthodox Church towards yoga? Orthodoxy about yoga
Is it permissible for a Christian to practice yoga, and if not, why not? In this collection, the reader will find a reasoned answer to these questions. The authors of the materials are familiar with yoga firsthand - one gave it seven years of his life in his youth, and the other, being an Indian from the Brahmin caste, has been practicing yoga since childhood. The introductory article also provides an overview of the statements of other Orthodox authors.
In the West - in Europe and America - yoga no longer feels like a "guest from the East", in an adapted and simplified form, it has firmly taken its place in modern mass culture. IN last years this also applies to our country. Many yoga centers have appeared, in some it is served as an ancient spiritual tradition leading to inner perfection, and in others - as a set of physical exercises for healing the body.
Among the visitors to these centers were people who call themselves Orthodox Christians. Many of them consider yoga classes not contrary to their faith, and react painfully to the words of clergy and theologians who speak of the inadmissibility of yoga for a Christian. The reasons for such a sharp position remain unclear to them.
In order to identify and explain the Orthodox attitude to yoga, this collection was compiled. Since it is widely believed among many apologists for yoga that only people who are not really familiar with it allow themselves to criticize yoga and therefore their judgments cannot be competent, this collection presents the works of such Orthodox authors who are familiar with yoga firsthand.
Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) in his youth gave yoga classes - and not just physical exercises, but with deep meditation - more than seven years of his life. Subsequently, he repented of this and believed in Christ, and eventually became a monk on the Holy Mountain, a disciple of the monk. Fr. Sophronius in practice comprehended the spiritual experience of Orthodoxy, and had everything necessary to competently compare the Orthodox and Indian paths. He did not write a special essay on this topic, but expressed himself in various conversations, quotations from which are given in this collection.
Christina Mangala Frost has the right to speak out about yoga to an even greater extent. She is an Indian by nationality, she was born in a family belonging to the Brahmin caste, and studied yoga not through third parties in adapted versions, like many modern Russians, but with early childhood and in the original Hindu tradition. In her youth, while studying in Australia, she converted to Protestantism, and later converted to Orthodoxy, in which she has been growing spiritually for more than a decade. Christina holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of Cambridge, is married to an Orthodox Christian, David Frost, and is the mother of four children, as well as a parishioner of St. Ephraim the Syrian in Cambridge (UK).
Before moving on to these works, I would like to make a short review of the opinions about yoga that were expressed by authoritative Orthodox hierarchs about it.
In May 2009, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus', speaking at the student festival “Faith and Deed”, answered the question about yoga in this way: “Yoga classes have two components, one of them is physical exercises. Physical education specialists can give an accurate description of these exercises, and there is nothing wrong with the technique of these exercises. His Holiness recalled that yoga is not only physical education, it is based on a very specific religion and involves the corresponding spiritual practices.
“Yoga is accompanied by meditation, and I am very wary of this,” said His Holiness. He emphasized, in particular, that when using such practices, a person's national self-consciousness, his cultural identity can be destroyed and warned against experiments with meditation. As an example, the Patriarch shared his impressions of communicating in India with Russian people who were seriously fascinated by Hindu spiritual practices.
The primate of another Local Orthodox Church, Archbishop Anastassy of Albania (Yannulatos), once wrote a whole article called "Yoga". In it he writes:
“Many yoga exercises have a small positive effect on certain people, at least the same as the exercises of other complexes. But, generally speaking, these exercises are part of the structure of Hinduism and are stages of a broader and more general spiritual ascent. Their ultimate goal is something more than just good physical health... After all, the kneeling of our prayer tradition is not a simple bodily movement, but is associated with deeper processes and expresses a certain mood and state of mind striving for spiritual goals; in the same way, more complex yoga exercises are associated with Hindu beliefs and Indian spiritual, religious experience.
Having listed the eight steps-stages of the traditional path of yoga, directed towards the final goal - “liberation”, Vladyka Anastassy notes that “Although some elements of consciousness are preserved at the first stages, at the last the yogi comes to overcome even self-consciousness. They do not perceive colors, smells, sounds, feelings, and are not aware of themselves or anyone else. Their spirits are "free," as the initiates say, from memory and oblivion. This is considered knowledge, enlightenment. This technique is aimed at connecting with the Absolute. For her, the central truths of Christianity about Christ the Savior, grace, selfless love, the Life-Giving Cross have no meaning.”
The archbishop then speaks critically about the attempts of some Greeks to purge yoga of everything Indian and make it "Christian". On this occasion, Vladyka Anastassy notes that if this were really possible, at best, a certain method would be obtained “for a person to achieve deep silence, to get rid of internal upheavals produced by our desires, interests and fantasies,” however, “there is no need to look for such a method because it would lead to the opposite results: absolute autonomy of the human spirit and extreme confusion. According to the Christian faith, spiritual life with its completion is a gift of God's grace, and not an achievement of an independent human-centric technique. In addition, for us, Orthodox Christians, there is the hesychast experience of Eastern Christianity, where, under certain religious conditions, it is possible to achieve a holy spiritual life in Christ, peace and Hesychia in love.
Archbishop Anastassy also draws attention to the fact that in Greece many centers where yoga is studied deliberately hide its religious origin and roots, thereby misleading people who do not have sufficient religious training.
Orthodox religious scholar priest Mikhail Plotnikov, who devoted many years to the study religious traditions India, in an interview, recalls that “yoga is a monastic practice, which first implies the rejection of unnatural desires (that is, from sinful, vicious desires), then from natural desires (marriage, wealth, etc.), then - in general from all desires. For example, classical Hindu Raja Yoga, codified in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, has eight limbs. Passing the first steps, the yogi with the help of asceticism and special exercises acquires control over his physical and "subtle" bodies. At the higher levels, he achieves control over the psyche and comprehends the art of concentrated contemplation (meditation). At the same time, you should practically not drink or eat, sleep and breathe little, be indifferent to praises and insults, feel nothing, stop the flow of your thoughts, completely concentrate on a certain point in yourself, enter a trance state. And then the light must enter into your inner emptiness and silence, which is perceived by the yogi as the light of his own "divinity"...
Yogis believe that after stopping all mental processes and achieving samadhi, that is, a state of concentration without content, “the seeds of karma are burned out” and this guarantees against a new rebirth and allows you to free yourself from the body at any moment forever ... Such is the real ascetic yoga in Russia few people here practice... all kinds of gurus and holders of yogic centers in Russia actually practice New Age yoga, in which there is practically no asceticism, and only occasionally temporary solitude, meditation, reading mantras are practiced, which are necessary for liberation from thoughts and concentration. The purpose of such yoga is a kind of calm, entering a blissful state and nothing more.
Further, Father Mikhail specifically dwells on exposing some of the myths about yoga spread by its Western adherents: indian yoga they live happily ever after, while they do not suffer from serious chronic diseases, they are not burdened by a load of stress and unresolved problems. This is a lie, a myth ... The general medical examination, which was in India (for the first and last time) in the 1980s, showed that yogis, of whom there are several million people, live on average even less than an ordinary resident of India and suffer, besides, a lot of diseases. For example, cataracts of the eyes, because they constantly concentrate on the sun, dislocations of the joints, arthritis and arthrosis due to frequent exposure to unnatural positions for a long time. Yogis suffer from a bunch of diseases of the upper respiratory tract and the gastrointestinal tract, because every day they do enemas, clean the nasopharynx with tourniquets, which over time practically destroys the mucous membrane in the intestines and nasal cavity ... Despite the fact that all of them, with the exception of married Shaivites, take a vow of celibacy, the vast majority of yogis were sick with chronic venereal diseases. Those yogis who do not want to succumb to prodigal passion very often castrate themselves in savage ways ... "
Father Mikhail draws the following conclusion: “Speaking of the spiritual danger from yoga, you can briefly say this: if you practice real Hindu or Buddhist yoga, you will fall into self-delusion - you will consider yourself a “god”, and if you practice New Age yoga, you will also fall into delusion ... There are no serious spiritual consequences from practicing fitness yoga, however, as a rule, people who do not live any spiritual life do fitness at all ... In my opinion, it is more correct to say that any fitness, not only with elements of yoga, itself by itself is not soulful. People who care too much about their appearance and health thereby testify that they do not live a spiritual life.
It is also worth citing the opinion of Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose), who in his youth, before the adoption of Orthodoxy, was also engaged in Eastern meditative practices for a long time: “Almost twenty years ago, the French Benedictine monk Deshanet wrote about his experience of turning yoga into a “Christian” teaching... Anyone who understands the nature of delusion, or spiritual delusion, will recognize in this description of "Christian yoga" the exact characteristics of those who have spiritually gone astray ... The same desire for "holy and divine feelings", the same openness and willingness to be "raptured" by some spirit, the same search not for God, but for “spiritual comforts”, the same self-intoxication, which is mistaken for a “state of grace”, the same incredible ease with which a person becomes a “contemplative” or “mystic”, the same “mystical revelations” and pseudo-spiritual states. These are the common characteristics of those who have fallen precisely into this state of spiritual delusion...”
In conclusion, I would like to quote the recording of the conversation made by Metropolitan Hierofei (Vlachos) – at his request, one of the elders of Athos briefly outlined the main differences between the Orthodox Jesus Prayer and the Indian type of yoga and meditation:
“First, in prayer, faith is decisively expressed in God, who created the world, governs it, and loves it. He is a tender Father who cares about the salvation of His creation. Salvation is accomplished in God, so in prayer we ask Him: "Have mercy on me." Self-salvation and self-deification, which was Adam's sin, the sin of the fall, is far removed from the doer of noetic prayer... Salvation is accomplished not "in and through oneself", as human teachings affirm, but in God.
Secondly, in prayer we seek to meet not with a faceless god. We do not aim to rise to "absolute nothing". Ours focuses on the personal God, the God-man Jesus. Hence the prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God"... We love Christ and keep His commandments. We are striving to implement them. He said: "If you love me, keep my commandments"(). Loving Christ and keeping His commandments, we unite with the Holy Trinity.
Thirdly, with intelligent unceasing prayer, we do not fall into a state of pride. The teachings you spoke to me about earlier abound with pride. Our prayer acquires a blissful state of humility. “Have mercy on me,” we say and consider ourselves the worst of all. We do not exalt ourselves over any brother. Any pride is alien to the doer of prayer. He who has it is insane.
Fourthly, as already noted, salvation is not an abstract state, but unity with the Trinitarian God in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. But this unity does not eliminate the human factor. We do not assimilate, because each of us is a special person...
Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov)
“Meditations brought me peace from being distracted by the cares of earthly life, gave me hours of intellectual pleasure, lifted me into imaginary spiritual spheres, put me above the environment around me. Philosophically, I could not think of the Absolute Beginning as personal. This was partly due to my following a common misconception in the circles in which I moved: confusing the concept of person with the concept of the individual, when philosophically they are diametrically opposed. As a child, I was taught to pray to the Immortal Father in Heaven, to whom all my grandfathers and great-grandfathers went. Then, in children's faith (cf. ;), Person and Eternity were easily combined. And so, from infancy, the Christian personalism that I perceived at some point became the most essential question: Being, absolute, can it be personal? My sincere "Eastern" experience was more of an intellectual - torn from the heart - form: the ascesis of intelligent abstraction from everything relative. Gradually I became convinced that I was on the wrong path: I was moving away from true real Being into non-being.
“According to my new acquisition of Christ, my “oriental” experience, which lasted approximately seven or eight years, appeared to my spirit as the most terrible crime against the love of God, Whom my soul knew from early childhood.”
“Most unacceptable is mixing it [Jesus Prayer] with yoga, Buddhism and even “transcendental meditation” and the like. The radical difference between all these deviations and Christianity lies in the fact that our life is based on the Revelation of a personal God: I AM. All other ways lead a person's mind away from personal relationships between God and the one who prays to the realm of the abstract transpersonal Absolute, to impersonal asceticism. Meditation, as a distraction of our mind from all kinds of images, can give us a feeling of calm, peace, an outcome from the conditions of time and space, but there is no conscious standing before a personal God in it; there is no real prayer in it, that is, face to face. This can lead to the fact that those who are carried away by meditation will be satisfied with the psychic results of such experiments and, worst of all, the perception of the Living God, the Personal Absolute, will become alien to him.
“In this striving for the universal, the transcendental, the supra-personal, man, as a living person, must disappear. In parallel with this, in the East, the human mind also sought to merge with the absolute Being, transcending everything that is characteristic of the world of transient phenomena. A gap was created between the really existing and the abstract contemplation of the human mind ... In all these cases, we are in front of a stratification of an integral person, ending in his complete destruction.
“The path of our fathers requires strong faith and long-suffering, while our contemporaries try to seize all spiritual gifts, including even direct contemplation of the Absolute God, by pressure in a short time. Often there is a tendency among them to draw a parallel between praying in the Name of Jesus and yoga, or "transcendental meditation," and the like. I consider it necessary to point out the danger of such a delusion - the danger of looking at prayer as the simplest and easiest "technical" means leading to direct union with God. I consider it necessary to emphasize categorically the radical difference between the Jesus Prayer and all other ascetic theories.
All those who seek to mentally abstract themselves from everything transient, relative, are mistaken, in order to thus step over a certain invisible threshold, to realize their beginninglessness, their “identity” with the Source of everything that exists; to return to Him, the nameless transpersonal Absolute; in order to dissolve one's personality in the ocean of the supramental, mixing this latter with the individualized form of natural existence. Ascetic efforts of this kind gave some people the opportunity to rise to the metalogical contemplation of being, to experience a certain mystical thrill, to know the state of silence of the mind after the latter's exit beyond the limits of time and space dimensions. In such experiences, a person can feel the peace of abstraction of the constantly changing phenomena of the visible world; discover the freedom of the spirit and contemplate intelligent beauty. The final development of this impersonalistic asceticism of many has led to the seeing of the divine principle in the very nature of man, to the tendency of self-deification which lies at the basis of the great Fall; to see in oneself a certain "absoluteness", which in essence is nothing but a reflection of God's Absoluteness in the created in the image; experience an attraction to return to that state of rest in which a person was supposedly before his appearance in this world; in any case, after the experience of abstraction, this kind of mental aberration may be born in the mind.
I do not set myself the goal in this case to enumerate all the variations of mental intuitions, but I will say from my own experience that the True, Living God, that is, the One Who is "Existing", is NOT in all this. This is the natural genius of the human spirit in its sublimated movements towards the Absolute. All contemplations achieved on this path are self-contemplation, not God-contemplation. In these positions we discover for ourselves still created beauty, and not First Being. And in all this there is no salvation for man.
Christina Mangala Frost
Yoga and Christian faith
I was born into an Indian family, became a Christian at 22, and have been an Orthodox Christian for ten years. I was brought up in the spirit of yoga. My grandfather was a friend of one of the founders of modern yoga, Swami Sivananda, who used to send his books on yoga along with the sweet, herbal, vitamin-rich brew that we really liked. As a child, parents were encouraged to perform certain postures and breathing exercises, always with a clear warning that there are various ways breath for men and women, as their bodies are of different shapes.
When I got married and had children, I taught them some things that I found useful and took from my childhood yoga lessons, such as doing some poses and benefiting from these exercises. My children were raised in a Christian home and were in no danger of being misled by Hindu esoteric spiritual ideas such as "self-realization" that often accompanies modern yoga. During a trip to India, they encountered similar ideas in the ashram, but quickly dismissed them as belonging to the idolatrous, cult atmosphere that prevailed in that ashram.
I state all of this mainly to emphasize that yoga is more than just exercise, and that we now more than ever need the gift of discernment when introduced to yoga. We need to have a clear idea of what we are dealing with.
Yoga was once treated with reverence in India as a mysterious branch of the Hindu spiritual discipline that required great physical and psychological courage. She was approached by seekers seeking to reach the heights of the Indian concept of spiritual perfection. Such a seeker had to maintain a rigorous regimen of physical and mental activities under the strict guidance of a revered master guru. The ultimate goal of yoga was nothing less than the feeling of the divine in oneself.
Since the nineteenth century, thanks in large part to the tireless propaganda efforts of Indian missionary gurus such as Swami Vivekananda, yoga has been stripped of its mysticism and complexity. Outwardly, this has been expressed in the form of American schools of self-help and positive thinking, and is presented to the masses as a safe and easy path to bliss, available to everyone. The word "Yoga" is now well known in both East and West; a very popular specific program of regular exercise is being studied and practiced by a large number of people in school halls and on sports grounds. While some yoga teachers promote it as simple technique to ensure the physical well-being of a person, others argue that it is a universal answer to the basic questions of life. Some teachers and students of yoga downplay the importance of the Indian ethos, in which the spiritual language of yoga is enshrined, others readily absorb that same ethos, especially those who find the Orthodox faith, its rites and requirements tiresome. Many Christians practice yoga without paying attention to its spiritual baggage, while others feel some anxiety because of it and often meet with disapproval from their priests and bishops.
A characteristic case in the Anglican Church
The Times newspaper of August 31, 2007 published an article that made a lot of noise. “Priests Ban Non-Christian Toddler Yoga,” read the headline, and went on to say, “A children's group that held yoga classes in two church rooms was banned. The group was dispersed by priests who described Yoga as something fraudulent and un-Christian." The point of view presented in the article seemed to suggest that the priests behaved like unreasonable and overzealous alarmists. It is also known from the article that yoga teacher Miss Woodcock was "outraged" by their ban on her "Yum Yum yoga for babies and their mothers." She claims to have explained to the church that her "yoga is completely non-religious." She, however, was forced to admit that "some types of adult yoga are based on Hindu and Buddhist meditations."
By using the word “exercise” rather than “meditation,” the teacher draws our attention to two main types of yoga common today: modern physical yoga and modern meditative yoga. Realizing that meditative yoga often delves into spiritual realms and sets goals that are incompatible with Christianity, Ms. Woodcock strives to keep "exercise" without "meditation." Could such a refusal make yoga “safe”?
The priests disagree: “The philosophy of yoga cannot be separated from its practice, and any yoga teacher (even for toddlers) should share the point of view of this philosophy. Yoga may seem harmless or even beneficial, but in this way people may begin to think that there is a way to achieve wholeness of body and soul through human methods, while the only true way to wholeness is faith in God, through Jesus Christ.
Any hope solely on " human method"to achieve integrity apart from faith in Jesus Christ, of course, is condemned by the clergy - including Anglican and Baptist ones.
But at the same time, there are those among the laity who wonder if the methods of yoga can not be considered as a means of "tuning" our body and soul, so that we become more aware of God's grace? Before trying to answer these questions, I need to briefly talk about the types of yoga that can be found today, and about the Indo-Buddhist ethos of which they are an integral part.
What is yoga
1 . Hollywood Yoga, as the name implies, is aimed at achieving external attractiveness, good physical form and longevity.
2 . Harvard Yoga focuses on mental clarity, concentration, and peace of mind.
3 . Himalayan Yoga does not fit into the framework of the two previous ones and is aimed at achieving a special state known as samadhi (absorption).
4 . Cult Yoga puts the focus on charismatic gurus. It is believed that enlightenment descends only by one touch of the guru on the disciple who worships him or her as God.
Pure Indian technicians claim to follow the directions of the original Sanskrit text, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The Indian tradition suggests an "eight-step" yoga, for which the performance of physical exercises is a relatively minor item in the program, and the main emphasis is on mental and moral purification and the use of psychic forces for self-improvement. The Eight Steps are:
1 . "five restrictions" (pit),
2 . "five disciplines" (niyama),
3 . "physical exercises" (asana),
4 . "extension vital energy"(pranayama),
5 . "inner focus" (pratyahara),
6 . "concentration" (dharana),
7 . "meditation" (dhyana),
8 . "absorption" (samadhi).
The passage of the first two "steps" is aimed at developing such moral qualities as truthfulness, selflessness and non-violence. Some Indian yoga teachers regret that the third step, "physical exercises", is now widely taught without any regard for moral improvement. They insist that the balance achieved by the practice of the postures is what sets the yogi in the first place on a path whose ultimate spiritual goal is a state of permanent bliss known as samadhi, or "absorption."
Immersion in what? There are many answers to this question - it all depends on what you believe.
If you are a Hindu who believes that there is no difference between his essence (atman) and the Supreme Being (Brahman), "absorption" means achieving the experience of inseparable oneness with Brahman. Such a Hindu sees the ultimate spiritual reality as Faceless and emphatically asserts that belief in the Faceless is superior to any belief in a Personal God.
If you are a Hindu theist who develops a personal love relationship with your god or goddess and seeks liberation through the grace of the deity, then "absorption" means drowning yourself in that particular god.
If you are a Buddhist and do not believe in a Creator God (as the Dalai Lama often repeats), "immersion" means the onset of nirvana, "extinction", the final disappearance of yourself.
Although Patanjali's ambitious spiritual yoga program has been turned into fitness exercises in Western yoga manuals, it is still found in somewhat modified form even in the West.
At the basis of all traditional approaches to yoga lies the point of view of the philosophical system known as Samkhya. According to her, our ordinary psychosomatic "I" is a by-product of physical processes, and with the help of training, a person seems to be cleansed like an onion, reaching the center where "pure consciousness" is located. Here is how one yoga teacher explained it: “one day a person realizes that she, in essence, is pure consciousness, different and separate from psychophysical processes, from her false ideas.”
However, the assertion that the systematic severing of contacts with the outside world creates unity in a person seems highly doubtful. On the contrary, as R. D. Lake showed in his The Divided Self, the beginning of a radical escape from external reality may well lead to schizophrenia. Not only that, according to yoga, embarking on a journey into oneself, a person runs the risk of becoming mentally ill, but such a goal also raises a number of serious problems for a Christian. Jesus calls us to seek the Kingdom of God within, not "pure consciousness." Even in the Christian monastic tradition, which recommends withdrawal from the world, from objects of sensory experience, the monk is in search of an "inner kingdom." In this "inner kingdom" is the Divine Holy Trinity, our Lord. We come to know Christ and commune with Him in the Holy Spirit, and by the power of this same Spirit we call God "Our Father". "Pure consciousness" is only a distant echo of what the Christian state of the "Kingdom of God" is.
Influential Indian missionaries like Vivekananda and his followers set in motion certain yoga techniques to promote pop mysticism based on the notion of "self-realization" which has become a yoga catchphrase. The path to "self-realization" through yoga is presented as a universal call, free from dogmas and strictly secular. However, a close study of Vivekananda's writings reveals a strong bias towards one particular Indian tradition, from which Vivekananda removed the subtle metaphysics of Indian non-dualism (advaita) and what remained was marketed with all his fervor. Random quotations from his writings illustrate his reckless syncretism and reckless, often preposterous claims of what he did for the "self-realization" method.
"Everything is I. Say it without ceasing." “Go to your room and get the Upanishads from yourself. You are greatest book that has ever been or ever will be, the infinite repository of all that is." "I am the essence of bliss." "Do not follow the ideal, you contain them all in yourself." “Christs and Buddhas are just instances in which your inner powers are personified. In fact, it is we who answer our own prayers.” "We can call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Jehovah, Allah, Agni, but it's only Me." “The universe is a thought, and the Vedas are the words of that thought. We can create and destroy, recreate the whole universe.”
When Vivekananda realized that he needed more than incoherent philosophical talk about his brand of "self-realization," he wrote a paper on Raja Yoga, which is a practical guide for those seeking so-called "self-realization."
The incompatibility of yoga and Christianity
There are many reasons why the spiritual foundations of modern yoga are incompatible with Christianity, chief among which is the over-emphasis on the self. Egocentrism from a Christian point of view is the root of evil. In it is the fall of man, his deviation from God towards an erroneous, rebellious dependence on himself. This is a break in communication with God, which ends in sin and.
In search of health, well-being, and even the development of secret abilities in themselves, many of our contemporaries pay attention to all kinds of oriental practices, especially to.
Yoga is advertised as a technique that will help prevent diseases, heal from already earned diseases, even those that are difficult to treat, teach you to control yourself, influence others, and also give an influx of vitality.
Most people are attracted to yoga by the external, as they believe, wellness side - healing postures, cold baths, cleansing enemas, special breathing techniques and so on. The goal is to improve performance internal organs and systems - digestion, potency, pressure, memory and other organs. The layman believes that it is possible to ignore the worldview of yoga and at the same time recognize it as a unique system of physical and mental development. IN modern yoga traditional Hindu gymnastics is used - hatha yoga, similar to the gymnastics of the Chinese and ancient Persians. There are also such areas as raja yoga, mantra yoga, which are adjoined by "transcendental meditation", mystical Taoism, Tibetan Buddhist methods, breathing techniques, and so on.
What does this wisdom of sunny India carry in itself?
Yoga is an integral part of the philosophical and religious teachings of the ancient and medieval. This is a system of exercises, methods and techniques, the purpose of which is not only to control the mental and physiological processes of the body, but also to ascend to a special spiritual state. Initially, yoga, with its system of psychophysical exercises, aimed to develop independence in the soul in relation to the body, so that after the death of a person, the soul would avoid reincarnation and dissolve into the primary faceless spiritual substance.
Physical exercise, developed in yoga, are essentially religious rites that open a person towards Hindu "spirituality". Yogic exercises in their direct use are associated with occult meditations, and various yoga postures identify a person with animals or even objects (for example, the “posture of a cobra”, “cow's head”, “downward-facing dogs” and others). As a rule, special body movements, fixed postures, holding the breath, repeating a mantra, as well as visualization are used - a way of working with the imagination, in which, having closed his eyes, a person mentally draws some image in the dark and over time he sees the imaginary very clearly. and distinctly. Some postures excite the sexual centers, according to yoga teachers, this is necessary in order to take advantage of sexual energy, transform it and distribute it throughout the body for healing and vigor.
Unfortunately, not everyone understands that religious faith, morality and external rites, practice are deeply interconnected, so that you cannot use any practice by itself without experiencing the influence of the spiritual essence that this practice expresses. Even external movements can contain a certain formula-sign, informing the soul of the mood corresponding to the Indian religion. Indian-occult or Eastern systems offer their own psycho-technical techniques aimed at "expansion of consciousness", "supersensory perception" and "opening of inner spaces". The true goal of all types of yoga is to reveal the hidden “divinity” in oneself, to merge with the primary reality and thus reveal supernatural spiritual forces in oneself. Here is how the famous yoga apologist, who formally belonged to the Catholic order of the Benedictines, the Frenchman Jean-Marie Deschane, frankly admits in his book Christian Yoga: “The goals of Indian yoga are spiritual. It can be equated with betrayal to forget this and save only the physical side of it. spiritual teaching when people see in it only a means of achieving bodily health and beauty.<…>The art of yoga is to plunge yourself into complete silence, to cast aside all thoughts and illusions; reject and forget everything except one truth: the true essence of man is divine; she is God, the rest can only be dreamed of.
In Hinduism, many were attracted just by the idea that a person is divine in himself, that he contains all the perfections that can be revealed using special techniques, and therefore, the difficult path to God through overcoming one's passions, which Christianity offers, is not at all required. You just need to reveal the hidden divinity in yourself. It is interesting to note that one of the common mantra expressions in India is "so-ham, so-ham", that is, "I am He, I am He." As you know, the feeling of self-importance, self-sufficiency, combined with a feeling of euphoria - self-enjoyment, in Christian asceticism is called charm, that is, seduction, self-deception. Man imagines himself to be divine, but in reality remains without God, but the dark forces flatter his pride by imitation of divine perfections. This is a repetition of the ancient temptation to become “like the gods” (Gen. 3:5), to acquire divine knowledge and powers, which is constantly whispered to man by an invisible deceiver.
Let us give an example from life, which reflects the true ins and outs of Eastern practices. There is a woman in the Sergiev Posad region who, having been baptized in Orthodoxy, at some point became carried away. Moreover, she did not at all think that this somehow contradicted the Christian faith. Simply, having no experience of church life, only occasionally turning to the prayer book, she did not feel a spiritual substitution. She was attracted by the moral truths of Buddhism - forgiveness, selflessness, renunciation of any desires, she also liked their meditative practice, which seemed to bring long-awaited peace to a troubled soul.
More and more, the woman became interested in Eastern spirituality, she achieved, as it seemed to her at that time, already considerable success. Once in a dream she saw two venerable Buddhist mentors - mahatmas, who addressed her with the following words: “You have already achieved a lot. But in order to come to complete perfection, you have only one thing left to do - to deny Christ. In amazement, the woman asked: “But why is this necessary, because I believed that Christianity does not contradict Buddhism?” She, like many of our contemporaries, believed that different religions - albeit different, but equal paths to God, but she was in awe of Christ in her heart.
The woman intuitively felt that there was something wrong, alien and bad in this requirement. The night guests answered: "This is necessary in order to come to the full". Probably, being carried away by Buddhism, she did not delve deeply into its philosophy, where the key place is occupied by the renunciation of all desires and attachments, and therefore, from attachment to Christ. "No," she said, "I can't recant." “Ah, so,” the visitors unexpectedly reacted, “then we will torture you.” At that moment, both took on the terrible form of demons, began to throw burning coals at the woman's head.
Of course, you can write off such a vision as just a nightmare. But the tortures themselves were perceived so vividly that the sufferer began to scream. Her own mother, having heard her daughter's screams, and seeing that something was wrong with her - some kind of terrible attack, and her daughter could not wake up - called an ambulance. Doctors fruitlessly tried to give the sufferer an injection - the muscles were so tense that the needle did not penetrate inside. Through sleepy tortures, the woman remembered a simple Christian prayer: “Lord, have mercy!”, And the demons with their torments disappeared in an instant. When she woke up, after drinking holy water, she realized that she needed to go to the temple for spiritual help. The priest, having delved into the condition of the woman, recommended that she go to confession and take communion weekly.
Gradually, her spiritual condition improved, only one feature appeared after that night event - from time to time the woman saw demons. One day, she met a friend of hers, who began to enthusiastically tell that she was interested in Buddhism and that all this was curious and great. Wise with bitter experience, the woman wanted to immediately warn her against such a hobby, but she was just about to open her mouth when she saw two cunning demons on her interlocutor’s shoulders, who deftly closed her ears and, grinning, as if saying: “Let's see what you can do.” The woman realized that everything she would say now would not reach her soul.
Indeed, often people are so carried away by Eastern practices that they do not perceive any arguments, and only stuffed bumps make them reconsider theirs.
Unfortunately, many today believe that the teachings of Buddhism coincide with the Christian on a number of issues, for example, in overcoming passions, eradicating sinful desires, perfection, love of neighbor and sacrifice. However, outward resemblance often hides the abyss into which anyone who wants to connect the incompatible with one leap falls and breaks. I would like to cite the reflections of the researcher of Indian religions, Prince N. S. Trubetskoy, about the external similarity and deep internal difference that is observed between Buddhism and Christianity: “The path to achieving nirvana was indicated by the Buddha in two ways. On the one hand, the psychophysical exercises of self-immersion, concentrated meditation, breath holding, and so on, are almost identical in techniques to the yoga system. But on the other hand, self-sacrifice to everything that exists. However, this second path is, as it were, a part of the first, a special psychophysical exercise. Love, mercy, compassion - all this for a Buddhist is not a feeling, because after all, feelings should not remain in his soul, but only a result, a consequence of a complete loss of a sense of his individuality and his personal desires: in such a mental state, it costs nothing for a person to sacrifice himself for neighbor, for, having no desire of his own, he naturally easily fulfills the desires of others. To suppress your will so much as to act solely at the will of another is recommended precisely in the form of an exercise. Forgiveness is considered as a means of destroying feelings: indifference finds its completion when a person treats an enemy in exactly the same way as a friend, when he is indifferent to joy and pain, to honor and dishonor. In other words, such a person is likened to a robot that has neither personality nor feelings, and therefore dispassionately fulfills any program laid down in it. Contrary to this, in Christianity, sacrifice, forgiveness, love are based not on the suppression of desires in oneself, not on the destruction of the personal principle, but on the purity of the heart that has acquired God's grace. The soul, having found freedom from sin in God, gladly helps its neighbors, it forgives and sacrifices, because it loves - this is its innermost happiness.
Returning to yoga, we note that breathing exercises and body postures prepare a person for certain spiritual experiences. We repeat that the true purpose of yoga is religious-ascetic. Yogis themselves believe that at the highest levels of this ascetic practice, when all mental processes stop and a person reaches samadhi, that is, a state of concentration without content, the seeds of karma are “burned out” in him, and this frees him from a new rebirth, allows him to be freed forever from body and cease to exist as . Here we see a cardinal divergence from Christianity, in which the personality is not destroyed, but is transformed and reaches its highest self-expression in communion with God.
According to Christian teaching, in the soul, united with God, the gifts given to a particular person are revealed. And even in the next age, after the general resurrection, when “God will be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28), the person will not be destroyed, for, as it is said in Scripture, we will see God “face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12), that is, communion with God is always a deeply personal communion, which is not depersonalized even in the general conciliar prayer. This experience is available to every Christian here and now in one way or another. And in this personal meeting with God as Life, Love and Joy, our own life becomes more authentic, internally saturated, inspired and bright.
Meditation plays an important role in yoga. (from Latin meditatio - reflection) is the internal concentration of the mind on a certain idea. The meditator mentally renounces all external objects, striving for a certain mental state.
If prayer is an appeal to God, then meditation is a conversation with oneself, in fact, self-hypnosis. Meditation is supposed to awaken in the meditator the deep powers dormant in the depths of the soul, and such a person becomes capable, for example, of clairvoyance. If in Christianity there is smart doing and the Jesus Prayer, in which a Christian turns to God and His grace with all his being, then in occultism and Eastern practices, through meditation, a person in himself is looking for a secret passage leading to spiritual perfection. In Hindu meditation, a person strives for identity with the absolute and, reaching a trance, comes to the feeling that he is one with the deity, or rather, that the original divinity is revealed in himself.
Meditation, as an experience of non-Christian religious and mystical practice, naturally entails spiritual states outside of Christ and without the communion of His grace. Sooner or later it may seem to such a person that he himself becomes a conductor of higher revelations, carrying a special mission on earth. I recall the example of the Indian poet and mystic, one of the founders of Bengali Krishnaism, Chondidash (XIV-XV centuries), who from a young age was initiated into the priesthood of the goddess Durga. Being a representative of the upper caste of the Brahmins, Chondidash fell in love with a woman of the lower caste, a simple washerwoman Rami. For a Brahmin, maintaining caste purity is a sacred duty. Chondidash was looking for a solution to his personal problem in meditation and inward appeal to the goddess Durga. In this activity, he began to contemplate his beloved, and in such meditations, Chondidash gained confidence that he himself was a manifestation of the spirit of Krishna, and Rami was the incarnation of Krishna's beloved, the shepherdess Radha. Chondidash himself believed that the goddess Durga revealed this secret to him. This is how occult spiritual practice is crowned with occult revelations.
Do yoga and meditation practice bring any effect to people? Often, representatives of these practices testify that yoga balances internal forces, calms nervous system. But as a result, a person's soul ceases to hurt. He does not feel any contradictions in his soul, and does not feel the need to confess sins. Thus, the tranquility achieved through yoga and meditation deprives a person of the opportunity to repent of sins and be freed from them. A person has achieved spiritual comfort, but in the depths of his soul there are unconfessed ones, about which he does not remember. In fact, mental instability in our real life can be an indicator that suggests that you need to rush to the temple for the Sacraments, repent before God, correct yourself, and yoga with meditative practice deprives the soul of this indicator.
As for the seemingly obvious physical benefits of yoga, this is a common misconception. The benefits of the simplest yoga exercises observed no more than from all the others physical culture complexes. Yoga, if practiced seriously, is unhealthy, and the idea that Indian yogis live long and do not suffer from serious illnesses is deeply wrong. In the 1980s, a general medical examination was carried out in India, which showed that yogis live on average even less than an ordinary Indian and suffer from many diseases. For example, the upper respiratory tract and the gastrointestinal tract, because every day they clean the nasopharynx with tourniquets and make enemas for themselves, and over time, the mucous membrane in the nasal cavity and intestines is destroyed; dislocations of the joints, arthritis and arthrosis due to the frequent presence in unnatural positions; cataracts of the eyes, because they often concentrate on the sun. There were many people suffering from chronic venereal diseases.
Since the emphasis in yoga is on the restructuring of the body and its rhythms, this can disrupt biological processes in such a way that the psychosomatic disorder becomes irreversible, and no doctor can understand what happened to the person.
In conclusion, it must be said that in all mystical-occult systems, practices and meditations you can find any kind of reflections, thoughts, ideas, except for one thing - there is no repentance in them. Christianity testifies: as the soul approaches God, a person sees more and more clearly his imperfection and lack of self-sufficiency. Therefore, the experience of approaching God affirms in a Christian humility, repentance and love. Thanks to this, pure, sincere joy of unity with the Lord, Who sees, hears and loves you, is possible. The Eastern mystical experience rejects the personal God, and therefore strives to overcome the personality of a person in samadhi or nirvana, gives the experience of dissolving one's individuality in the ocean of the impersonal. Having not met a personal God, a person in Eastern mysticism naturally tends to personal death.
Welcome to the reality of yoga!
In this article we will talk about Christianity (Orthodoxy), let's talk about how it relates to yoga. Is there anything in common between yoga and Christianity? Why does the official church consider yoga a sin? Is it possible to practice yoga and still be an Orthodox Christian?
The answers to these questions are…
Yoga and Christianity. The goals are the same.
In one of my favorite Orthodox prayers, the prayer of the Optina Elders, there is a line: “Lord, teach me to correctly, simply, reasonably treat all my family and those around me, elders, equals and juniors, so that I don’t upset anyone, but help everyone for the good.” Isn't this yoga? Tell the truth, and even constructive truth.
One way or another, precisely because of this, in order not to embarrass anyone, I do not tell strictly Orthodox believers, monks and priests about my yoga classes. I respect their way and rejoice for those who sincerely try to draw closer to God and
Speaking of goals... What is the goal of the Christian life? Go to church and not sin? What for? To go to heaven? Why go to heaven? To avoid hell? To be close to God? When asked about the purpose of the Christian life, Seraphim of Sarov speaks best of all in a conversation with his close disciple Motovilov. This conversation is called: "On the purpose of the Christian life." 
And there is very interesting information there, that the goal of the Christian life is the acquisition (acquisition) of the Holy Spirit of God. Fasting, vigil, prayer, almsgiving and every good done for Christ's sake) are the means for acquiring the Holy Spirit of God.
What is the purpose of yoga? Of course, the meaning of a yogi's life is to become purer and get closer to His True Divine Nature, finally such unity does not come somewhere in heaven, but in.
Who is a real yogi and a Christian?
In general, a modest, kind, humble person who reveres Christ and has never even heard of yoga is a much more real yogi than the one who can even conduct yoga himself, but at the same time does not strive to comply and swells from a sense of his superiority over others . Wrong yoga is very conducive to strengthening the ego and pride. And pride is the biggest obstacle on any true spiritual path.
The Ten Commandments of Moses, in fact the same Yama and Niyama yoga, just Moses formulated them in those days when people were rude, and even just not killing was an achievement. Christ already more deeply brought Ahimsa (not causing harm) to the masses: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
Very interesting about Christianity is said in the book. Here is one of the audio excerpts on the subject:
And I will tell you one more story, from which the connection between yoga and Christianity will become obvious to you.
Kriya Yoga and the Jesus Prayer.
A friend of mine, a practitioner, was in the yoga community in Italy. Somehow a local Italian approaches him and asks: “Have you read a book about a Russian wanderer?” He did not read, he was surprised by the question. Then another one comes up and also says: “Oh, you are Russian, so you read a book about a Russian wanderer?”
My friend became quite interested and found out that it was about the book “Frank stories of a wanderer to his Spiritual Father”. This is a Russian Orthodox book in which the wanderer describes his life and his experience of practice: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." 
A saint is a sinner who never gave up.
As Sri Aurobindo said:
“Russians are already so prone to sadness, they also chose such a religion for themselves”
Countless repetitions of the words: sin, sinner, in sin - in Christian prayers and psalms do not please me at all.
Yogananda said: "The biggest sin is to call yourself a sinner."
After all, we are all beautiful souls. By affirming our true Divine nature, concentrating on it, we bring the moment of enlightenment closer. If a person focuses on his sins, fixates on them, then he is doomed to remain forever in them. should be positive, a frequently repeated prayer also works as an affirmation.
However, even if the word is a sin and harms something, all Orthodox prayers are very strong. In addition, there are several prayers in which this word is not. More about prayers is written in the article:
As one of my friends said:
Those who go to church are either those who are not sufficiently aware to see the many contradictions taking place in it, or those who are already above these contradictions and simply feel the benevolent energies.
Perhaps everyone should go through a period of distance from the church ... Most likely this is a stage of spiritual growth, but it is very important that a person grows up quickly and completes this stage, because there are a lot of traps on the path of life, until we get to, and Orthodox energies help get around them.
Orthodox Energies
I have traveled relatively much, been to many Buddhist shrines, been to the Himalayas, to the temples of India, but I love the vibrations of Russian Orthodoxy most of all. And meditating in temples is wonderful. All old Orthodox temples and churches are very strong and blessed (with new is not so, especially with those new ones that look especially chic). There was also in Catholic churches… But I didn’t feel such grace there, although all the shrines associated with Francis of Assisi in his homeland in the city of Assisi in Italy are very powerful. This saint is very close to me.
And one more thing... Once, by pure chance, my friend gave a lift to a monk, and he told about his friend, who was in Shaolin, where he was told that Orthodoxy at the present time is the most powerful trend that opposes evil. I can talk about what evil is and whether dark forces exist in.
And the conclusions of this article:
There is no difference between true deep Orthodox Christianity and yoga. In general, yoga is not a religion - it is a science of realizing one's highest. Yoga is the foundation of any true spiritual path and any true religion, not just Christianity.
The images of the New Testament became more or less clear to me only thanks to what was written in and thanks to the comments of Paramahansa Yogananda on it:
The population was very unwise then, and Jesus Christ had to speak with too deep parables.
By the way, Christ is not a name, but a title of one who has realized his Higher nature. Krishna is also a title of the same. They even sound similar: Krishna, Christ.
So the base is exactly the same. At the core are the great fully realized Masters of all mankind. And Buddha has the same title. In the book of Nikolai Notovich, this is interestingly written
, my dear reader, pray, believe and strive for God above all: all this guarantees you the acquisition of the true Kingdom of God, which will come imperceptibly from within.
Thinking of yoga as just a physical movement is tantamount to saying that baptism is just an underwater exercise.
Do not bow under another's yoke with unbelievers, for what fellowship is there between righteousness and iniquity? What does light have in common with darkness? What agreement is there between Christ and Belial? Or what is the partnership of the faithful with the unbelievers? What is the compatibility of the temple of God with idols?
(2 Corinthians 6:14-16)
THE HIDDEN FLAME: AN ORTHODOX VIEW ON YOGA
I am a Catholic by birth. I loved to pray. Walks in the forest, games on the river, wandering through the vast expanses of the imagination. All this was a kind of prayer for me: silence, peace, almost hesychia, so natural for a child. I didn't stay in this prayerful state all the time. But I recognized him. This experience came to me as a gift, just as an action in the heart.
We all experience this to varying degrees. Some names are given to this - or not given at all, because all words seem so inappropriate to express the movement of the heart towards God. When we are innocent of heart, especially in early youth, there are two in this experience. Loving and Beloved. Somebody else. I, as a child, could not clearly identify this Presence of Christ - just as I never called my parents by their first names. I just knew them.
When I was in high school—my grandparents sent me to an all-boys Catholic school—I wanted to be a Trappist monk. I attended services regularly and read the Bible often. Scripture is indeed like a door. You can enter through it and the Holy Spirit will take you to different places without even lifting your soles off the ground. But I knew there was more. That there is a difference between reading about events and experiencing Him.
Dr. Harry Buzalis writes in Sacred Tradition: “We are called not just to 'follow' Tradition or 'imitate' Tradition. We are called to experience it ... as the saints did and continue to do now.” We know that something is missing in the world around us. Some richness, some depth that we intuitively know about and strive for. This, of course, is the wealth of God's love, light and grace. But at that time in my life, I didn't have the words to express it. Like many, I connected this dissatisfaction, this anxiety with other things.
In high school, a psychology professor introduced us to self-hypnosis. And soon my affair with meditation began. I relaxed. I abandoned caution for a new experience. I felt as if the back door of my soul was constantly open. I rejected God "to be on my own." I experienced - very clearly - how the light went out inside me. Presence, Someone, Friend respected my decision. There was a feeling that He quietly left. He respects free will. He never imposes Himself. He knocks on the door of the heart and waits.
I started meditating regularly. At first, as a teenager, it was very difficult for me, as a teenager, to sit for hours with old Tibetan monks, completely still, turning all my thoughts to the bare wall and the bronze statue of Buddha in front of me. I delved into the teachings of reincarnation, karma and samsara. I didn't know then that Tibetan Buddhism was derived from the shamanic Bon religion and that it included astrology, witchcraft and other occult practices.
I wanted to know how to overcome anxiety and depression, how to collect scattered thoughts. Visiting Buddhist meditation halls and Hindu ashrams, I was intrigued by the "spiritual fireworks": ecstasy, trance, feelings and visions. These are all related to different levels of meditation and yoga and multiply with practice. These and other experiences are sometimes given by siddhis or powers gained through sadhana (practice of meditation and yoga). The intrigue grew into passion, passion became a habit. And I didn't notice how my initial "harmless" interest in yoga and meditation had solidified into an attachment. I have been immersed in this spiritual abyss for more than ten years.
And all these years I've been asking different questions. For example, what do Catholic priests and monks know about whether early Christians believed in the preexistence of souls and reincarnation? They replied that they knew nothing about it. And in addition, they asked: what is it all about? Plunging more and more into the sources and concepts of Eastern religions, passionately desiring to penetrate into the bardo - an intermediate dimension between the spiritual and material worlds - I began to study the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
I studied all the mystical and esoteric literature that fell into my hands, always carried a volume of the Bhagavad-gita in my back pocket and read the works of Paramahansa Yogananda. I immersed myself in reading Osho, Ram Dass and Ramana Maharshi, convinced that there is no being more divine than myself.
But my illusory self was destroyed by myself. According to the many books I have read and heard, there could be no personal relationship with the Divine and this created conflicts in my soul. Peace and peace of childhood are gone. The deeper I went into meditation and yoga, the more often sudden, unexpected thoughts came up that brought me pain. My soul was amazed. It was a very dark and sad period of my life.
In search of peace, I took the bodhisattva vow and joined a contemplative and peaceful Buddhist monastic order, trying to somehow gain a foothold somewhere. After an initial period of relative peace, audacity, even recklessness, restless spiritual movements appeared. It was something like spiritual alcoholism. But I didn't suspect it at the time.
The prodigal son ate the food of pigs in a far country. But he returned home when he remembered the taste of bread in the Father's house. For more than ten years I lived in this distant country and ate its food.
I have seen so many people, friends and strangers alike, seeking to dissolve themselves. They had an insatiable desire to lose themselves, not in the life and light of God, but in the darkness of the void, separating themselves from the Love of the All-Superior. This branch is hell. There are many men, women and children looking for this hell, rolling through the messy relationships and jumping out of the drug windows that so many have fallen through.
I studied and practiced kundalini yoga and shamanism, recognized the presence of fear and coldness. I have gained a reputation as a tarot reader. I have taught yoga and been an instructor in guided meditation and chanting groups in profound deserts. We experimented with astral projection, a controlled out-of-body experience through the bardo described in Tibetan books. I carried with me everywhere not only the Bhagavad-gita, but also the Upanishads and Buddhist sutras.
All these activities took me further and further away from the holy mountain of Christ. Drop by drop wears away the stone. With orange paste on my forehead, I rang the bell, brought fruits and lit a fire in worship of Krishna, wandered barefoot through the streets of Eugene, Seattle, Portland, and then Rishikesh, Haridwar and Dharamsala in northern India.
Archimandrite Zacharias in the book "The Hidden Man of the Heart" writes:
“Separated from God, the Source of life, a person can only withdraw into himself… Gradually, he becomes devastated and corrupted.”
In Buddhism, God, soul, personality is an illusion that must be overcome, discarded, destroyed. Buddhism rejects individuality, soul and personality. He folds his hands in silence against God. Suffering does not change there. In Buddhism there are crosses, but resurrection is not possible. It can be said that Buddhism finds an empty coffin and claims its emptiness as the natural state of things, even the purpose of being. In Buddhism, everything: heaven, hell, God, the individual, the soul, the personality, is an illusion that must be overcome, discarded, destroyed. Here is the goal. Complete destruction. In a ninth-century saying, the essence of Buddhism is expressed as follows: "If you see Buddha, kill him."
Buddhism does not claim, and is not capable of healing the soul and body. Soul and body must be overcome and cast off. In the Orthodox Church, on the contrary, the soul and body are healed. Buddhism teaches that nothing has intrinsic value.
The Church teaches that everything created by God has intrinsic value. including and human body. We are complex beings. The actions of our body, mind and soul are coordinated. And these coordinated actions directly depend on our communication with God and the spiritual sphere.
For Orthodox Christians, everything - even suffering - is a secret door, through which we meet Christ and through this we embrace each other.
One autumn I came to Rishikesh in India. This city is named after the pagan god Vishnu, the "god of the senses". Rishikesh is the yoga capital of the world. It is generally accepted that this is the place where yoga comes from. For 40 days I studied and practiced the so-called "secret path" of integral yoga in the foothills of the Himalayas. It included not only gymnastics, as in America, - each lesson began and ended with a prayer to the "god of the roaring storm" Shiva.
At the time, I was teaching English to Tibetan refugees and was working for the Tibetan Government-in-Exile as an editor. Yoga is historically rooted in Hinduism. Interestingly, while talking to a rinpoche at the Dalai Lama's monastery in Dharamsala, I asked who or what these Hindu gods were according to Buddhist cosmology.
His response was frightening: “They are created beings that have an ego… They are spirits held in the air.”
What is yoga? What is kundalini energy?
awakening kundalini energy
The literal meaning of the word “yoga” is “bond, connection”. It means binding your will to the kundalini serpent. and erecting it to Shiva knowing your "true" essence. IN 
All directions of yoga are interconnected like the branches of a tree. Trees with roots descending into the same areas of the spiritual world. This is reflected in the ancient books of the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. I learned that the ultimate goal of yoga is to awaken the kundalini energy coiled at the base of the spine in the form of a snake, and this will lead to a state that allows you to know Tat Tvam Asi.
Of course, yoga can initiate unusual states of mind and body. But the same can be achieved with the help of psychotropic drugs and tasteless, inconspicuous poisons. Through yoga, little by little, they become attached to shakti, which yogis refer to as the "divine mother", the "dark goddess" associated with other major Hindu deities. This energy is not from the Holy Spirit, and it's not just aerobics or gymnastics. Attached to this whole system are bhayans and kirtans - the pagan equivalents of Orthodox Christian akathists, and to the Hindu gods - also mantras, which are "sacred" formulas, like telephone cards or telephone numbers of various pagan gurus and gods.
How is yoga related to Hinduism?
Honestly, Hinduism is not a single religion. This is the term that the British have given to the various cults, schools of thought and shamanistic religions of India. If you ask a Hindu if he believes in God, he will probably say that you yourself are a god. But ask another and he will point you to a rock, or a statue, or a flame of fire. This is the Hindu polarity: either you yourself are a god, or everything around you is a god.
Yoga is under the umbrella of Hinduism and, for many reasons, is at the top of that umbrella. It serves as the missionary arm of Hinduism and the New Age outside of India. Hinduism is like a nesting doll: you open one philosophy - and ten thousand others turn out to be in it.
And the undiscovered are fraught with risks. You can swim easily and carefree in unknown waters. But, not knowing about the tides and the features of the area, you can get into trouble. You can be carried away by the undertow. You can get hurt on invisible rocks, or catch an unknown infection, or get poisoned.
This also happens in the spiritual life.
When we dive in the ocean, we may be attracted by bright, colorful or interesting fish, but the most colorful and exotic are the most poisonous and deadly.
When I first arrived in India, I took off my shoes and socks and walked through spilled water, coconuts, scattered sweets and the flickering lights of the Kalkaji Temple. This is one of the most famous temples dedicated to Kali - the "goddess of death". I did not know that I was in the middle of a crowd celebrating her most important holiday. The temple was in chaos, and the tension had reached a dark climax.
Thousands of men, women and children gathered in that Rishikesh temple to worship this demon. The woman next to me rolled her eyes, her hands moved back and forth, her tongue hanging out of her mouth, her legs jerking up and down like a puppet. It was clearly demonic possession.
Once I venerated the Sitka Icon of the Mother of God and experienced indescribable warmth, tears of humility and love, clarity of mind and peace. It was as if I had passed a window full of warm, fragrant sunlight. At Kalkaji Temple, I experienced the opposite.
Kali is often depicted as a terrifying blue-skinned, many-armed goddess standing on top of human heads with a bloody tongue hanging from her mouth. She is wearing a necklace of human heads and a belt of hands.
I drank coffee with people who were active in the yoga, Hindu and New Age movement in America, who ate corpse meat from Nepalese cemeteries for initiation into the cult of this goddess. Not so long ago, the popular British newspaper The Guardian wrote that a child was sacrificed in honor of the demon Kali. All this is typical of Hinduism.
And it's all about yoga, because Yoga postures are not neutral. All classical asanas have a spiritual meaning. For example, as one journalist writes, "Sun salutation" - and this is probably the most famous sequence of asanas, or postures, of hatha yoga, especially popular and widespread in America - is actually a Hindu ritual.
“Sun salutation has never been a tradition of Hatha Yoga, writes Subhas Rampersawd Tiwari, Professor of Yoga Philosophy and Meditation at the American Hindu University in Orlando, Florida. - This is a full-fledged circle of ritual worship of the sun, gratitude for the source of energy.
Thinking of yoga as just a physical movement is tantamount to "saying that baptism is just an underwater exercise," writes Swami Param, an ashram from the Academy of Classical Hindu Yoga and Dharma Yoga in Manahawkin, New Jersey. .
It is the goddess Kali who seeks to unite practitioners through shakti with Shiva through yoga. In her temple, not far from New Delhi, I saw a disgusting idol that spoke for itself: a stone with strange beady eyes and a beak, covered with a yellowish, nasty and lumpy edible substance.
In Hinduism, idols "wake up". They are dressed. They are fed. They sing to them. And then they put them to sleep. I have participated in these ceremonies hundreds of times.
The Yoga Journal has over 5 million subscribers and is the world's best-selling yoga magazine. It is significant that the Yoga Journal wrote when, proving the superiority of yoga as a psychotherapy, it speaks of the philosophy of Hinduism hidden behind the practices of yoga:
“In the perspective of yoga, all human beings are “born divine,” and each person has a soul (atman) in his core that eternally dwells in an unchanging, infinite, all-pervading reality (brahman). In the classic formulation of this view of Patanjali… we already have what we are striving for. We are a deity in a hidden form. We are already, in fact, perfect, and our potential is ready at any moment to wake up for this truth, with an awakened consciousness and an enlightened nature.
Yoga teachers and students usually greet each other with the Sanskrit word "namaste", which means: "I honor the divine in you." This is an affirmation of pantheism and a betrayal of the true God revealed in the Bible. The "sun salutation" or "surya namaskara" comes from the worship of the Hindu solar deity Surya.
In church hagiography and iconography, we venerate saints - real people who lived righteously before God, who communed and continue to partake of His light and love - and we ask for their intercession.
As Father Mikhail Pomazansky writes:
“Idols are the images of false gods, and their worship is the worship of demons or imaginary beings that do not have existence; and thus, essentially, it is the worship of lifeless objects.”
I have seen swamis in America who transmit this demonic kundalini energy just by looking a person in the eye. And if he's open to it, his body can shake and vibrate like a clockwork iron toy.
And when the time came for me to receive this cursed energy through Shaktipat, an incredible fear gripped me like icy, electrified water, and I raised my shield and sword: I began to say the Jesus Prayer. God bless! This eerie presence was reflected in the name of Jesus. We must remember that, as the apostle Paul writes:
“our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spirits of wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12).
With this prayer, as with a shield and a sword, I swam back to Christ. I came from a distant country. I took a step towards my Father's House.
Yoga and Orthodoxy
Yoga is a psychosomatic practice, an interaction between the mind, body, and spirit(s). We must remember that the word yoga means yoke, a wooden crosshair placed around the neck of animals and attached to a plow. Remember that the apostle Paul warns us:
“Do not bow under the yoke of others with the unbelievers, for what fellowship is there between righteousness and iniquity? What does light have in common with darkness?
Yoga is not related to Scripture and is not part of the Sacred Tradition of our Church. Everything we need is obtained through the Orthodox Church. So what do we want from yoga?
It is important to know that in yoga, as well as in many mystical schools, strange fires may appear to practitioners, but most likely they are from demons or creaturely fires in the mind, because "Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light"(2 Corinthians 11:14).
Many have encountered and followed the "spiritual fireworks" of the so-called "new" age. Of course, this is not the Uncreated Light that Moses and the disciples saw on Mount Tabor. This is not the Divine Light that protected St. Gregory Palamas in the 14th century from Western scholastics. Direct knowledge of God is possible, as is direct experience of knowing Him, but knowledge and experience of evil is also certainly available. We have free will to choose who and what we seek. This, of course, requires prudence and testing, where the presentation of the tested before an experienced confessor is a necessary condition. Without a doubt, heartfelt participation in the sacraments of the Church is necessary. It is better for us to look at the mysteries in our hearts than to be entertained by the imagination of the mind.
Popular forms of gymnastic yoga are dangerous and can harm the practitioner.
It is also necessary to say a few words about the statement that the popular forms of gymnastic yoga do not bring harm and danger to the practitioner. Those who hold this opinion are either not well informed or are deliberately ignoring the many warnings found in Eastern yoga manuals about hatha yoga for practitioners. Is the instructor aware of these warnings and can he ensure that the student is not harmed?
In his book The Seven Schools of Yoga, Ernest Wood prefaces the description of hatha yoga with these words:
“I must address some Hatha Yoga practitioners with a stern warning. Many people got incurable diseases and even went crazy because they did yoga exercises without bringing the soul and body into proper condition. Yoga books are full of such warnings... For example, the Geranda Samhita declares that if one starts practicing in hot, cold or rainy weather, it will lead to illness; also if there is no moderation in food and the stomach is more than half full of heavy food ... "Hatha Yoga Pradipika" says that one must establish control over breathing gradually, "as one tames lions, elephants and tigers", otherwise "the experimenter will be killed"; and with any mistake, coughs, asthma, headaches, pains in the eyes and ears, and many other diseases occur.
Wood concludes his warnings about postures and breathing with the words: "I must make it clear that I do not recommend these exercises, as I believe that hatha yoga is very dangerous."
If an Orthodox Christian wants to exercise physically, then you can swim, run, walk, or do gymnastic exercises, you can do aerobics, fitness. These are safe alternatives to yoga. We can also make earthly prostrations before God. The Church does not want to make us unhealthy or unhappy. We must trust the prescriptions of the Mother Church and follow them to the extent that we can and as the grace of God gives. One should not try to improve the life of the body at the expense of the soul.
Also, don't trust your own opinion. There must be guidance.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).
As Orthodox Christians, we know that the actions of our body, such as prostrations, prostrations and the sign of the cross, have an impact on the state of our soul before the True God. Why should we try to copy bodily actions that have been directly associated with the service of demons for many centuries? Such actions have serious consequences for the soul and body that belong to Christ.
“Let us be wise as serpents and simple as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
Notes:
reincarnation- in Eastern religions, the doctrine of the re-incarnation of the soul after the death of the body into another being; reincarnation. Karma - in Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions of the East, a set of actions committed by a person and their consequences, which determines the fate and nature of his new birth, reincarnation. Samsara (or samsara), "wandering, wandering" - the cycle of birth, life and death.
Rinpoche- a recognized reborn and advanced teacher in Buddhism.
Kundalini means "rolled up", "rolled up in the shape of a snake". In yoga, esotericism - the idea of \u200b\u200benergy concentrated at the base of the spine; there are various methods and practices, the purpose of which is to "awaken the snake" by lifting the energy up the spine. The presence of the "awakened" energy of kundalini, also called shakti, should lead to union with Shiva, the ancestor and god of yoga.
"That You Are"- one of the "great sayings" of the Upanishads. It was uttered while teaching his son Shvetaketu, the teacher of Uddalaka Aruni. He hints at the identity of the innermost essence of man with the "last foundation of the external world", Atman and Brahman.
Shaktipat(Sanskrit) - the transfer of power, the spiritual energy of kundalini from the teacher, in which she is already active, to the student. An element of the rite of passage in Tantrism. Transmission can occur through a look, touch, mental message, chanting a mantra, through things (fruit, flower, letter), on the phone or on TV.
Today is very popular. It is advertised on television, on the Web and on the streets, many gyms, many are educated as trainers and begin to lead people to perfect body. Along with the usual physical activity, there are many alternative and foreign sports options: martial arts, pilates, and, of course, yoga.
It is about the last option that disagreements arise, because yoga is not only sports loads, this is a certain worldview of a person, and spiritual practices. What is the attitude of the Orthodox Church towards yoga and is it possible for an Orthodox person to practice it?
The Purpose of Yoga as a Spiritual Practice
This Eastern practice is an integral part of the whole religion - Buddhism, which became widespread thanks to yoga. Initially, this sport was popular only in Western countries, in particular America, but over time it appeared on the territory of the post-Soviet countries. And so the question arose, is it possible for the Orthodox to practice yoga, or is it contrary to the charter of the Church? And in general, what is the attitude of the Orthodox Church to yoga?
Orthodox view of yoga
To answer these questions, one should initially understand what yoga is and why practicing it can lead to some kind of spiritual problems.
Yoga is a teaching, consisting of a system of physical exercises, the purpose of which is the conscious control of the psyche and psychophysiology of a person. This is necessary to achieve more high level spiritual state. So, the idea of only the physical component is fundamentally wrong. Its main goal is to change consciousness and this already makes you think about the harmlessness of such a sport..
A more precise definition of yoga is a system of spiritual views, so that the exercises are primarily aimed at changing the consciousness of a person and his spirit.
Orthodox hieromonk Seraphim once said that "a person who practices yoga automatically prepares himself for spiritual views and experiences that he did not know about." And Seraphim knew this for sure, because he himself actively practiced this system of exercises before taking the tonsure.
Orthodoxy about other theories and teachings:
Meditation is in the center, and physical exercises are only a tool to calm the body and achieve physical peace, for subsequent spiritual practices. Seraphim also writes about this: “Its purpose is to relax a person, to make him passive and receptive to spiritual impressions.” Anyone who has been involved in this sport for 2-3 weeks can attest to the fact that he has become calmer and softer - this is the result of regular practice.
In such a relaxed state, a person is extremely receptive to everything that will be said to him, and he will so much more quickly accept an alien philosophy.
Why Meditation is Negative
Self-knowledge lies at the center of meditation, it distracts a person from the hustle and bustle, takes him into the world of images and colors. In the process of meditation, a sense of peace comes, but at the same time, yoga involves concentration on the knowledge of one's own self.
Yoga is part of Hinduism
This is not a prayer in which a person speaks face to face with the Lord. This is just a search for yourself and the desire to kindle something in yourself that did not exist before. People are chasing the peace that meditation presupposes and forget that in this pursuit one can forget that a person is just a servant of God.
Important! Yoga depersonalizes a person and erases God from his consciousness. This alone can give the Orthodox a clear answer that it is better to abstain from this practice.
A person stops praying, he begins to look for that peace that consciousness draws for him. Moreover, meditation makes a person accept and understand that he is God, and this contradicts the Commandments of God, which say that there is only one Lord.
A person who constantly engages in such a practice will sooner or later repeat the sin of Adam - he will decide that he is no worse than the Lord God and will be overthrown.
“Salvation is accomplished not ‘in and through oneself’, but in God,” says the theologian Hierofei (Vlachos). But the master of Zen yoga, Boris Orion, claims that Zen or universal peace is freedom from religions, where there is no God, and most importantly, it is an appeal to oneself. Isn't that what the serpent in Eden said to the first people?
So, yoga involves:
- the importance of experience, whether positive or negative;
- lack of distinction between good and evil;
- concentration on the human "I";
- absence of God;
- achieving false peace;
- denial of the Lord.
All slogans sound very tempting, but in the end they lead a person to the destruction of himself, the denial of the Lord and complete spiritual collapse. A person can achieve peace and perfection only by coming to the Lord and submitting to Him.
Orthodox Church and Yoga
Yoga as a system of exercises (physical and psychological) has existed for over 1000 years. It is a branch of Buddhism and is aimed at attracting new adherents to this religion. The attitude of the Orthodox Church to this practice is strictly negative. Despite the fact that some perceive this practice only as a system of exercises, it cannot be separated from psychological practice.
The attitude of the church towards yoga
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, commenting on yoga, confirmed that Orthodox believers should refrain from such practices and better engage in other sports that do not have psychological overtones. He clarified that the practice is pagan and even just doing the exercises can open the way to the spiritual world, which will have an extremely negative impact on a Christian.
Important! Any contact with pagan practices leads to an imbalance in the spiritual life of a Christian and can lead to negative consequences.
The Orthodox Church is of the opinion that such engagement in Eastern practices leads a Christian to serious delusions. Sooner or later, a yoga practitioner will become interested in psychological exercises, in particular the meditation that it offers. And from here it will be difficult to leave.
Why Orthodox Christians Shouldn't Do Yoga
An Orthodox Christian should not engage in such a practice for the following reasons:
- yoga is part of a religious creed that is categorically opposed to Christianity;
- there is no God in it, there is no desire to know Him, there is no awareness of one's sinful nature;
- yoga does not involve repentance or remorse for one's actions;
- this is a selfish practice of self-knowledge without God-knowledge, and this is categorically at odds with Christian foundations.
Regular classes, meditations - all this leads to the fact that a person begins to turn away from the Lord, turn towards his selfish nature more and more. He falls into various delusions, ceases to distinguish between good and evil, which ultimately leads to a serious spiritual fall. No one gives guarantees whether a person will be able to return to the true path after this fall or not.
Advice! In order to avoid such troubles, it is best to refrain from such sports activities, especially since there are a huge number of the most diverse physical activity no spiritual connotation.
Should a Christian practice yoga?
Priesthood Answer
As mentioned above, Patriarch Kirill was clear about Eastern practices and noted that Orthodox believers should not engage in such things for their own good. At the same time, he noted that, in general, he has an extremely positive attitude towards any sport.
Spiritual life of an Orthodox Christian:
Sports should be aimed at improving our physical body and not affect the spiritual essence, but yoga works in a different direction - it lures the body to hit the soul. The physical exercises of yoga are excellent, they develop endurance and flexibility, but its psychological techniques can destroy the spiritual world of a person, his essence and cultural identity.
Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) wrote a whole book about yoga, in which he explained the destructive effect of this Eastern practice and listed the reasons why Orthodox people should avoid it. His opinion is especially important for the Orthodox since he had previously practiced yoga himself and knows the whole system from the inside. In the book, he provides historical information, the history of the development of this meditative practice and analyzes its roots in Buddhism.
Seraphim says that on the American continent the spread of yoga led to the birth of many pagan cults. In particular, the hippie movement relies heavily on inner self-knowledge, meditation, and light energy. The hieromonk notes the detrimental effect of the eastern system of exercises on the spiritual life of a person and his gradual separation from the Lord, with a complete renunciation in the future.
Archbishop Anastassy of Albania also wrote an article of the same name, in which he revealed his position on yoga. He says in it that these exercises have a short-term positive effect on people, in particular, the same as any other sports.
Yoga is an integral part of Hinduism and initial stage general spiritual ascent. Its goal is not just a good physical condition, but a complete immersion in the original pagan Hindu beliefs.
And the Orthodox religious scholar Mikhail Plotnikov, who also studied Hinduism and Buddhism in India for many years, says in one interview that “yoga is originally a practice of Hindu monks, which helps them to abandon vicious desires, then natural human desires (the desire to have a family, prosperity, health), and then completely from all desires.
First, a person must acquire complete control over his body, then over his psychological body, which is achieved through meditation. After numerous sessions of trance, the light of his own divinity must enter into the mind of a person.
Important! Yoga is not just a harmless practice of interesting physical education. This is the beginning of a serious pagan religion, which sooner or later will capture the mind of a person if it is not turned away in time.
There are so many opportunities in today's world that alternative sports activities It won't be difficult for a person.
Orthodox Church about yoga
