Yoga: Karmic Exercise or Slap in the Face to Christianity
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, probably until I’m blue in the face…Faith brings people together while religion rips them apart. I mean, think about it. Why is all of that crap going on in the Middle East? It’s because their prophet Mohamed tells them that every other religion is wrong and all infidels must die. The funny thing is, it’s the same God that Christians have, and I don’t remember reading anywhere in my copy of he bible that Christians are wrong…actually it says that Christians are right. So why is yoga and it’s practices in the news?
Because some minister with nothing better to do is trying to tell the world that yoga is Hindu (which it is) and that its practice makes Christians turn their backs on Christianity. It’s the whole commandment thing…”Thou shalt not worship false Gods before me”.
But when I think about it, don’t Christians do their own sort of “worshipping others” in their own manner? I mean, I grew up Roman Catholic, and I distinctly remember praying to Jesus’ mother, Mary via the “Hail Mary”. Does that not mean that I’m praying to someone other than God? People pray to Jesus all of the time, and although Catholicism preaches about the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit all being one in the same), something just strikes me as “not the original plan”.
I’m far from an expert on yoga and Hindu teachings, but I do hope to be someday when I finally earn my bachelor’s degree in Humanities with a minor in journalism, but until that day arrives, I have to go with what I do know. You say an opening statement to some sort of higher being which is supposed to enable you to “speak, hear and think the truth”. (So far, it doesn’t sound so far off from my upbringing.) A yoga instructor then brings you through all sorts of stretching and “poses” to strengthen your inner and outer self, all while utilizing the proper breathing techniques for maximum results. An yes, there’s a lot of sweating involved, as this form of exercise isn’t exactly easy.
So I guess the problem is in the opening “yoga statement”. I guess this minister has never heard of desperate home sellers burying a statue of a particular saint upside down in the ground at the upper right hand corner of their property line in order to sell said home in a timely fashion. Or “Patron Saints” of various aspects of life. Could it be that just the initial wording of other religions is off, but the basic intentions and principles are the same? So Hindu’s worship cows, Buddhists bow down to a statue of a round, vertically challenged male (who looks pretty damned happy to me), and Christians around the world hail Jesus as and his Father. So who’s right? When you really get down to it, Jesus only had 14 fans when he was alive: one was his mom, one was supposedly a prostitute and was totally dissed by another. And if Jesus were to make his second coming today, who would believe him? One man’s nutjob is another man’s redemption. Jim Jones had nearly a thousand followers in Africa with him before they drank the poisoned Kool-Aid. David Koresh even had more followers than Jesus, and we all know what happened that fateful April day.
A note worth a mention for your thoughts is this: Ben Franklin. Yeah, the founding father who is credited for “discovering electricity”. The fact is that he didn’t discover it, he was simply the first guy to live through tying a key to a kite string and have a lighting bolt strike it. But anyways, he came up with the lightning rod among a plethora of other items in history. This fits into my blog because he felt that lightning could be “distracted” from it’s original destination by placing a metal rod into the ground. Everyone of the time thought he was crazy because at that time (due to an extreme lack of science) people thought that lightning was God’s wrath coming to “strike”, and that Ben would be interfering with the whole process. If Mr. Franklin wouldn’t have had the balls to press on with his “gut feeling”, even though it was against all that those around him believed to be a part of their religion, we’d have a lot more burning buildings and a lot less survivors.
So who’s right. Is it something that we as human beings will ever know? Do we really want to know? Who is to say that anyone or anything is right? I personally believe in being the best person that I can be, putting my children first while skillfully not forgetting that I too am a person with needs that must be met. I’m sure that some of the “God-fearing” people of this town would think that I’m a horrid, wretched person for some of the things that I’ve done. My thoughts on that? Look in your mirror and see if you can live with yourself before you even attempt to judge me, for you know not what I’ve been through. Sounds pretty impressive, don’t ya think?
In closing, I leave you with this final thought, one that I’ve sad over and over again until I’m blue in the face: Faith brings people together while religion rips them apart.
3 comments
Thank you for sharing!
I love how various religions look apon others as blasphemous….considering that almost every single one is a hodgepodge of various beliefs before it…and that particularly Christianity has changed it’s mind numerous times on what it actually wants it followers to believe.
Catholics started as an offshoot of Judaism. Many of Judaisms core beliefs are actually taken from the monotheistic Egyptian religious offshoot that worshipped Aton. As Christianity spread it adopted practices from other religions…and placed it’s holidays on well known pagan holidays so that converts could still party when they used to. At the council of Nicea 300 years after the advent of Christianity…they banned marriage of priests. Later they say that women can not be ordained. Then 700 years later…celibacy is required. During this time the church not only is not against abortion…but condones it…to the point that depending on gender anywhere from 30 to 40 or so days after birth you can go leave your child somewhere to die. Throughout the centuries numerous councils are held to decide which gospels and scripture will be added or removed. They accept monetary “gifts” for gauranteed entrance to heaven. Then 1870 years into the religion…suddenly…at the first vatican council…the pope is now infallible. In England, simply because Henry the VIII can’t get a divorce decides that he’s going to create his own branch of christianity…and even after the guy dies…people continue to follow it. Catholics pray to the saints, which might as well be the christian version of the pagan pantheon. Catholics use prayers like St. Jude’s Novena…where they must recite it 9 times and then re-publish it in the paper…and if that doesn’t sound like an old school spell…
Other christians “invoke” Jesus…and go into fits much like voodoo…or other “heathen” religions…they speak in tongues and use “energy” to heal. They condemn intuitive practices…yet one of the more famous bible characters Joseph (of multi-colored coat fame) was a dream interpreter. I could go one with the christian hypocrisy. Any religion that has that much of an issue making up it’s mind what it’s followers should believe and has taken so much from everyone elses religions has no right to condemn Yoga of all things.
White American Christians simply have an ethno-centric prejudice against yoga. Its as simple as that. Yoga pre-dates Christianity and this is possibly another reason they feel threatened by it. I have to laugh at all the things they color “bad”.
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