Rox Does Yoga

My husband gleefully sent me the following link: Vatican Exorcist Specialist Says Yoga Is The Devil’s Exercise. The Devil? Seriously? I had to go look up more information on this one. Here’s an article in the Telegraph and another from the Vatican Insider, both of which include more information and responses from the yoga community in Italy.

Since there are only a few direct quotes from Father Amorth in this article, I’ll go ahead and refute them, on both logical grounds and on “you don’t have the first idea what yoga is about” grounds. First of all, Father Amorth says that practicing yoga leads to Hinduism, but doing one thing does not ever automatically lead to another. If I have one beer, that doesn’t automatically lead me to alcoholism; for people who have natural tendencies toward alcoholism, having one beer might lead them in that direction, but it wouldn’t do so for everyone. Practicing yoga doesn’t automatically lead anyone to Hinduism (nor can Hinduism be compared to something negative like alcoholism in any way, I was just using that as an example, since that’s the sort of mindset Father Amorth seems to be imagining). Most people who practice yoga, especially in the US, have very little connection to yoga’s Hindu roots besides learning a few Sanskrit words.

Father Amorth also states that “all eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation”. First of all, way to generalize: I find it inadvisable ever to make claims about “all” of anything. Also, while it’s one thing to disagree with the concept of reincarnation, it’s something else entirely to respect the beliefs of other cultures and peoples – to say “I disagree” is a far better statement than “You’re wrong”. And finally, what on earth does Hinduism or reincarnation have to do with the Devil or Satanism? It seems that Father Amorth is really saying that people who practice faiths other than Catholic Christianity are going straight to hell. Official Vatican communications do tend to be respectful of other faiths, so I think we can assume that Father Amorth is not speaking on behalf of the Pope. It’s just troubling that there will be some people out there who read what Father Amorth has said and think that it’s official Catholic policy.

The Telegraph article does reference some of Cardinal Ratzinger’s writings on yoga from before he became Pope, and this I find interesting. Apparently, in 1999, Ratzinger warned of “the dangers of yoga, Zen, transcendental meditation and other ‘eastern’ practises” (as described by the Telegraph), and how these practices can “degenerate into a cult of the body”. I could actually see that as a valid warning as regards the sort of yoga practiced in the US today: most yoga is very focused on the body and doesn’t spend any time at all on meditation or the mind. Further, yoga trends like “power yoga”, competitive yoga, and even just practicing yoga using mirrors can reinforce that yoga is only about the physical. However, there are a lot of other fitness practices and techniques that could encourage a “cult of the body”. What does Cardinal Ratzinger have to say about bodybuilding, aerobics, and pilates? Does he frown on modern dance too, or ballet, or, heck, sports in general? Further, to imply that Zen or other meditation practices could lead to a cult of the body is completely wrong: meditation is all about the mind. I can only assume that the writer of the Telegraph article is misquoting or misunderstanding the original document, because it seems like a very weird statement to make about meditation, and I’d expect Ratzinger to be better educated than that. (And I don’t have the time today to try to look up the original document, so if anyone wants to investigate this further, feel free.)

One thing I like is the response from Giorgio Furlan, founder of the Academy of Yoga in Rome, quoted in the Vatican Insider article. He said that his yoga practice helped to bring him back to his Catholic roots. This is the sort of thing that Christians should be paying attention to, but of course, the exorcist is the one getting all the press!

My friend Birdmaddgirl recently posted a link to an article by Pastor Mark Driscoll, a long and thoughtful discussion of why yoga is an inappropriate practice for Christian people. Pastor Driscoll cites yoga’s roots in Hinduism to denounce it as demonic, by which he means that yoga is a spiritual act of devotion to beings other than the God of the Bible. You can read Pastor Driscoll’s article here. My friend Birdmaddgirl responds to it here. You may not be surprised to learn that I disagree with Pastor Driscoll and agree with Birdmaddgirl. After reading Driscoll’s article carefully, I think that his research is incomplete and his logic is fundamentally flawed. To my view, it looks as though Driscoll set out with an agenda and did only the research he needed to prove his agenda right. That sort of approach is antithetical to the concepts of open-mindedness and true intellectual inquiry.

Pastor Driscoll has some fundamental misconceptions in his research on yoga; those misconceptions, combined with his strict Christian perspective, would certainly make yoga seem incompatible with Christianity, but some deeper searching would reveal those misconceptions to be false. If you look at his reference citations, he has read one article by Elliot Miller, a fellow Christian, about yoga history, and one book by a yoga historian (and looking at the page numbers cited, perhaps he read just the introduction to that book). Driscoll doesn’t claim to have read Patanjali, the Bhagavad Gita, or any other historical yoga or Hindu texts, nor does he claim to have read any material on modern yoga practice. Even his Bikram Choudhury quote is cribbed directly from Miller’s article. Now, I’m not saying that Driscoll should have done exhaustive research just to write a blog post, but I would have preferred him to have read a little more widely on the subject before making such negative conclusions. While I understand some of what informs his viewpoint, it seems to me that he’s trying to make his article seem deeply researched to better support his agenda.

I read over the article by Miller that Driscoll cites, and overall Miller presents the material in an unbiased way and he seems to have read Patanjali carefully. However, Miller (and Driscoll also) includes discussion of tantra, which seems to me to be a purposeful inclusion to raise prurient and negative feeling, since tantra is incredibly far removed from much yoga practiced in the US today, particularly the kinds of tantra that involve “black magic” or “child sacrifice”. To me, this seems akin to including mention of abortion clinic bombers in a general discussion of Christianity, when in reality the vast majority of Christians would want no connection with such violent behavior. There are crazies and zealots in every religion, and Hinduism has some too. However, Miller doesn’t denounce yoga and generally keeps a neutral tone. This article is the first in a three-part series, and this first part only covers history and definitions, with promises to examine carefully modern yoga and its implications for Christians later in the series. Pastor Driscoll draws his conclusions from reading only Part One of Miller’s explorations, without seeing how Miller goes on to look at modern yoga practice or what conclusions he draws. (Miller does eventually conclude that yoga is inappropriate for Christians to practice – see Parts Two and Three. I fail to understand why prana can’t be understood as the Holy Spirit moving in the body, or why saying Namaste, “I honor the divine in you”, is necessarily an affirmation of pantheism rather than an acknowledgment that each of us is one of God’s children. But Miller puts a lot more work and thought into it than Driscoll does, which I respect.)

This topic is important to me. I was raised Catholic and attended 13 years of Catholic school, so I do know something about Catholic Christianity; I also deeply believe that the practice of yoga, and the values that go along with it, can be beneficial to any human being regardless of religious background. And many devout Catholics think so too, as evidenced in this fantastic article about yoga as Christian spiritual practice. I am glad to see that not every Christian believes as Driscoll and Miller do.

This is getting to be a very long post, so tomorrow: some of my own thoughts on how the spirituality behind yoga can be applicable no matter what religion the yogi practices.