Yoga, prayer and fasting

I’ve thought long and hard about why I believe I can be a faithful Christian and a yoga practitioner in the same breath. Stephen Prothero, a religion professor at Boston University (and author of God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World – and Why Their Differences Matter – think I’ll pick that one up) wrote on this subject in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal. Here is what rang a bell for me:


1. Western practitioners need to acknowledge that yoga has its roots in an Eastern spiritual practice. “Religious traditions have long been mixed and matched,” he says. “Christians have always been pulled in two different directions – the Jewish and the Greek — on issues of the body...”

2. At issue is the how we view our bodies: attempts to connect the body with the divine divide Protestants and Catholics over issues of baptism and the Eucharist; separating the body from the spirit produces heresies such as Gnosticism (the body is bad, therefore Jesus could not have had a real body.)

We studied fasting in church this morning, and then we went home and practiced it. I fail to see how fasting is not encouraging a physical state (weakness, dependence on Christ for strength and focus in prayer) as a means to connect with God.

In yoga, I use my mind to train my body to relax and focus, which helps me deal with stress and distraction that make my prayer life less effective. Imagination plays a role also. Prayer involves both mind and body. How can it be otherwise?

Namaste means, I am told, “the light in my heart acknowledges the light in your heart, and when we are together, we are one.” I can go half way on that one. If Jesus is the light of the world, and he is in my heart and in yours, I acknowledge that. If you are not my sister or brother in Christ, you remain created and loved by His Father, and I acknowledge that. “We are one”, however, is an issue of unity. Unity is a high calling, and I believe it is Jesus Christ who issues that sacred and powerful call. Merely being together does not make us one.

It’s something to think about.