Should religious people avoid doing yoga?

Should religious people avoid doing yoga?

Whether it is appropriate for religious people to practice yoga or not has been a question many people commented on in order to find the answer. Here in this article we will try to provide an answer to this same question.

Yet, in order to do so, we first need to explain the origins of yoga, which are the most problematic part of the entire topic.

Origins of yoga

Yoga originated as a Hindu spiritual practice, strictly intertwined with the worship of differet Hindu dieties/idols.

As we know, people who believe in the Lord, our God, the only true God, are not supposed to engage in pagan worship in any form. The Lord, our God, has commanded that not only to Jews (see Exodus 20:3) but to all of humanity (see the Seven Laws of Noah). Therefore we should all be careful not to engage in idol worship of any kind.

Hindu yogis (yoga practitioners) during a Hindu ceremony.

Modern yoga

Yet, the kind of yoga most people practice today is not really the original Hindu yoga, but a collection of different exercises put under the term "yoga" which has turned into a buzzword in our current day and age. Modern yoga, in most cases, is completely stripped and devoid of any form worship and is a fully secular thing.

The different yoga poses (or asanas) are fundamentally just another type of exercise with no more value than a bicep curl or casual stretching. They are not pagan by themselves as long as there is no pagan intention in doing them or pagan enviroment where they are done.

What can you do?

What can be advised is for people who want to exercise and do yoga is to do their exercises in purely non-religious enviroment and to avoid any pagan elements around them when they do so.

So, if your yoga studio has little Hindu statues or amulets in it, change the yoga studio or exercise at home. If people play or speak mantras or anything of the kind, ask them to stop or to put their headphones on.

If you are not sure of whether your yoga studio has any pagan things in it that you are nor aware of, then exercise at home.

You can also listen to Jewish or Noahide religious music while exrcising in an otherwise non-religious enviroment. This way you will not forget what the proper way of life is and will not go astray towards pagan practices (even unintentionally).

In this way you can keep exercising while still being faithful to God, our Lord, and keeping His commandments.

We hope that this article has been helpful to you and wish you a good and blessed day!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Belomancy (Divination by Arrows) - A Biblical Perspective

Image
Belomancy (Divination by Arrows) - A Biblical Perspective Relying on different types of divination and other superstitions when making important decisions is a very well documented phenomenon throughout history. Monarchs are not an exception from that, and many have made terrible decisions when doing so. While we know that God, our Lord, forbade the practice of divination and fortune telling, it, sadly, has ot stopped rulers of different states from 'employing' it. Relief depicting Nebucgadnezzer II with a bow and arrow. This was also the case in the Ancient Middle East in the times of the Tanakh/Old Testament. The Biblical text tells us how the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar made an incredibly important decision. In Ezekiel 21 we read the following: "For the king of Babylon standeth at the parting of the way, by the heads of the two ways, to use divination; he shaketh the arrows to and fro, he inquireth of the teraphim, he looketh in the liver." (Ezekiel 21:2...
Read more

The Creation of Adam and of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:5-15)

Image
The Creation of Adam and of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:5-15) Here you will see the verses of the Book of Genesis (Bereshit) which cover the creation of Adam and the creation of the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2 5. when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because the Eternal God had not sent rain upon the earth and there were no human beings to till the soil. 6. but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth - 7. the Eternal God formed a Human* from the soil's humus,** blowing into his nostrils the breath of life: the Human became a living being. 8. The Eternal God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the Human who had been fashioned. 9. And from the ground the Eternal God caused to grow every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and bad. 10. A river issues from Eden to wat...
Read more

The Andernach Synagogue memorial got destroyed?

The Andernach Synagogue memorial got destroyed? Some of our German members informed us of a terrible act which took place in the small town of Andernach. The memorial of the local synagogue has been demolished and the space surrounding it repurposed into a "private" fenced lot. The memorial in question was erected after the end of the Second World War in order to commemorate the local Holocaust victims and their demolished synagogue. Sadly, some people do not respect history and memory and do such terrible acts. As far as we have been informed, they have submitted a signal regarding this to the local authorities.
Read more