Yoga & God
You have to receive both the friend and enemy with equality (Suhrunmitraryudasinah—Gita). By this you will treat the Lord with the same devotion even if He reacts as enemy towards you to test your faith. The Lord also tests your attachment with the worldly bonds with reference to His bond. You must prove that His bond is highest. For this you have to reduce the attractions in the world. Such reduction of your attractions is a part of Yoga and is useful directly before the Lord.
You should serve the Lord without aspiring anything in return and you must treat both the respect and insult with equality (Sukha Duhkhe Same, Manavamanayoh—Gita). You must treat both profit and loss with equality because when you approach the Lord you may some times get loss instead of profit. Without undergoing such training to achieve self-control or Atma Samyama, one cannot succeed in the tests of the Lord.
Sudama developed such self-control during the poverty for a long time. He did not do any sin in spite of the suffering of his family members with poverty. Such training helped him when he went to Lord Krishna. He stayed with the Lord for a few days. During this period he never asked the Lord for anything. The Lord also sent him back without even a trace of help. Sudama never criticised the Lord for not doing any help. He succeeded in the test of the Lord and achieved infinite wealth.
Thus Gita gives the real meaning of Yoga, which is the self-control without being attracted by diversions. Such diversions are these charkas, which are nothing but the obstructions to pass in the test of the Lord. This training is like one full year academic course and is very important. The test of the Lord is a matter of three-hour examination at the end of the year. If you have finished this training, the Lord Himself will come to you in human form, conduct the test and will give you the certificate.
Therefore you should concentrate on the Gita, which is called as Yoga Sastra or The scripture of Yoga. The examiner, examination and the certificate are consequent steps, which will take place spontaneously on the divine will. Therefore the study of Gita helps you really on this day of festival and eating these sweets leads only to problems of indigestion.
Praising the examiner with songs (Bhajans) also will not help you because the examiner is very clever and strict and cannot be soaped. It is better to hear His divine knowledge, assimilate and pass the examination. Such path gives you a dignity and respect to the divine teacher also.
Instead of taking this royal path, why are you sorting to unlawful means of soaping like chanting His name (Japam), worshipping Him (Puja), singing (Bhajans) in order to get such certificates.
Yoga & God
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Catharsis
Post #2
More on Yoga
The following are excerpts from "Occult ABC", by Kurt E. Koch:
The word yoga is derived from, Sanskrit and is possibly the root underlying the Greek word ioge, shelter, and the Latin jugum, yoke. If these linguistic associations are anything to go by, to practice yoga is to put oneself under a yoke, or to seek shelter from a protective power.
It is impossible to present yoga fully in a short chapter. To begin with, there are many forms of Indian and Tibetan yoga, so many that it would take more than one large volume to list them all. It would take up too much space here even to describe one single form.
For a good introduction to yoga, Maurice Ray’s book Joga, ja oder nein? is recommended. This book describes Hatha Yoga and Raja (Royal) Yoga from the standpoint of the Christian faith. It is the best discussion of yoga from a Christian point of view known to me.
In this brief account I can only give a very limited part of the whole. I have used the following sources:
1. Pastoral counseling in the West and the East, especially in East Asia, where I have traveled extensively eight times.
2. Information given me by the Indian professor de Roy, who has studied the yoga practice in his country.
3. The definitive work by Mishra on Patanjali Yoga: The Textbook of Yoga Psychology.
Several key sentences from Mishra’s. work will introduce us to the spiritual atmosphere of yoga:
a. The higher ego of man is transcendent and immanent, without beginning and without end, it has no birth and no death.
b. Yoga means the synthesis of the physical and metaphysical universe.
c. Heaven and hell are only products of the human mind.
d. Behind magic, mysticism and also behind the occult the yoga system is present.
These four sentences show clearly that yoga and the Bible cannot be harmonized in the remotest way. The systems of the Far East and the Christian faith are irreconcilable opposites.
If we take a cross section of the most well-known forms of yoga, we can recognize four stages.
The first stage has the aim of helping the student of yoga to gain control of his consciousness and his body. This goal is achieved by means of mental and physical exercises.
The mental exercises include meditation, autogenic training, concentration, and "koan," a litany involving the continuous repetition of a mantra (secret word).
The physical exercises include breathing exercises and various bodily postures like the lotus position, the cobra position, and the headstand.
This first stage is thus psychosomatic in nature, producing unity of body and mind.
There are many Christians who believe that it is possible to participate in this first stage of yoga without harm. It is merely a matter of relaxation exercises. If only this were true! Counseling experience tells otherwise. This technique of relaxation and these "emptying exercises" so highly spoken of by the yogis lead to the inflowing of another spirit — other spirits. The students of yoga do not notice it.
Ex 266: G.C., a Christian teacher, told me that during an evangelistic campaign, a certain man and his daughter had wished to become true Christians. But they found themselves unable to do so. Only after they had renounced their yoga exercises and repented of them did they succeed in coming through to Christ.
Ex 267: In Johannesburg, South Africa, I counseled a theology student. He was a young man who had been converted to Christ some years before. Hearing about a yoga course which had been announced in church, he applied to join. After a few months, he noticed a change in his spiritual life. His desire to read the Bible disappeared. He also became tired of prayer. I advised him very strongly to give up his yoga exercises at once and to renounce the whole thing.
The second stage of yoga involves the control of the unconscious mind. When a person has mastered the second stage, he can control and guide, for instance, his visceral nerves. I have met masters of the second stage who can perform astonishing feats.
Ex 268: In a Western university town, I met a theology student who practiced the second stage of yoga. He was able to increase or decrease his circulation of blood. Being inclined to be humorous, he used to entertain his fellow students by showing off his abilities. He could make one of his ears red and the other one white at the same time. He could also cause red spots to appear on his skin by suggestion.
I could only wonder what kind of gospel this young man will one day preach to his parishioners.
Ex 269: In a great metropolis, I heard of a police officer who is likewise a master of the second stage. He was able to produce stigmata (wound marks) on the palms of his hands, by suggestion. He is certainly not a saint: he is an atheist. Incidentally, we may note in passing that wound marks on the palms are not necessarily a religious phenomenon. There are unconscious and conscious, religious and non-religious stigmata; in other words, four types of wound marks which have absolutely nothing to do with Christ. As to whether imitation stigmata appear also as a result of mystical meditation on the wounds of Christ, I can only say that it is possible. It is certainly not necessary for faith or for salvation. We have Jesus, and we have no need of people who bear the stigmata, whether saints or otherwise, to give us salvation.
Ex 270: In Southeast Asia, I have often seen yogis who are able to reduce their breathing, pulse-rate, and circulation to a minimum.
They then go into a trance-like sleep, which can last between two and four weeks. During this time they take neither food nor fluids.
Ex 271: The most enlightening experience I have had of this sort was in California. A young woman came to me for counseling. She told me that she had been a master of the second stage of yoga. In the course of her yoga exercises, she had actually chosen Jesus as her guru. Note this, not Jesus as her Savior and Redeemer, but only as her example, her great master. During her yoga exercises, she developed occult powers. She became unhappy about it, and tried to free herself. It was then that she first realized what a power yoga had over her. She began to seek Christ. Several of her friends prayed for her. After terrible struggles she became free. She wrote an account of her experiences entitled "From Yoga to Christ." She gave me permission to publish it.
Yoga does not liberate; it enslaves. Yoga does not free; it binds. Yoga does not enlighten; it brings confusion. Yoga does not prepare the way for Christ, as Father J. M. Dechanet (Cahier du Val) claims, but makes people immune to redemption through Christ. Yoga does not open the door for the Holy Spirit, but for spiritist spirits.
This will become even plainer when we describe briefly stages three and four.
The third stage of yoga is concerned with the mastery of the natural powers. I have found very few examples of this in the West, but very many in the East. It is the speciality of Tibetan yogis to combine magic and yoga. After three years of apprenticeship under a lama, who is the master of this art, the adept (apprentice) has to be able to produce energy in the form of heat in natural objects, such as melting ice by means of mental concentration.
I have still more frequently come across the converse of this, where yogis are able to produce heat and even flames. We find this among the fire worshippers, who also practice fire magic.
Ex 272: In Port Elizabeth, one of these fire masters, who had emigrated from India to South Africa, came to me for counseling. He made a confession and asked for my help. I showed him the way to Jesus. He was willing to accept Jesus as his Lord. I do not know if he has continued in the faith. Occultists often fall back into their old ways.
Those who are still in doubt as to whether stage one or two of yoga results in occult processes must admit that when it comes to stage three, yoga leads to the powers of the abyss.
Maurice Ray writes, "Everyone who seriously engages in Hatha
Yoga gains new powers. These include telepathy, presentiments, second sight and all the powers of a supernatural order which are indispensable for occult activities." Perhaps we ought to have this in mind when we read the example of the pastor who was able to discover hidden things by meditation.
At the fourth stage, the yogi gains the mastery of the dark arts. The Lamas of Tibet are particularly well known for this. I have collected very many examples of stage four yoga. In Kalimpong on the Tibetan border, I came into contact with many Tibetans. I have also received reports from former missionaries in Tibet. Especially enlightening was the confession of a man who has given me permission to publish his story.
Ex 273: My informant had studied yoga, magic and spiritism for ten years with the Lamas. He had heard of my lectures in Sydney and followed me on to Newcastle, Australia. He made a full confession and named his specific sins. He said, "What the Lamas teach is the cult of spirits, the cult of demons. Please help me to become free." We had a long talk together. From this man I learned that the Tibetan yogis are masters of the trance, materialization, excursion of the soul, telekinesis, levitation, perfectly controlled telepathy, and all the arts of spiritism. At stage four, which I have met in this intensity only with Tibetans, Zombis, Alauts, Maccumbas, and voodooists, yoga can no longer, with the best will in the world, disguise its true character. Here yoga reaches its ultimate master — Satan, whose desire it is with his promises and his wiles to snatch people away into the abyss.
There is no need for further comment on the religious side of yoga. Yoga ends not only in self-redemption and atheism, but in the cult of demons. Those who undertake to take part in yoga exercises enter a force field by which they are unwittingly directed towards the origin of these powers. These are the powers of which Paul speaks in his epistles, (see Colossians 2:15). Christ has freed us from the spirits, demons, and powers. The chief of these powers is Lucifer, who is seeking to win back those he has lost. And what successes he has gained, for yoga has become the fashion in the West!
A quotation from a book published overseas confirms my own view. In the book Satan kampft um diese Welt, by Lindsey and Carlson, we read, "Chris Pike (a son of Bishop Pike) told me in a personal interview that he previously practiced yoga and meditation. As a result he had become controlled by spirit beings which had nearly destroyed his life. He then renounced these powers in the name of Jesus, and today he is a witness to the transforming power of Jesus Christ. His life was completely changed."
All Christians who are allowing themselves unsuspectingly to be led astray into yoga should take note of Galatians 5:1, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
The following are excerpts from "Occult ABC", by Kurt E. Koch:
The word yoga is derived from, Sanskrit and is possibly the root underlying the Greek word ioge, shelter, and the Latin jugum, yoke. If these linguistic associations are anything to go by, to practice yoga is to put oneself under a yoke, or to seek shelter from a protective power.
It is impossible to present yoga fully in a short chapter. To begin with, there are many forms of Indian and Tibetan yoga, so many that it would take more than one large volume to list them all. It would take up too much space here even to describe one single form.
For a good introduction to yoga, Maurice Ray’s book Joga, ja oder nein? is recommended. This book describes Hatha Yoga and Raja (Royal) Yoga from the standpoint of the Christian faith. It is the best discussion of yoga from a Christian point of view known to me.
In this brief account I can only give a very limited part of the whole. I have used the following sources:
1. Pastoral counseling in the West and the East, especially in East Asia, where I have traveled extensively eight times.
2. Information given me by the Indian professor de Roy, who has studied the yoga practice in his country.
3. The definitive work by Mishra on Patanjali Yoga: The Textbook of Yoga Psychology.
Several key sentences from Mishra’s. work will introduce us to the spiritual atmosphere of yoga:
a. The higher ego of man is transcendent and immanent, without beginning and without end, it has no birth and no death.
b. Yoga means the synthesis of the physical and metaphysical universe.
c. Heaven and hell are only products of the human mind.
d. Behind magic, mysticism and also behind the occult the yoga system is present.
These four sentences show clearly that yoga and the Bible cannot be harmonized in the remotest way. The systems of the Far East and the Christian faith are irreconcilable opposites.
If we take a cross section of the most well-known forms of yoga, we can recognize four stages.
The first stage has the aim of helping the student of yoga to gain control of his consciousness and his body. This goal is achieved by means of mental and physical exercises.
The mental exercises include meditation, autogenic training, concentration, and "koan," a litany involving the continuous repetition of a mantra (secret word).
The physical exercises include breathing exercises and various bodily postures like the lotus position, the cobra position, and the headstand.
This first stage is thus psychosomatic in nature, producing unity of body and mind.
There are many Christians who believe that it is possible to participate in this first stage of yoga without harm. It is merely a matter of relaxation exercises. If only this were true! Counseling experience tells otherwise. This technique of relaxation and these "emptying exercises" so highly spoken of by the yogis lead to the inflowing of another spirit — other spirits. The students of yoga do not notice it.
Ex 266: G.C., a Christian teacher, told me that during an evangelistic campaign, a certain man and his daughter had wished to become true Christians. But they found themselves unable to do so. Only after they had renounced their yoga exercises and repented of them did they succeed in coming through to Christ.
Ex 267: In Johannesburg, South Africa, I counseled a theology student. He was a young man who had been converted to Christ some years before. Hearing about a yoga course which had been announced in church, he applied to join. After a few months, he noticed a change in his spiritual life. His desire to read the Bible disappeared. He also became tired of prayer. I advised him very strongly to give up his yoga exercises at once and to renounce the whole thing.
The second stage of yoga involves the control of the unconscious mind. When a person has mastered the second stage, he can control and guide, for instance, his visceral nerves. I have met masters of the second stage who can perform astonishing feats.
Ex 268: In a Western university town, I met a theology student who practiced the second stage of yoga. He was able to increase or decrease his circulation of blood. Being inclined to be humorous, he used to entertain his fellow students by showing off his abilities. He could make one of his ears red and the other one white at the same time. He could also cause red spots to appear on his skin by suggestion.
I could only wonder what kind of gospel this young man will one day preach to his parishioners.
Ex 269: In a great metropolis, I heard of a police officer who is likewise a master of the second stage. He was able to produce stigmata (wound marks) on the palms of his hands, by suggestion. He is certainly not a saint: he is an atheist. Incidentally, we may note in passing that wound marks on the palms are not necessarily a religious phenomenon. There are unconscious and conscious, religious and non-religious stigmata; in other words, four types of wound marks which have absolutely nothing to do with Christ. As to whether imitation stigmata appear also as a result of mystical meditation on the wounds of Christ, I can only say that it is possible. It is certainly not necessary for faith or for salvation. We have Jesus, and we have no need of people who bear the stigmata, whether saints or otherwise, to give us salvation.
Ex 270: In Southeast Asia, I have often seen yogis who are able to reduce their breathing, pulse-rate, and circulation to a minimum.
They then go into a trance-like sleep, which can last between two and four weeks. During this time they take neither food nor fluids.
Ex 271: The most enlightening experience I have had of this sort was in California. A young woman came to me for counseling. She told me that she had been a master of the second stage of yoga. In the course of her yoga exercises, she had actually chosen Jesus as her guru. Note this, not Jesus as her Savior and Redeemer, but only as her example, her great master. During her yoga exercises, she developed occult powers. She became unhappy about it, and tried to free herself. It was then that she first realized what a power yoga had over her. She began to seek Christ. Several of her friends prayed for her. After terrible struggles she became free. She wrote an account of her experiences entitled "From Yoga to Christ." She gave me permission to publish it.
Yoga does not liberate; it enslaves. Yoga does not free; it binds. Yoga does not enlighten; it brings confusion. Yoga does not prepare the way for Christ, as Father J. M. Dechanet (Cahier du Val) claims, but makes people immune to redemption through Christ. Yoga does not open the door for the Holy Spirit, but for spiritist spirits.
This will become even plainer when we describe briefly stages three and four.
The third stage of yoga is concerned with the mastery of the natural powers. I have found very few examples of this in the West, but very many in the East. It is the speciality of Tibetan yogis to combine magic and yoga. After three years of apprenticeship under a lama, who is the master of this art, the adept (apprentice) has to be able to produce energy in the form of heat in natural objects, such as melting ice by means of mental concentration.
I have still more frequently come across the converse of this, where yogis are able to produce heat and even flames. We find this among the fire worshippers, who also practice fire magic.
Ex 272: In Port Elizabeth, one of these fire masters, who had emigrated from India to South Africa, came to me for counseling. He made a confession and asked for my help. I showed him the way to Jesus. He was willing to accept Jesus as his Lord. I do not know if he has continued in the faith. Occultists often fall back into their old ways.
Those who are still in doubt as to whether stage one or two of yoga results in occult processes must admit that when it comes to stage three, yoga leads to the powers of the abyss.
Maurice Ray writes, "Everyone who seriously engages in Hatha
Yoga gains new powers. These include telepathy, presentiments, second sight and all the powers of a supernatural order which are indispensable for occult activities." Perhaps we ought to have this in mind when we read the example of the pastor who was able to discover hidden things by meditation.
At the fourth stage, the yogi gains the mastery of the dark arts. The Lamas of Tibet are particularly well known for this. I have collected very many examples of stage four yoga. In Kalimpong on the Tibetan border, I came into contact with many Tibetans. I have also received reports from former missionaries in Tibet. Especially enlightening was the confession of a man who has given me permission to publish his story.
Ex 273: My informant had studied yoga, magic and spiritism for ten years with the Lamas. He had heard of my lectures in Sydney and followed me on to Newcastle, Australia. He made a full confession and named his specific sins. He said, "What the Lamas teach is the cult of spirits, the cult of demons. Please help me to become free." We had a long talk together. From this man I learned that the Tibetan yogis are masters of the trance, materialization, excursion of the soul, telekinesis, levitation, perfectly controlled telepathy, and all the arts of spiritism. At stage four, which I have met in this intensity only with Tibetans, Zombis, Alauts, Maccumbas, and voodooists, yoga can no longer, with the best will in the world, disguise its true character. Here yoga reaches its ultimate master — Satan, whose desire it is with his promises and his wiles to snatch people away into the abyss.
There is no need for further comment on the religious side of yoga. Yoga ends not only in self-redemption and atheism, but in the cult of demons. Those who undertake to take part in yoga exercises enter a force field by which they are unwittingly directed towards the origin of these powers. These are the powers of which Paul speaks in his epistles, (see Colossians 2:15). Christ has freed us from the spirits, demons, and powers. The chief of these powers is Lucifer, who is seeking to win back those he has lost. And what successes he has gained, for yoga has become the fashion in the West!
A quotation from a book published overseas confirms my own view. In the book Satan kampft um diese Welt, by Lindsey and Carlson, we read, "Chris Pike (a son of Bishop Pike) told me in a personal interview that he previously practiced yoga and meditation. As a result he had become controlled by spirit beings which had nearly destroyed his life. He then renounced these powers in the name of Jesus, and today he is a witness to the transforming power of Jesus Christ. His life was completely changed."
All Christians who are allowing themselves unsuspectingly to be led astray into yoga should take note of Galatians 5:1, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
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dattaswami
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Post #3
In Pravrutti (Path of Justice) today the dignified statement is that one is working in U.S.A. But, if you go and really see him there, he will be working as a labor! Similarly, in Nivrutti (path of loveing service to God) the dignified statement is that one is practicing Yoga. But if you go and really see him in the Yoga centre, he will be doing certain exercises to attain mental and physical health. He has no connection with spiritual field. Yoga is purely spiritual field. Mental and physical health is needed not only for spiritual field but also needed for materialism. It is a general basic requirement of the life of even an atheist.Catharsis wrote:More on Yoga
The following are excerpts from "Occult ABC", by Kurt E. Koch:
The word yoga is derived from, Sanskrit and is possibly the root underlying the Greek word ioge, to All Christians who are allowing themselves unsuspectingly to be led astray into yoga should take note of Galatians 5:1, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
Hanuman is the top most star in Yoga in all the steps. His physical and mental health is in climax. He did not open a workshop to guide the professional carrier of people on the earth. After attaining the best physical and mental health and after completing the studies of both Pravrutti and Nivrutti from Sun, He realized that meeting the then human incarnation was the real Yoga. He was waiting on the hill of Kishkindha to meet Lord Rama. All His mental and physical health was used completely in the service of Lord Rama. He did not use it in His professional carrier. We will be astonished to see that He dedicated all His vigor in the personal service of Rama to search and get back His wife. He did not use it in His personal service.
Just this is the difference between the present people in Yoga centre who use the results of the preliminary Yoga (Mental and Physical health) for their personal work and Hanuman who used the same results for the personal work of Rama. In this preliminary Yoga, you have to replace yourself and your family by God. Up to the work needed to maintain yourself and your family, which is needed to serve the mission of God there is no sin in using the strength of mental and physical health obtained by preliminary Yoga. But to use it for unlimited ambition with selfishness is a sin. For such sinners, the only way to enter the spiritual field is to shell down the excess earned by sin in the mission of God on this earth (Karma Phala Tyaga). When a rich man approached Jesus, He suggested such total sacrifice of the sinful money as a pre-requisite to enter the spiritual field.
