I started Pilates approximately 3 years ago with a husband-and-wife instructor team, very close to my home. This studio uses various Pilates equipment to torture me and my will to live three mornings a week. I have also not had the same class twice and I am honestly challenged far beyond my capabilities (noncaffeinated!) every time.
At the beginning of a class, I start my Garmin, and up till recently it loaded it as a Yoga activity, which I then had to manually change on Strava every time. And yes, a lot of people would just shrug their shoulders and say, “but it is the same, isn’t it?”. No… it is not. Please pull up a chair for my Friday rant. Please also believe that I am not saying this from my high horse, or reformer. Instead, I am noting and admitting and confessing what my issues are with Yoga, and maybe educating a little in the process as well (I certainly did not know all these thing before I started reading).
Even though you will not always tell this from my foul mouth, I am a Christian. I also raise my children in this faith and belief. I try (and fail) every day to live according to the will of God.
I have never been comfortable with the spiritual aspects of Yoga and I could never quite put my finger on it. Luckily the Holy Spirit had His finger on it and created that unease in me. The bottom line is that I feel that if you open your mind and heart to elements that do not coincide with the Christian belief… well basically the Devil is just waiting for that opening – it is his full time job, to find little openings and loopholes. It keeps him very busy. Spiritual warfare is alive and well and very, very real.
When the umpteenth person asked me what my issue is with Yoga, I decided that I now need to put some time and effort into not simply saying “it makes me uncomfortable” – I needed to find the source of the discomfort. So, I did a little research. In the following notes I will try to simplify my findings.
Yoga, although being used as an everyday exercise method, is a spiritual exercise. The philosophy behind it is that you become one with Brahman (who encompasses all of creation). This is therefore self-worship and according to my faith worshipping a false god, which is kind of a big deal in my faith – definitely a no-no. By practising Yoga, you are therefore sinning through idolatry. It also echoes New Age beliefs that God is everything and then in essence that everything is God.
As a Christian I believe that God is more powerful than all of creation, seeing as He is responsible for it and therefore the principle of Yoga does not resonate with my faith. And seeing as the big plan is to do everything towards the glory of God, this is definitely not something that can be on that list.
So that, in a nutshell, is why I do not feel comfortable doing Yoga. I also realise that I may post this and now offend the hell out of a few people (pun intended), but before you jump passive-aggressively on your keyboard, please first, measure this one for truth. And I, myself will not be true to my faith, by not stating what I believe.