YOGA
To many, Yoga is simply a way to keep fit and lithe. It is, however, more than this, it is a religious philosophy. Yoga masters have insisted that if only the physical exercises are taught then it should not be advertised as Yoga. The term ‘yoga’ is Sandskrit for ‘yoke’ or ‘discipline’. Hinduism teaches that a person must follow one (or more) of a range of ‘yokes’ or lifestyle disciplines in order to attain to unity with Brahma and to escape from the cycle of reincarnation and suffering. These disciplines involve physical, mental and spiritual exercises.
Their teachers hold that God has shown himself through many incarnations, such as Buddha, Mohammed or Jesus and each of these masters could teach you the way to God. This all sounds very tolerant and acceptable to our pluralistic age, which tends to accept anything with a spiritual ring to it as good. In contrast, a teaching that claims to be exclusively right is widely regarded with suspicion, as it implies that non-adherents are wrong.
In other disciplines the search for truth is fundamental. Thus ‘evidence based medicine’ insists that there must be substantive evidence for any medical treatments advocated and logical processes are fundamental. Why should the spiritual world be any different. How can two belief systems that teach opposite concepts both be right? Although various religious beliefs do hold some common ethical principles, such as advocating honesty, integrity, caring for others and placing spiritual values above material ones, the underlying teachings are not compatible. Yoga is a system by which men try to become one with God by living disciplined, often austere, ‘spiritual’ lives. Jesus taught that there was not way through to God by such human effort. He taught that the divide between sinful man and the one perfect, holy God who created this world is impenetrable from our side. The Christian gospel is that Jesus came to us from God to open the one and only way back to union with God. Jesus claims that he did this by taking our sins on himself when he died on that cross. He and his apostles taught that this way back to God is only open to those who accept who Jesus is and live the remainder of their lives living under his authority. Salvation is a free gift to such people and only these people. The stakes are high!
Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda is a yoga teacher who recently visited Australia. He taught that Jesus got some things wrong, suggesting that we should take more notice of such apocryphal works as the Gospel of Thomas. (This collection of sayings purporting to be the words of the risen Christ is almost universally held to be a second century gnostic writing and was widely condemned as a false invention by early church leaders.) Such teachers hold that all religions are acceptable so long as their content is ignored.
One of the specific teachings of Yoga is that a person must have a mantra, which is a word or phrase that is to be repeated over and over again when meditating. In order to receive these secret mantras a person must pledge allegiance to their guru or teacher, accepting him as their spiritual guide. It seems as if this is the only way to obtain self-realisation. However the Christian’s teacher and master is Jesus who claims to be the unique Son of God who taught ‘No-one comes to the Father but through me” and , “You cannot have two masters”. To accept Jesus’ unique authority would therefore exclude a person from receiving the secret mantra and so achieving a relationship with God!
Yoga and Jesus cannot therefore both be right, as each are, in reality, claiming to be exclusive. The essential question is whether one of these is true - really true. Did Jesus fulfill all those prophecies in the Old Jewish Scriptures about God’s Messiah who was to come to this world (and there are 330 of them)? Did he really perform those miracles? Did he really die and then rise from the dead? Were his close followers so convinced about Jesus that they were all willing to die (and eleven of the twelve did) in order to tell the world about him? Does his Spirit really change people today for good? If any of these are true, then we must take Jesus’ claims to be the only way to God very seriously indeed.
BVP
