Maybe Christians Are Too Superstitious About Yoga
On what to keep and what to discard as a former New Ager coming to Christ.
I became a Christian again after a stint as a spiritual-not-religious, New Age-lit type living in San Francisco. When I started to realize Christians had been right about many things, I was forced to reconsider which practices, beliefs, hobbies — even home decor! — honored God and which pulled me further away from Him. Yoga, then, became quite an issue of concern.
A former New Ager like me (or former secular type) must contend with the many corners of Christianity — from evangelical Protestants to the Very Online™ Orthodox — who warn us that yoga is demonic and Christians ought to steer clear. This can be puzzling to a new Christian, many of whom experienced yoga primarily via exercise classes — though to be fair, some instructors offered meditation, chanting, or ended class with the refrain, “the light in me honors the light in you.”
For me, coming to Christ was the result of realizing the spiritual realm is real — realer than I previously imagined — and it isn’t all love and light, as New Agers insist. Good and evil exist, so certain things must be avoided in order to not open up doors to dark spiritual influence. But is yoga in the “avoid” category?
I had never accepted New Age spirituality wholesale, so I didn’t engage in things like crystal healing, angel cards, astral projection, or the like — but I did do tarot readings, meditate, burn sage, do yoga, and harbor some New Age art and decor. Some of these practices I discarded. Others I developed a different relationship with.
Back then, I loosely believed the goal of spiritual practice was to peel oneself back to the core, silence the mind and obtain pure, observational consciousness, and yoga could help with this. This world is an illusion! We are all One! — I’m not sure how firmly I bought it, but this kind of ethos sounded reasonable enough, and it was shared widely amongst my fellow yoga-doing San Franciscans.
Yet over time, I realized that even if I were to obtain pure observational consciousness, it would be very lonely, and I still had to get off the mat and go live my life. There was no moral instruction here. Seeking to merge into the uncreated Oneness ultimately gave me a sense of, “Okay…now what?” How do I be a good person? How do I live a good life? These questions weren’t really answered.
In addition, I noticed many of those who were following the New Age/Hindu/Buddhist psycho-spiritual framework are often not well. Many are chronically anxious and generally seem to be struggling and lost. The focus on the Self and pure consciousness as a spiritual end goes hand-in-hand with a lack of distinction between the Creator and the Created. This ethos makes us out to be our own tiny gods, which understandably wracks us with anxiety — because deep down, we know we possess no such supreme power. If we are truly the Universe, everything is up to us! There is no higher power to rest upon, no one else in control — and that is a very scary prospect.
So when it comes to actually living, Orthodox Christianity, I discovered, offered a much more coherent path and a more concrete goal — to obtain the Kingdom of God via theosis, achieved by engaging in the practices of the church that are healing to our souls, such as almsgiving, confession, communion, forgiveness, the sacraments, and avoiding sin and developing virtue. It also offered a God that is not just lonely little old me, so I can have a relationship with Him and participate in His energies.
As I began to slowly abandon the Hindu/Buddhist/New Age psychospiritual framework, I felt compelled to donate a small statue of the Buddha and replaced my occasional tarot practice with prayer in front of an icon corner. I purchased a cross necklace and got rid of some psychedelic artwork that, for lack of a better way to explain it, started to feel unwholesome.
Still, I didn’t get rid of everything some Christians say to discard. I still sit on a mandala tapestry at the beach, I sometimes burn sage, I think singing bowls are relaxing, and I see crystals as beautiful markers of God’s creation (but not mystical healing portals). I still love Harry Potter, despite some Christians admonishing it (in fact, I absolutely reject the Protestant notion that it “introduces children to witchcraft.” The magic in Harry Potter is not even close to the type occultists perform. It’s a child’s idea of magic — teachers turning into cats — and does not represent the types of rituals occultists perform to honor Satan. Harry Potter is also, at its core, a deeply Christian allegory in which Harry battles evil within and sacrifices himself in the end — read my sister Amy’s defense of Harry Potter here. I digress!)
At any rate, I did ultimately discard yoga — at least for a few years.
Online Christians, after all, warned me the poses actually constituted demon worship! Yoga means “to yoke,” after all, and the last thing I wanted to do was yoke myself to the dark and demonic.
But as the years went on, I found I actually…missed yoga. My body did not feel as lithe and strong. Christianity offered no practices to engage in deep breathing, nor any physical practices to give me agility, strength, and flexibility. Lifting, running, simple stretches — they just weren’t the same.
I was many years into churchgoing, prayer, confession, etc. at this point — all the practices Orthodox Christians prescribe to attain theosis, or participation in God’s energies — but I kinda missed the mat. So I — gasp! — slowly started to reintroduce yoga.
I didn’t do full-on flow or chanting (I still won’t do chanting). I don’t use mudras. But I added poses to my workouts in between lifting dumbbells: I’d pop into the occasional downward dog, tabletop pose, or runner’s lunge. I found I still enjoyed the challenge of trying to balance in half moon pose.
And as time went on, I didn’t feel any farther away from God.
I didn’t feel the urge to become polyamorous, commune with aliens, wear pentagrams, renounce Christ, hang up disturbing art, or leave the church. I did not experience nighttime demonic attacks. And I certainly did not decide my spiritual goal of theosis was bunk, nor go back to trying to experience the undifferentiated oneness of brahman, nor dissolve myself into the Godhead, nor extinct myself into nirvana.
I still knew to discard the “all is Self” idea underpinning Hindu/Buddhist/yogic thought, an ultimately lonely path that rejects the relational love of the Holy Trinity and leads to what Benedictine monk Déchanet calls “savage isolation.”
So what about the Christian claim that each yoga pose constitutes demon worship? If you truly are with Christ, demons have no authority over you. Christ has conquered the spiritual realm. He is the King of All and ultimate protector. When we’re with Him — engaging in the sacraments, taking communion, participating in the life of the church — we are protected.
Stretching your legs a certain way does not magically cause you to worship a demon, I reckon, nor buy into the Hindu/Buddhist ethos.
The real danger of yoga, in my mind, is not necessarily yoga itself, but the fact that so many people who do it do not necessarily reject the ethos it can come steeped in. It is easier to say “don’t do yoga” than to explain that its ethos is wrong but stretching is probably fine. Yoga is often practiced by people who are not with Christ, but I’m not convinced that makes yoga itself bad, so long as one is discerning. Yes, for some, yoga can and does lead them down a path to New Age/Hindu/occult/Buddhist beliefs — I won’t deny that yoga can be a “slippery slope” for the undifferentiated or spiritually naive.
But what if you’ve already traveled down that road, and you don’t plan to go back? Can yoga really be so harmful?
When I do half moon pose, I am thinking about anatomy — stretching my hamstrings, keeping my balance, feeling the pull in my quadriceps. I am not thinking about, nor worshipping, Ganesha. Just because Hindus may “dedicate” a pose to Ganesha does not mean I harbor that same intention.
Other Orthodox Christians have come to the same conclusion as me (though perhaps not the fundamentalist, Very Online™ types you see on YouTube and Instagram Reels). Christine Mangala Frost, who was born a Hindu in South India and is a former director and continuing member of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS), tackles the issue of yoga in the Ancient Faith pamphlet An Orthodox Posture on Yoga, which you can find online here for $1.95 and in many Orthodox churches, including my own.
“Yoga techniques are primarily aimed at achieving a psychosomatic equilibrium or poise. So we may well ask, without falling into any heresy, is it not possible to treat yoga techniques as a means to tune up our body and mind so that we become better receptors of God’s grace?” she asks. “Can Hindu yoga help a Christian to fulfill the command heard by the psalmist, “Be still and know that I am God”?”
Frost concludes two things: one, “Christians undertaking yoga should be fully aware that its Hindu-Buddhist spiritual ethos is incompatible with the Christian faith. Attempts to Christianize yoga are commendable but may prove distracting,” and two, “It is perfectly feasible to use yoga as a fitness routine to tune the body and make it a fit instrument for Christian prayer. We should be grateful that the modern teachers of yoga have reduced it to a gentle form of exercise.”
She cautions against kundalini (rousing dormant sexual energy, which is then sublimated into spiritual energy) and some advanced forms of meditation, but ultimately concludes:
“Having sounded these warnings, I still believe a modest yoga regimen can help us to stay supple in body and mind, spiritually alert and vigilant. Ultimately, it can help us live a Christian life with greater zest and joy. The early Church Fathers, who were trained in pagan schools of rhetoric and logic, discarded the pagan ethos but deployed the techniques of their learning to brilliant effect in their Christian spiritual theology. So also we can deal with yoga without being swamped or led astray by its alien ethos, provided we entrust ourselves to Christ, our Lord and our God.”
Another benefit to yoga, not mentioned by Frost and often unappreciated among naysayers, is that it offers the opportunity to come into contact with people who might not otherwise engage with Christians. We can make friends in a yoga class! Including with people who don’t yet know Christ. People don’t become Christians when they see us harshly judging others and atomizing ourselves — they become Christians when they see His love and grace reflected through His followers.
Christians can easily avoid yoga classes that include chanting and focus instead on instructors that offer it as a physical practice – and hopefully, make friends in the process and maybe even influence them toward Christ.
The Christian emphasis on avoiding sin and obtaining virtue is great, but can turn into hyper-scrupulosity. Instead of hand-wringing over cultural mainstays like Halloween and yoga, perhaps we can figure out how to discard the bad elements of these things and engage with them in a Christian way.
For example, I don’t think my father’s goofy front yard Halloween display featuring plastic skeletons pushing shopping carts is going to invite demonic forces — but my neighbor’s display featuring a faux body bag hanging in a tree just might (it definitely gives me the heebie-geebies). I’m not going to refuse to engage in Halloween, but I will do it in a Christian way. Likewise, stretching my hamstrings is not going to summon Ganesha, but I should probably avoid chanting in Sanskrit.
I am not saying all Christians should do yoga — if you’re not comfortable with it, that’s fine! But there is no Orthodox canon stating we must avoid yoga, and you are going to find many different opinions on it in Christian circles.
Christianity — and life! — is all about discernment. Christians can avoid that which is invitational to darkness while engaging discerningly in that which is not — provided we keep our eyes on Christ.