Can Christians practice Yoga? No.

Alex Frank tells Matt Fradd of Pints with Aquinas (Australia) that he used to be very heavily into Yoga.  He was also not a Christian. The one good thing he did learn from Yoga was that the spiritual side of life is real. That led him eventually to Christ. 

https://youtu.be/UUOfp8Ssp3A

He grew up in an atheist home--nominally Jewish--but also lived in DC where leftist ideology and constant focus on politics were numbing.  He went away to college and found some relief in studying physics.  It was in the military where he became interested in Yoga, but also learned about servant leadership which helped lead him to an interest in Christ.  He explains in detail what happens when you do/imitate the poses. If you think you need Yoga as exercise, he now suggests pilates--alignment and flexibility without the spiritual side. Buzz words that are red flags--uuuming, or the instructor speaking in an odd voice or touching, or referring to gods' names. He had hired an excellent Yoga teacher/spiritual director who began as a fitness instructor while he was at Yale (after military) and he began to face up to how he was living his life. The modern mindfulness movement is not secular but spiritual according to the founder and is based in Buddhism (Jon Kabat-Zinn) according to Alex. McMindfulness--Yoga is a big business.  Many of the claims are very commercial. 

Hatha yoga is the most common in the West.   Don't start, is Frank's advice. It's not harm free.

Sports injuries reports compared

Ready for a walk around the neighborhood, April 2015

I've always been a non-athlete.  I got one C in college and it was in tennis.  The instructor was about 8 months pregnant, so I don't think she was expecting much from me, and I met her expectations.  Walking or riding my exercycle are my limits.  No golf.  No tennis. No yoga. No soccer. I meet women over 60 or 70 who at one time were serious athletes who played soccer or softball in college and on community teams or who were joggers and runners and now are in constant recovery in their later years from hip and knee problems and surgeries--and some battling obesity because they were accustomed to burning a lot of calories.   But I do read articles about sports and health because I'm sort of medical information junkie.  There are a lot of injuries. This article included summaries of several reports, one of which showed how injury statistics have been under reported because they used primarily ER statistics, but 50% get care at their doctor's office.

Girls are more likely to get injured than boys while playing the same sport. . . Football, lacrosse, and wrestling athletes were the most likely to suffer season- or career-ending injuries among boys, while gymnastics, soccer, and basketball were the most likely girls' sports to manifest these injuries. For both sexes, contact was the most common cause of major injuries. . . . yoga injury rates are increasing, especially in participants 65 and up -- who are also more prone to injury than others.. .Outside the U.S., a new study linking sports participation level with anterior crucial ligament injury risk also found contact to be the leading injury mechanism, and girls to be more injury-prone than boys while playing the same sport.  http://www.medpagetoday.com/SportsMedicine/GeneralSportsMedicine/61555

Some religions are sanctioned for teaching at state universities

"Ohio State's Integrative Medicine Clinic offers acupuncture, Ayurveda, chiropractic, massage, mindfulness instruction, and yoga."  Wexner Medical Center brochure, go.osu.edu/integrativehealth

If you wish to practice the religious observances and techniques of Ayurveda, mindfulness or Yoga, should it be through a state university that probably wouldn't include Christian prayer, music or liturgy in its medical program and course offerings, even though there is enough research available to show Christians live longer and enjoy better health?

Brief definitions from Wikipedia:

“Mindfulness as a psychological concept is the focusing of attention and awareness, based on the concept of mindfulness in Buddhist meditation.”

“Yoga, from the word “yuj” (Sanskrit, “to yoke” or “to unite”), refers to spiritual practices that are essential to the understanding and practice of Hinduism.”

Ayurveda is a discipline of the upaveda or "auxiliary knowledge". It is treated as a supplement or appendix of the Vedas themselves, usually either the Rigveda or the Atharvaveda. The samhita of the Atharvaveda itself contains 114 hymns or incantations for the magical cure of diseases.

                 

Therapeutic Clinical Tools for Social Workers

This is a workshop taught at Ohio State University. Can you imagine the outrage if the observances, aims, and good works advocated in Christianity were taught as a clinical tool by a state university? Even something as universal as the 10 commandments, the basis for our entire legal system, would get thrown out. If you read through the announcement, you'll see what many Christians refuse to see--that Yoga isn't just about breathing, flexibility and positive thinking. It is offering yourself to another god.

"YOGA AS A THERAPEUTIC CLINICAL TOOL FOR SOCIAL WORKERS

Yoga philosophy is healing and therapeutic. It is an excellent tool kit for motivating clients to live in the moment and cultivate change in a positive way. This beginner, intermediate or advanced training, depending on your level of enthusiasm and flexibility, will explore the Yamas (ethical codes), the Niyamas (observances or restraints) and the four aims of life, the Purushartas. These three practices will channel human fulfillment, lead you to success and balance, and provide you with a guide for awareness in our actions, thoughts and deeds. This training will provide you the clinician, a different perspective to instill to your clients."

For a further explanation of the Purushartas, check out the Hinduism web page.

Yoga as a Therapeutic Clinical Tool for Social Workers :: College of Social Work

3857

Religion in the schools

Last week when I was on my blogging hiatus, I came across two cases of spiritual/religious advocacy in our schools, one at Stephenson Elementary in Grandview Heights, the other at Ohio State. On May 24, Channel 10 ran a story on using yoga to fight obesity in children:

More and more public schools, yoga centers and gyms across the U.S. are beginning to offer yoga classes for children, 10TV's Heather Pick reported.

"Yoga for kids is a little different than yoga for adults," said instructor Julia Sims Haas. "We use a lot of the same poses but it's presented in a fun way."

Sims teaches young children yoga techniques as part of the Afterschool Adventures Program at Stevenson Elementary School.

"It really encourages kids to learn about their body, learn about the world around them, and get in touch with themselves so they can have a healthy approach and lifestyle," Haas said.

Kathleen Lemanek, a pediatric psychologist at Columbus Children's Hospital, said that everyone, including children, has some stress in their lives.

"What is going to stress a second grader is going to be very different than a tenth grader or, for us, but anything that's unexpected, unpredictable that can be stressful," Lemanek said.

She said that yoga teaches children to breathe more efficiently, calm their minds and strengthen balance, gain flexibility and improve posture.

They recommended that your pediatrician give approval, but you might also check with your pastor. Yoga is an integral part of the Hindu religion. It is not just an exercise program, although it is presented that way. It's about as honest as having the children gather for afterschool story time and then finding out the only stories presented were from the Bible, and at the end of each story, there was prayer time. That would never make it past the school board or principal, would it? But Yoga? Oh, it's just about fitting your body into prayerful positions to worship various Hindu dieties.

Then I was researching digital archives at Ohio State. The fancy name for it is "institutional repositories," or at OSU, Knowledge Bank. So I was looking through the list, noting how inconsistent the catalog subject terms were, learning that each department makes up their own (unfortunately), when I came across a video presentation of a lecture on the battle between Black Hawk and Keokuk back in the early 19th century. That sounded pretty interesting, so I brought it up. Imagine my surprise when the faculty member of Ohio State who introduced the guest speaker, gave sort of a laudatory praise to "Our Grandmother", who by definition in that culture is the Creator, Supreme Being and Author of Life. A lecture on some aspect of Christian history or literature or Crusades battle would not open with a prayer to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (whom Christians accept as Creator, Supreme Being and Author of Life). At least in my many years at the university, a department sponsored event didn't open this way, although special invited guests for para-church organizations using a university room might.

So why the double standard for Christianity and other religions?