Yoga
ANTOINETTE VILJOEN
B THEOLOGY: BTH0010010011F
BT046: ANALYSIS OF YOGA
1. YOGA’S GLOBAL APPEAL
Indian culture advocates global health via yoga, but does not produce gold medallists at the Olympic games. Yoga is not a fitness programme, it derives from the Sanskrit and means “union”. Indian philosophy renders it as moksha (liberation or salvation) and union with God. Hatha yoga is one of many forms of yoga taught by Indian sages to obtain salvation. Westerners have corrupted it to gain physical fitness. How is it possible that physical exercises are linked to spirituality and salvation.
The Basic Human Problem
Is it moral, metaphysical or biological? To Materialists, the problem is biological or genetic and one day perhaps scientists will engineer us to be, good and upright loving people. Jewish prophets proclaimed the problem was moral and mankind are estranged sinners and need salvation back to God (includes Christians and Islam). Yoga views the problem as metaphysical.
Some ancient Hindu traditions view moral weakness and failure as a serious matter, requiring ritual sacrifices for forgiveness of sins, similar to the Jewish atonement sacrifices. Some Hindu scriptural teachings on sacrifice foreshadow the teaching that Jesus was a sin sacrifice. However, Hinduism does not believe the problem is moral. The yoga techniques were originally part of Samkhya philosophy which is dualistic: purusha (soul) and prakritti (physical nature). The purusha is pure but the prakritti is evil, with the soul being entangled with the physical body. Yoga was developed to untangle the two, as the body was viewed as corrupting the soul. Thus yoga cannot propagate fitness in India.
The philosophy has changed and now a union is sought with the soul (atma) with God (Brahma). Upanishadic Hinduism views man as God and God as man. (atma or inner self) This is known as non-dualism (adwaitta) or monism and monistic gurus teach man is Infinite Consciousness or
B THEOLOGY: BTH0010010011F
BT046: ANALYSIS OF YOGA
1. YOGA’S GLOBAL APPEAL
Indian culture advocates global health via yoga, but does not produce gold medallists at the Olympic games. Yoga is not a fitness programme, it derives from the Sanskrit and means “union”. Indian philosophy renders it as moksha (liberation or salvation) and union with God. Hatha yoga is one of many forms of yoga taught by Indian sages to obtain salvation. Westerners have corrupted it to gain physical fitness. How is it possible that physical exercises are linked to spirituality and salvation.
The Basic Human Problem
Is it moral, metaphysical or biological? To Materialists, the problem is biological or genetic and one day perhaps scientists will engineer us to be, good and upright loving people. Jewish prophets proclaimed the problem was moral and mankind are estranged sinners and need salvation back to God (includes Christians and Islam). Yoga views the problem as metaphysical.
Some ancient Hindu traditions view moral weakness and failure as a serious matter, requiring ritual sacrifices for forgiveness of sins, similar to the Jewish atonement sacrifices. Some Hindu scriptural teachings on sacrifice foreshadow the teaching that Jesus was a sin sacrifice. However, Hinduism does not believe the problem is moral. The yoga techniques were originally part of Samkhya philosophy which is dualistic: purusha (soul) and prakritti (physical nature). The purusha is pure but the prakritti is evil, with the soul being entangled with the physical body. Yoga was developed to untangle the two, as the body was viewed as corrupting the soul. Thus yoga cannot propagate fitness in India.
The philosophy has changed and now a union is sought with the soul (atma) with God (Brahma). Upanishadic Hinduism views man as God and God as man. (atma or inner self) This is known as non-dualism (adwaitta) or monism and monistic gurus teach man is Infinite Consciousness or