According to Drew Mariani and guests on his namesake show, Yoga is dangerous for Christians. Mariani claimed, citing a yoga authority, that each of the yoga asanas is a pose designed to worship one of the thirty-three million Hindu gods. Folks, every time you perform an asana you’re inadvertently worshipping a deity.
Mariani writes: “Father Jeremy Davies, exorcist for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, says that activities such as yoga, massage therapy, reiki or even reading horoscopes could put people at risk from (sic) evil spirits.”
Wow, imagine that: receiving a sports massage opens the door for the Dark Prince; reading the Monday horoscope invites Beezlebub to seize your soul. Some Catholics believe such events actually occur. Mr. Mariani is one of them.
Drew Mariani is the Rush Limbaugh of Catholic radio. He harps on a revolving trinity of topics: aborting fetuses, the “attack” marriage, and “attacks” on the Catholic Church. His main intention appears to be reinforcing Catholic victimhood. Listening to his show, I’m reminded why I left the Church. He regularly features guests whom talk about topics like Satanic cults cannibalizing fetuses, priests spilling wine on towels, the stains of which reveal the “Blessed Mother”, and other unlikely, supernatural themes.
Unfortunately, there’s never a shred of evidence offered for any of the outrageous claims. I wonder why he doesn’t invite UFO abductees, Muslim healers, or Mormon visionaries.
His guest on this scary episode, a former dabbler in the New Age, who’s now a self-proclaimed authority on all things “New Age,” compared doing Yoga for its health benefits to early Christians eating meat offered to Greek gods. Just as Paul urged Christians not to eat meat, so the Church urges us not to do Yoga. Aside from the fact that Christians are not obliged to live according to Paul’s admonitions, this analogy is weak. Yoga as purely a form of exercise has been demonstrated to offer a host of health benefits; eating grilled steak offered to Jupiter has not. It’s irresponsible and absurd to deny this occasionally life-changing discipline to Christians, especially American Christians, who desperately need any form of exercise and mental discipline they can get hands on.
At any rate, I’m not interested in quibbling with interpreters of Paul. Here’s the more important issue: the weakness of Mariani and his guest’s arguments. They rest on the following false assumptions.
1. Worship is possible without intent.
2. Yoga poses are unique, generally not found in western forms of exercise or stretching. Every instance of performing a yoga pose is tantamount to worship of a Hindu deity.
3. The Hindu supreme deity is different than the biblical god. The Hindu deity is evil, a guise of Satan, and wishes to possess your soul.
Clearly intent is required when worshiping. My dad used to sit with his hands in prayer position at the dinner table. It was a habit of his. Was he praying? Or consider another real-life example: I was with a group of Tibetan monks at a mosque for a publicity tour. We all did the Muslim evening prayers together, performing the prescribed salat. Were we praying to Allah?
The answer in both cases is clearly no. My dad is an atheist and so are the monks. Performing actions without intent neither equals worship nor does it open the door to demonic possession.
Sitting on my knees, standing straight with feet together, lying on my back, stretching the hands straight up above my head, sitting “Indian style” – these are all yoga poses. Many, if not most yoga poses, which may be done in any sequence for any amount of time, are everyday actions. If Mariani is correct, I’ve been unknowingly worshiping hundreds of Hindu deities throughout my life.
Although there are many Hindu gods, Hindus assert that they are all manifestations of the one supreme deity. In other words, these so-called gods are nothing more than guises for the Supreme, which goes by different names depending on the brand of Hinduism. Interestingly enough, the attributes of their God are the same the biblical God’s: eternal, one, unique, all-powerful, omnipresent, and omniscient.
Finally, only an ignoramus and a bigot would assume that the Hindu deity is evil. If he were not evil, why the fuss about becoming possessed by demons? How many part or full-time yogis have you met that exhibit characteristics of demon possession? Conversely, how many Hindus have you met who exhibit Christian qualities? Perhaps an even more important question: how many Hindus and yogis have you met at all?
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