| An
Integral Approach
by Amy Russell
INTRODUCTION
We are writers and teachers, pastors, preachers, and soccer
moms. We are dancers, musicians, and artists, medical doctors,
counselors, social workers, and community activists. We come
together as “Christians practicing yoga”, inspired
by our individual and collective experience that yoga deepens
our Christian faith. Fr. Tom writes: “Shining through
the material world is the spiritual world that upholds and
enlivens it. Hidden in the mystery of our own bodies and the
body of all creation is the Unseeable One.” (Reclaiming
the Body in Christian Spirituality by Fr. Tom Ryan, page
84. Hereafter: RBCS) Through yoga we experience this profound
reality.
From its ancient beginnings, yoga was a rigorous spiritual
discipline that demanded strict adherence to an ethical code
of life as well as intense physical practices. It was understood
that how we think, behave, and move are deeply interrelated,
and that to know God we must gain control over our mental
and physical impulses. Yoga developed in India, a primarily
Hindu culture, but was intended as a universal human practice.
As “Christians practicing yoga” we approach yoga
with a deep sense of gratitude and respect for its ancient
history. Our intention is not to “christianize”
yoga. Rather, we share a strong desire to live a holistic
Christian spirituality and to benefit from practices that
contribute to it. In this website we share our experience
of how and why yoga and meditation help us as Christians,
and how we practice in ways consistent with the logic of our
own faith, adjusting our understanding as needed.
We live in pressured environments. Stresses of job, family,
education (too much or not enough), aging parents, the rise
in technological advances all bring new pressures. To cope,
we tune out, numb out, disconnect from ourselves, and from
our own sense of aliveness. We experience without presence.
We live without life. We exist without fully inhabiting our
own beings. Yoga helps us reclaim our alive-ness. As we practice,
we discover that yoga is not something we merely do. Rather,
yoga is a way of being with our selves, with one another,
and with the world. Through yoga we claim our embodiment,
our flesh, as God’s own, given as pure gift.
The word “yoga” comes from the Sanskrit verbal
root “yuj”, which means “to yoke”
or “to join” or “to bind together”.
Yoga is systematic way of experiencing the union that is already
there but that has been clouded over with the stresses and
strains of life. Yoga is an ancient science, a systematic
program for peaceful living in fuller self-awareness. It is
a process of exploring one’s body and mind for the purpose
of stimulating the latent potential within us and, ultimately,
leading towards communion with God. Yoga, understood not just
as hatha yoga, is about experiencing our capacity for union
with the divine, and experiencing this reality in our very
beings. “The human person is not a soul and a body,
but inspirited flesh, an animated body. One is one’s
body and is one’s soul at one and the same time.”
(RBCS, page 78) Yoga is not about becoming someone else, but
rather becoming more and more of who we are: creatures made
by God to give and receive love.
Today, especially in the west, one finds both “traditional”
yoga and a dizzying variety of expressions of “contemporary”
yoga. “Traditional” approaches continue to emphasize
the spirituality of yoga, and the deep integration of moral
and physical principles. “Contemporary” approaches
may emphasize one aspect or another of practice. For instance,
there’s the physical/workout approach; or the psychological/de-stress
approach; or the spiritual/meditation-in-motion approach.
These approaches are by no means mutually exclusive, but each
one has its particular emphasis that will appeal to different
people or maybe even to the same person at different times.
Sometimes one may just want to work out or chill out, and
at other times one may want to pray through the postures.
Yoga today is a “spacious” practice, and employing
one approach at any given time should not be read as devaluing
the other approaches.
As Christians, we hear the cries of the human heart echo
through the Psalms -- the agony of suffering, loss, betrayal,
defeat; the joys of love known and shared. We touch this place
of compassion that is shared by practitioners of all religions.
We recognize our deep connection with the entire human family,
held together through the sacredness of our human bodies.
We share the embodied condition with all people, regardless
of culture, religion, and history. We share the longing of
the human heart that thrives on love and is beaten down by
violence, abuse, and neglect. As “Christians practicing
yoga”, we practice to expand our capacity to love. We
learn to bring compassion to ourselves and one another.
Our practice includes four basic and traditional disciplines:
study, devotion, selfless acts, and meditation. These are
described below.
STUDY
Study comes in various forms. We study Holy Scripture, individually
and in groups. We may read books about Christian theology
and spiritual practice. We may be drawn to study the sacred
writings of other faith traditions. We may take classes to
learn more about yoga tradition, philosophy, and discipline,
and to strengthen our practice. The purpose of our study is
to consciously and willingly participate in God’s transformation
of us (Romans 12:2).
Most of all, our study takes the form of practice, “on
the mat” and “off the mat”. (See Section
B2) Much of what we practice are yoga postures (or asanas).
These postures are specific positions of the body that have
been handed down from one generation to the next, and are
specific ways of helping our bodies open. Each posture opens
the body in a particular way; each posture serves as a small
window into who we are.
Practice reveals our habits of body and mind, and we come
to know our strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. While
holding postures, and moving from one posture to another,
we observe our bodies, following the changing patterns of
sensations moving through joints, muscles, and bones. We study
our minds, our through thought patterns that arise in response
to the pose, and learn to recognize the deeply ingrained patterns
of mind affecting body and of body affecting mind. “The
result (of practice) is an experience of equilibrium, peace,
and interior harmony. Stretching and lengthening muscles that
are chronically contracted helps to rebalance both body and
mind… This holistic union of body and mind provides
the climate, the “environment,” for a spiritual,
intuitive experience of God.” (RBCS, page 90) Through
this process we are transformed from the inside out, as we
learn to cultivate non-judgmental, discerning awareness.
DEVOTION
Our yoga practice is fueled by our faith in Jesus Christ.
The opening words of St. John’s Gospel are, “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God.” As Christians, we understand this
word in terms of incarnation, God taking the form of Jesus
Christ. Fr Tom writes: “The doctrine of the Incarnation
stands at the center of Christian faith and is the bedrock
for our understanding of the major truths of Christianity:
the Trinity, the church, the sacraments, grace, and life after
death. In broad terms the Incarnation is the doctrine about
Jesus of Nazareth as the eternal Word of God become flesh
(John 1:14). The second person of the Trinity comes down from
heaven and enters fully into the human condition in the life
and death of Jesus.” (Prayer of Heart and Body
by Fr. Tom Ryan, page 143. Hereafter: PH&B)
For us “Christians practicing yoga” our devotional
practice centers in allowing this reality to become flesh
in our own lives; allowing the reality of Jesus – human
and divine – with all the individual and cosmic significance
this implies to penetrate our bodies, minds, and spirits.
Like Christians everywhere, devotional practice involves prayer
and regular attendance at worship. Devotion means regularly
surrendering the fruits of our practice to God. We often approach
our yoga practice as a form of prayer. We may do this by offering
a surrendering prayer at the beginning of practice. Or we
may dedicate our practice for the benefit of someone or a
group that we are concerned about. “Off the mat”
our yoga way of being includes being mindful of how we behave
toward one another and ourselves. (See section A2, Yamas and
Niyamas). As we practice these yoga principles, we do so with
the conscious intention of drawing closer to Christ.
SELFLESS ACTS
Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is “Love
the Lord Your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind…” and the second commandment
is “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew
23:37-38) In yoga we learn how deeply these two commands penetrate
each other. As Christians, we look out upon the suffering
world, suffering in our communities, in our families, in ourselves,
and we hear Christ’s call to act, to reach out our hand
in love. Paradoxically we grow in our capacity to give to
others by becoming more fully who we already are: creatures
of God made in and for love.
Our practice “on the mat” fuels us, energizes
and renews us, for selfless acts of service “off the
mat”. Our giving may be small, like giving up a seat
on the bus to someone in need; or it may be a larger act of
service like helping to build new homes for the poor. What
matters is not the size of the act but our giving in itself,
and our willingness to help where we can.
Like Christians throughout the centuries, we struggle at
times individually and as a community to find the balance
between prayer and action, between practice “on the
mat” and “off the mat”. Sometimes yoga practitioners
are rightly criticized for being too inwardly focused. “The
tensions between self-realization and participation in common
life, between contemplation and action, are healthy and creative,
even if not always comfortable. We simply need to find the
balance.” (PH&B, page 148) (See Section IIB)
MEDITATION
Today there is an unprecedented degree of interest in and
information about spirituality and spiritual disciplines.
The term “meditation” means different things to
different people, in different contexts. Christianity, like
all religions, has a rich tradition of meditation practice.
While the methods differ, the essence of meditation is to
help still the mind and to bring the practitioner into deeper
contact with what is Real.
There are basically two streams of meditation practice: narrowing
the field of awareness down to an object of mental focus (concentrative
practice), and opening wide the field of awareness to whatever
is happening in the body/mind (awareness practice). In concentrative
practice in the Christian tradition, the object of focus is
most often a sacred word or phrase to anchor the mind. As
thoughts arise, the practitioner lets them go and returns
to the word or phrase. Christian teachers such as John Main
and Thomas Keating have adapted this ancient practice for
modern life and have brought Christian meditation into the
mainstream. (See Section IV)
Awareness practice comes from Buddhism and opens out to become
fully aware of thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they
arise. Here, the mind is anchored on the breath, returning
to the constant flow of inhale and exhale as awareness expands.
There are Christians such as Mary Jo Meadow (of Resources
in Ecumenical Spirituality) who work also with this method
in the light of the teachings of John of the Cross and Teresa
of Avila.
As Tilden Edwards says, “What makes a particular practice
Christian is not its source, but its intent. If our intent
in assuming a particular bodily practice is to deepen our
awareness in Christ, then it is Christian. If this is not
our intent, then even the reading of Scripture loses its authenticity.”
(PH&B, page 149) Both these methods cultivate an inner
environment that attunes us to God’s loving presence.
Our perspective, as “Christians practicing yoga”
can be summed up in this prayer:
THE GRAIL PRAYER
Lord Jesus, I give you my hands to do your work.
I give you my feet to go your way.
I give you my eyes to see as you do.
I give you my tongue to speak your words.
I give you my mind, Lord, that you may think in me.
I give you my spirit, that you may pray in me.
Most of all, I give you my heart, Lord,
That you may love in me your Father and all humankind.
I give you my whole self, so that it is you, Lord Jesus,
Who lives and works and prays in me.
|