Can there be something called Christian yoga?

All right Krishna question is Christian yoga authentic isn't yoga a part of the Hindu traditions? how can there be something called Christian yoga? answer yes yoga has originated from the wisdom texts from which modern Hinduism has also originated so at first glance Christian yoga can seem like oxymoron how can there be two contradictory things together? so I'll explain this first historically and then I'll explain it conceptually so historically in the last 200 years or so 150-200 years there has been a consistent penetration of the west especially of America with values coming from India so for example the books like Bhagavad Gita the chanting of mantras kirtan and especially yoga these have become immensely popular especially among the younger generation in America and whereas the number of people going to Christian churches has often decreased the number of people trying to find out trying to explore through new age spirituality that has increased enormously and because of this many people have thought that oh this cannot work we need to so many Christians became alarmed and they did a study of what is it within the traditions coming from India that is attracting our young people and how can we offer it to them so one of the attractive features of the yogic spirituality coming from India is its practical and experiential nature people can do practical things by which they can experience higher states of consciousness they can experience peace they can experience higher states of consciousness so for example just as the chanting of mantras many Christian groups have created their own mantras adapting from the hymns that they had now the hymns and the other such poetry that they had and that was actually different from the chanting of the mantras that is there but although in principle it is a variant of Swarik spirituality but they also try to adapt that modality of kirtan and trying to incorporate more music and more not just more music but more responsive music by which they can attract and keep their own congregation so similarly some people have adopted the process of yoga also and they have tried to study within their tradition and some Christian groups still feel that yoga is a pagan practice and Christians use the word pagan to refer in a derisive way to anyone who does not practice Christianity and with that derisive mode of address they often consider that because yoga is a pagan practice so Christians cannot practice it so some people have strongly condemned some Christian groups have strongly condemned yoga and thereby they have tried to caution their congregation from practicing yoga but other groups there are other Christian groups who have tried to adopt that they've seen that they're young people and you're practicing yoga so let's try to do it within a Christian context and they have tried to interpret certain elements of the Christian traditions for example there were the desert fathers so there is a tradition of severe austerity in Christianity there are some celibates, some monks and they had certain practices so they have tried to so some Christians have tried to connect such yoga practices within whatever practices their masters have practiced in the past and they are trying to say that yoga is not incompatible with our culture with Christianity it can be practiced if you want to practice and that's how the concept of Christian yoga has come up so now what do we as traditional followers of yoga have to say about this? yes we need to recognize that at one level the universality of the spiritual insights that come from the wisdom traditions of India that is so broad so encompassing that even other religious traditions can also practice it you can also benefit from it so in that sense we can at one level appreciate the universality of our practice and become more inspired to practice it and share it but there has also the attempt at times in order to criticize in order to preserve the faith of people in Christianity some Christians often they try to separate yoga from Hinduism entirely and they try to say that yoga is just a series of techniques for the body and the mind and it has got no theology, no philosophy, no transcendence so they say that yes in Christian yoga they say Christ is for the soul yoga is for the body now this sort of separation makes them keep yoga purely at the physical level and that way they can serve their utilitarian purposes and this sort of reduction of yoga to simply a physical exercise and separation of the system of these physical exercises from the broad tradition from which it has come so that Christians can continue to criticize Hindus as polytheistic as idolatrous, as casteist and in that way try to attract people away from Hinduism towards Christianity so this sort of strategy needs to be countered so rather than doing any political agitations we need to actually provide intellectual education that if we provide proper intellectual education to understand what is the breadth and the universality of the wisdom that is offered in the Vedic tradition then such misappropriation and misconception about certain facets of the broad system of wisdom such as yoga this misappropriation and misconception will be avoided and people will be attracted towards universal wisdom in a universal way recognizing that we can all rise towards God so the important point is not that people get converted from Hinduism to Christianity or Christianity towards Hinduism this horizontal conversion is not important what is important is the vertical conversion vertical conversion is the raising of a person from a lover of the world to the lover of God from being a materialist to becoming a spiritualist and yoga at its essence is meant to provide us pathway for rising thus so if we can ourselves understand this universal process of yoga and universal purpose of yoga and we can ourselves rise upwards and demonstrate elevated expanded educated consciousness then we can attract people also to not get caught in such sectarian and divisive battles and petty controversies but we can get ourselves focused and inspire others to focus on the ascent of human consciousness on raising human consciousness that is the ultimate purpose of all the great wisdom traditions of the world thank you.