Forbidden Yoga

The other day I was listening to a Catholic talk radio program, as I often do. Every so often a subject comes up where the host has an opinion that he is so passionate about, he fails to see all sides of said subject. This time the subject was yoga.

His stance was that yoga outright contradicts Catholic teaching, and that Catholics should stay away from it and not even dabble in it. He had an ex-cultist on as a guest warning about the evils of yoga. They went on to explain that yoga teaches that the body is basically evil, when Catholic teaching is that the body is basically good, etc. They explained that each pose in yoga is a form of praying to the various gods that they worship, which of course is in direct contradiction to Catholic teaching. They even went so far as to say that yoga for fitness was also not to be touched.

Now, my point of contention is with the yoga for fitness. I do yoga. Please note the vocabulary here. I DO yoga. I do not PRACTICE yoga. I do believe there is a difference here. Yes, yoga is a form of religion. And yes, I do believe that Catholics should not PRACTICE yoga. Now when I go to the gym for a yoga class, at no point has the instructor ever talked about the religious aspect of yoga. At no point is she telling us to pray to the sun god or whatever. At no point does she even urge us to explore the spiritual side. The instructor simply leads us through a series of poses aimed to strengthen our muscles and increase our flexibility. That is DOING yoga.

Now I do agree that Catholics should not PRACTICE yoga. At the gym, however, I have never seen anybody practicing yoga; I've only seen people doing yoga. And if every pose is a form of idol worship, does that mean that every kindergartner on the planet is sinning since they are often in lotus position, otherwise known as sitting indian style?

I would like people's opinions on this topic. Am I crazy here? Do you think there is a difference between practicing yoga and doing yoga, or am I just fooling myself? Please feel free to share your thoughts. One condition. I don't want this to turn into an anti-Catholic rant. This was the opinion of ONE PERSON on the radio. As far as I know, the Catholic Church doesn't have a ban on DOING yoga, but does not condone the PRACTICE of it. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Thoughts?