Why
Yoga and Prayer?
Prayer
Marjorie Thompson in her book Soul Feast says, “The spiritual life has
to do with how God relates to us and how we in turn relate to God. Prayer is
the essential expression of this relationship.”[1]
Richard Foster in his classic work on spiritual disciplines, Celebration of Discipline writes, “Prayer
catapults us onto the frontier of the spiritual life. Of all the Spiritual
Disciplines, prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual
communion with [God].”[2]
Prayer is our connection to God; prayer is
communication and communion with God. Prayer is what brings us into alignment
with God’s will and is how God’s grace transforms our lives. Foster writes of
this transformation. “In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God’s thoughts
after [God]: to desire the things [God] desires, to love the things [God]
loves, to will the things [God] wills. Progressively, we are taught to see
things from [God’s] point of view.”[3]
Knowing that prayer is a learning process can free us to grow and gives us the
liberty to experiment by trying different forms of prayer.
Paul writes in Romans 8:26 that the Holy
Spirit helps us in our weakness and intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
With this scripture in mind, we might can see that prayer engages us in the conversation
that is already going on deep in our hearts. We can then align our thoughts
with what is already happening deep in our hearts.[4]
When we talk of prayer as communion, we
are acknowledging that prayer has a relational component that goes beyond
visible actions and embodies a dimension that cannot be contained in words. The
primary expression of prayer as communion is contemplation which is about
experiencing God’s presence. We
recognize the presence of God in our lives while quieting ourselves and opening
our spirits to God.
Thomas Merton said: “The great thing is
prayer. Prayer itself. If you want a life of prayer, the way to get it is by
praying…. You start where you are and you deepen what you already have.”[5]
When we live a life of prayer, prayer is not an end in itself. Rather, persistence
in prayer is what brings our spirits into alignment with God’s Spirit.
Prayer
that is contemplative in nature and which draws us closer to God in not
incompatible with the tradition of Yoga. Let us look closer at what Yoga is and
then we can see how the two might intersect.
Yoga
In common usage in the United States, yoga is
understood to be a form of exercise that involves a variety of poses and
postures that are practiced while controlling one’s breathing. Yoga is viewed as a form of physical fitness
that will improve one’s physical health.
However, a study of yoga reveals the spiritual nature of the yoga practice.
The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit root yuj which
means “to join” or “to yoke.” What is
being yoked or joined is the individual with the universal Self. B.K.S. Iyengar says,
“The union results
in a pure and perfect state of consciousness in which the feeling of ‘I’ simply
does not exit. Prior to this union is the union of the body with the mind, and
the mind with the self. Yoga is thus a dynamic, internal experience with
integrates the body, the senses, the mind and the intelligence, with the self.”[6]
According to Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati (Swami
J), “As
the goal, the word Yoga is virtually one and the same with the word Samadhi, the deep, transcendent
realization of the highest truth or reality.”[7]
As Swami J further explains the
nature of Yoga practice, traditional understanding of yoga is not about
physical fitness or health. Although practicing yoga may lead to increased
health, this is not the primary purpose. In fact, Yoga can be understood to be
a spiritual practice which includes a physical component. [8]
Yoga & Prayer
For
some Christians, this inclusion of a spiritual practice may raise red flags as
to what sort of spirituality might be practiced. As Candy Gunther Brown seems
to conclude in The Healing Gods:
Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian America, because yoga
has come from another religious tradition, Christians should be cautious when
taking up a practice of yoga.[9] Yet, other Christian
scholars have concluded that “yoga functions as a source of a wide range of
meanings and functions….. Symbols, practices, and ideas vary across yoga
studios and ashrams within the United States alone, thus illustrating that the
quest for the essence of yoga is an impossible task.”[10] When the goal of yoga is described as the
union of “the little self and the True Self,”[11] we
might see yoga spirituality as compatible with the Christian tradition of
contemplation. Prayer in this tradition would be about knowledge of the Divine
that cannot be contained in words while experiencing the presence of God.[12]
The breath control that comes with continued yoga practice can help Christians
to quiet their minds “and allow one to focus more pointedly on the experience
of prayer or worship, opening them to perceive the presence of God more fully.”[13]
In his book Praying with the Body: Bringing the Psalms
to Life, Roy DeLeon writes, “When the body participates fully in our
spiritual journey, our relationship with all of creation and with God our
Creator is enriched.”[14]
DeLeon reminds us that the Christian tradition has engaged in physical postures
during worship including kneeling, standing, making the sign of the cross,
bowing of heads, and raising of arms.
Some monastic orders have even included lying face down on the floor as
a gesture of thanksgiving, penitence or reverence.[15]
Combining the reading of scriptures with
traditional yoga poses while also engaging in a contemplative form of prayer
can be spiritually enriching and deepen our experience of God in our lives. In
some cases, we can actually embody the words of scripture through physical
postures and therefore cultivate an incarnate experience of God. We can pray with our entire body and
experience God at work in our body, heart, and soul.
[1] Marjorie J. Thompson, Soul Feast: An invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life (Louisville,
Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 31
[2] Richard
J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The
Path to Spiritual Growth (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1978), p.
33.
[3] Foster,
p. 33-4.
[4]
Thompson, p. 31.
[5]
Thompson, p.49.
[6]
Iyengar, B. K.S. Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health New York: DK Publishing, 2001, p. 46
[7] http://www.swamij.com/yoga.htm Swami J is someone
I know personally and have attended a study at his Ashram.
[8]
Ibid.
[9]
Brown, Candy Gunther, The Healing Gods:
Complementary and Alternative medicine in Christian America (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 65.
[10]
Jain, Andrea R., “Who Is to Say Modern
Yoga Practitioners Have It All Wrong? On Hindu Origins and Yogaphobia”
in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, June 2014, Vol. 82, No. 2, p. 459
[11] SwamiJ
[13]
Sheveland, John N, “Is Yoga Religious?” in Christian
Century. June 14, 2011, p 23
[14] Deleon,
Roy, Ob|SB. Praying with the Body: Bringing the Psalms to Life. Paraclete
Press: Brewster, Massachusetts, 2009. p. xii
[15]
Ibid., xiv.