Excerpt from chapter four in: A Catholic Response to the New Age Phenomenon by the Irish Theological Commission in 1994. To see the contents of the whole chapter, click here.
"New Age Movement" is abbreviated as NAM.
Yoga classes are presented all over Ireland and have an immense popularity. They are presented as physical exercises for the sake of health, wholeness, slimming, or a variety of other reasons. Many Christians refuse to see anything in Yoga apart from the physical aspects of it. But let us look closer.
The eastern religions can be called the Yogic Tradition, and it originated in India, the home of the gurus. The main themes of this tradition are transcendentalism and the spiritual journey. The Yogic world view is tied up with their belief in the law of karma which traps people into the cycle of suffering and evil. One needs to seek liberation from karma through the disciplines of Yoga, which involve the discipline of the body in exercises and diet to liberate the true 'life force' and set one on this road to enlightenment. Reincarnation and karma are basic beliefs in the yogic tradition. The idea of reincarnation is expressed by westerners as remembering so-called 'past lives', and the need to find the 'soul mate' who helps one on the freedom trail.
'Yoga' literally means 'to bind together', to 'hold fast' or 'to yoke'. The word is used to describe any ascetic technique involving the type of meditation which is TM. The idea that Yoga was good for your health was developed in the 1960s in order to get the materialistic west interested and involved in Hinduism. In fact, it was the way the gurus set out 'to evangelise' the west. 4
Yoga and TM go hand-in-hand as one system. Any serious Yogi will admit this. The physical exercises by themselves have only limited value, but when combined to TM they initiate one into full-blown Hinduism. The full package is Yoga, TM and holistic living. An essential ingredient is a guru, as one cannot embark on this journey into the unknown alone. One must be guided by a more experienced person in order to deal with the pitfalls. One must be 'converted' to this way of life, as many Irish people have in the past ten years, due to groups like the Tony Quinn Yoga groups.
