What is the original definition of "Yoga?"?

Question

I'm interested in knowing it's core origin. Our Baptist church holds yoga classes; knowing that the exercises used are very good for maintaining overall health. We believe that protecting and taking care of our body, is taking care of a temple that the Holy Spirit resides in. We also believe that by having a relaxed and meditative frame of mind we are enabled to be more receptive to what the Holy Spirit might have to say to us in our hearts and minds. I have a friend who says that we are blasphemous. Because, that by practicing Yoga, we are actually practicing a pagan religion. Can someone help me out here?

Answer 1

yoga means "to join", as in the mind to the body...it is the main totem of hinduism, in fact they have many different kinds of yoga...i would recommend you read Huston Smith's The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions...it tells you everything you wanted to know about the subject and all the other religions too...this is one AWESOME book -- he pays respect to them all

http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Great-Wisdom-Traditions/dp/0062508113/sr=8-1/qid=1170184068/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-6047765-1630360?ie=UTF8&s=books

His introduction asks, "How does it all sound from above? Like bedlam, or do the strains blend in strange, ethereal harmony? ... We cannot know. All we can do is try to listen carefully and with full attention to each voice in turn as it addresses the divine. Such listening defines the purpose of this book."

Answer 2

Yoga has evolved from a practice designed to link the body with the mind and in various venues has stripped away it's old ties with religion to become a "feel good" exercise. The roots of yoga are ancient, appearing in vedic texts of the ancient past, etc. The idea behind it would take more than I have time or space here to provide, but it's simply, in your case one of those stripped down versions as exercise. I doubt your church group ties the original ideas together for full benefit.

You're only practicing another religion if you practice the religions that go with it.

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Answer 3

Yoga: A way of life that includes ethical precepts, dietary prescriptions, and physical exercise. Its practitioners believe that their discipline has the capacity to alter mental and bodily responses normally thought to be far beyond a person's ability to modulate them. During the past 80 years, health professionals in India and the West have begun to investigate the therapeutic potential of yoga. To date, thousands of research studies have been undertaken and have shown that with the practice of yogic meditation a person can, indeed, learn to control such physiologic parameters as blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory function, metabolic rate, skin resistance, brain waves, body temperature, and many other bodily functions.

Answer 4

Remember that the "earliest" meaning doesn't make that the "real" meaning. The original practitioners of yoga in ancient India weren't Christian. They thought about everything they did in an Indian, non-Christian way -- not just yoga. But that isn't somehow hidden in the exercises themselves. The exercises aren't "pagan" any more than eating kosher food makes you Jewish. The ancient Greeks who invented geometry and algebra had their own mystical, non-Christian understanding of numbers. Does that make it pagan to do math? Of course not. Yoga is the same way.

Answer 5

Yoga is a Hoax of Hindus. It has no truth in it.

Accept Islm, the only true path

Answer 6

It's from a Sanscrit word meaning "to join." We have the related word "yoke" in English.

Answer 7

Yoga means "union" in sanskrit.