The Church and the New Age movement

Response from A Christian reflection on the New Age, and the official document from the Vatican.  (They do not open in a new window).

Note: New Age is defined by the Vatican as "ancient Egyptian occult practices, Cabbalism, early Christian gnosticism, Sufism, the lore of the Druids, Celtic Christianity, mediaeval alchemy, Renaissance hermeticism, Zen Buddhism, Yoga and so on...(and) is not, properly speaking, a religion, but it is interested in what is called 'divine'...(with a) preference for Eastern or pre-Christian religions".  This article will be using yoga as the subject when addressing the New Age movement. 

I became a yogi before I became a Christian.  And though I am now trying to become the best Catholic, a saint really, I don't want to turn my back on Eastern approaches to God, though I no longer practice yoga in any religious way.  The Vatican accuses people like me of cherry-picking, but I know that I am true, and that there is no harm in growing as a physical and spiritual entity through both avenues.  That said, New Age is very much closer on the side of the anti-Christ than not, and it has taken me years to learn how to balance what is outside of Christ, to bring me closer to Christ.

I started yoga strictly as a cross-trainer for dance, and I was only looking for something inexpensive, while being entirely oblivious to any sort of teaching.  I found a class that ran for 10 weeks or so at a middle school that is supported through Toronto Parks and Recs.  I sat in a dirty lunch room, completely disillusioned with what I assumed yoga was after seeing Madonna endorse it.  I will never forget my future spiritual teacher telling us, "you have no idea what you signed up for".  I then began the rest of my life.

Kundalini yoga taught me how to feel better about God through learning to be compassionate, through clarity, through strengthening my intuition by the training of mysticism; it taught me how to sit and meditate, which now helps with my Christian prayer life, it taught me about living holistically and to be a part of the environment, not against it; it even taught me to bless my food and to give thanks!  It truly served my deepest and neglected spiritual needs, so after I achieved my desired flexibility, I stayed.  I even went into teacher training; but it was there that I became Christian-bound, through no real choice of my own, but through God's.

It is important to note, that while I can understand why yoga is attracting so many people, I did not come from a church, so my eagerness might have been more susceptible to  yogic philosophies than someone who is rooted in a Christian background.

Though I have heard for years that the body itself retains memories, I only realized during the recent Advent that the asanas (postures) in yoga heal our bodies on the unconscious level, because when we experience distress, our bodies store that information forever, even if we don’t always physically experience pain at that moment of burden.  So asanas are specifically designed to release that stored up pain, in hope that when practiced honestly, we might release from our own limitations and become something greater than we are.  And when we finish with a meditation and centre ourselves after the yoga (this is at least how it is practiced in kundalini), God will speak to us: he will give us clues to what we are seeking.

With my desire to practice yoga, and my desire to be a mystic in the Church, I am interested in what the Vatican says about the New Age worldview.  Below are points that the Church documents against yoga, with my response.

Argument: Yoga is an “either/or” system - that we must choose between Christ or Aquarian (Age of Aquarius).

Response: I too once believed that it was either yoga or Jesus.  This either/or teaching does seem to be a problem in that yoga  is supposed to be of healing and reconciliation, however there is overt opposition to the Abrahamic religions, mostly Christianity, probably because a huge percentage of practitioners are (or were) Christians who feel (or felt) disconnected from God.  Yoga teaches that secrets kept hidden for millennia will be revealed in the Age of Aquarius, (which is a move from the Age of Pisces, the sign of the fish (Jesus).   But of course, Jesus said that all which is hidden will come to light as well.

Argument: New Age involves spiritual masters, and quotes Luke 16.13 which states that man can not have two masters.

Response: The very next sentence in this passage, in that same verse, clearly demonstrates that Jesus was talking about money!  "You cannot be the slave of both God and of money."  I find it discouraging and disingenuous to assume that we do not know better of the teaching.

Argument: i) New Age teaches a connection (or being “in tune”) with nature, ii) which blurs the lines between good and evil. 

Response: i) Being in tune with nature is essential in winning God's praise, for he created a symbiotic world that requires our respect, and it's really for our own benefit.

ii) Yoga does in fact blur the lines between good and evil.   In yoga we are taught that we are  all-good, which of course makes us feel wonderful, but in truth, this is a dishonest teaching (and possibly even a technique used to attract us).  Yoga does downplay our bad choices, and those choices such as murder, rape, sadism, and funding war while our neighbours starve, are beyond making "mistakes" - they are demonic.  However yoga rejects Satan, and instead teaches that we need to release from our dualistic nature, which is a false teaching, for we are dual - life is a constant struggle of choosing good over bad. 

Argument: Yoga gives tools to improve our way of life through self healing, which states that we have the power within ourselves, and thus do not need God's grace.

Response: I do not believe that yoga denies God, however the pantheistic belief in yoga does suggest that we are not dependent on his mercy.  As in the Vatican's concern with the blurring of boundaries, there is also concern as to who or what God is in the New Age movement, possibly because it is an eclectic mix of belief systems that has furthermore been Westernized, and is still not defined as a religion.  Since there is constant reference to divinity, there should be boundaries. Who are we in communion with?  We should know this.

Argument: (copy and pasted from Wikipedia)

* The cosmos is seen as an organic whole, animated by an Energy, Soul or Spirit
* Credence is given to the mediation of various spiritual entities
* Humans are assumed capable of ascending to invisible higher spheres
* A "perennial knowledge” pre-dates and is superior to all religions and cultures
* People are encouraged to follow enlightened masters.

Response: I will simply state here, and welcome argument, that this is identical to Christianity.

Argument: Yoga teaches that God is in us, and that we are one with God - that we have a divine "spark".

Response: Catholicism teaches that we once had immortality, but that we lost it when our first parents sinned in the Garden of Eden (ie. we lost our inheritance).  God then came to us in the form of Jesus, to establish the sacrament of baptism, which washes away the Original Sin, re-opening our connection to God, and life everlasting.

In closing, the real problem that the Vatican is facing, is that Christians are leaving their faith to pursue paganism, and that is concerning to the bride of Christ (the Church).  People who are spiritually weak are leaving the Light of Christ to dabble in the occult, and that is dangerous.

But with yogis who can remain true to the Christ, we can still aspire to be as perfect as our Father in heaven, because yoga can be a tool to cultivate the gift of discernment, as given by the Holy Spirit, and help to release us from the evil that keeps us from righteousness.  As the Vatican hopes might happen, it is possible that in response to the New Age movement, we can effectively spread the Good News once more, and I think, even better than before!

St. John of the Cross, pray for us.