Yoga is incompatible with Catholicism Father John Hardon
“Inner” Hinduism professes pantheism, which denies that there is only one infinite Being who created the world out of nothing.
Yoga is incompatible with Catholicism because the best known practice of Hindu spirituality is Yoga. “Inner” Hinduism professes pantheism, which denies that there is only one infinite Being who created the world out of nothing. This pantheistic Hinduism says to the multitude of uncultured believers who follow the ways of the gods that they will receive the reward of the gods. They will have brief tastes of heaven between successive rebirths on earth. But they will never be delivered from the “wheel of existence” with its illusory lives and deaths until they realize that only “God” exists and all else is illusion (Maya). To achieve this liberation the principal way is by means of concentration and self control (yoga).
Indian
spirituality is perhaps best known by the practice of yoga, derived from the
root yuj to unite or yoke, which in context means union with the Absolute.
Numerous stages are distinguished in the upward progress toward the supreme end
of identification: by means of knowledge with the deity; the practice of moral
virtues and observance of ethical rules; bodily postures; control of internal
and external senses; concentration of memory and meditation–finally
terminating in total absorption (samadhi), “when the seer stands in his
own nature.”
Although
the psychic element is far more important in yoga than the body, the latter is
more characteristic of this method of Hindu liberation. Its purpose is to
secure the best disposition of body for the purpose of meditation. The practice
begins with a simple device for deep and slow breathing.
Stopping
the right nostril with the thumb, through the left nostril fill in air,
according to capacity. Then without any interval, throw the air out through the
right nostril, eject through the left, according to capacity. Practicing this
three or five times at four hours of the day, before dawn, during midday, in
the evening, and at midnight, in fifteen days or a month purity of the nerves
is attained.
After
such preliminary exercises, more complicated practices are undertaken, but not without
the guidance of a professional yogin, called guru. The meditative phase begins
with fixing the mind on one object, which may be anything whatsoever,
“the sphere of the navel, the lotus of the heart, the light of the brain,
the tip of the nose, the tip of the tongue, and such like parts of the
body” or also “God”, who on Hindu terms is the only real
being who exists.
Gradually by sheer concentration of attention; the mind reaches a state of trance, where all mental activity stops and the consciousness rests in itself. The state of samadhi is the culmination of yoga and beyond it lies release. The life of the soul is not destroyed but is reduced to its “unconscious and permanent essence.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Hardon,
John A. “Ask Father Hardon.” The Catholic Faith 4, no. 2
(March/April 1998): 54-55.
Reprinted
by permission of The Catholic Faith. The Catholic Faith is published bi-monthly
and may be ordered from Ignatius Press, P.O. Box 591090, San Francisco, CA
94159-1090. 1-800-651-1531.
THE BASIC CONFLICT BETWEEN MAHARISHI AND CHRISTIANITY
Following
is the 1984 Pastoral statement of His Eminence Jaime Cardinal
Sin,
Archbishop of Manila, on certain doctrinal aspects of the Maharishi
Technology
of the Unified Field, held after consultation with theological
experts.
The
Maharishi's doctrine and teaching on (1) God, (2) man, (3) the way to
go
to God, (4) pain and suffering, and (5) sin is in open contradiction to
Christian
Doctrine.
1.
The "God" of the Maharishi is impersonal, as opposed to the God
manifested
in Christian revelation where God is a personal God who loves
each
human person in an intimate way.
By denying the
Creator as Supreme and teaching that "All is
One," Maharishi
removes the distinction between the Creator and
the creature. This directly leads to, or is an
equivalent form
of, pantheism.
The
"mantras" given to the followers of the Maharishi have been
discovered to be
invocations, in most of the cases, to deities
of the Hindu
pantheon, thus in a real sense denying the oneness
of God and fostering
polytheism.
2.
Man is considered capable of attaining unlimited perfection, of being
totally
liberated from all pain and suffering through the instrumentality
of
Transcendental Meditation practiced in the Maharishi way. Similarly
through
this, TM, man can find solution to all human problems ranging from
control
of the elements to the attainment of indestructibility and
immortality.
Two flaws, among
others, appear clearly in this doctrine: (a) It
does not accept the
immortality of the soul, nor life beyond, as
belonging to the
nature of the soul; (b) ignores completely the
existence of original
sin, a Christian dogma, and the
consequences for the
realities of life.
3.
The way to God is placed by Maharishi in TM as understood by him, his
books,
and his followers, and it is placed on TM as the exclusive way to
God.
Two flaws, again, are
hidden in these affirmations: (a) the
abuse of the term TM
which has been appropriated by them as if
theirs was
"the" TM par excellence, the only authentic one
(there is Christian
mysticism, even authors speak of Hindu and
Buddhist mysticism,
and certainly there is also the well-known
za-zen method of meditation);
and (b) the way to God in the
present economy for
all is the way of the Cross as long as we
are pilgrims, as
explicitly preached by Christ himself, accepted
in Christian doctrine
and life. The heroism of Christian
faithful suffering
with the greatest courage and dignity appears
to be absent in the
Maharishi way to God.
4.
Implicit in the Maharishi approach to the problem of pain and suffering
is
the rejection of the redemptive value of suffering and of the existence
of
Christ as the Redeemer. In fact, Maharishi in his book, Meditations of
Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi (New York, Bantam Books, 1968, p.23), writes
explicitly:
"I don't think Christ ever suffered or Christ could suffer."
(This
statement has been repeated in many places by the Maharishi
followers.)
5.
Sin. Maharishi tries to ignore the existence of sin. In this, Maharishi
follows
the Vedic doctrine that regards sin as a bodily matter and has
nothing
to do with the spirit or soul of man. The whole concept of "sin,"
if
implicitly accepted, is considered as something external and
legalistic.
The real sense of freedom and responsibility is absent, and
the
"effects" of sin are the object of rituals, mantras, and TM. There is
no
interior conversion, but a rather manipulative use of TM to attain
liberations.
At the basis of this
concept and approach is the concept of God,
man, the way to God,
pain and suffering, described above. From
this point of view,
one cannot be a Christian and a Maharishi.
6.
As for TM, it may be considered as doctrine (content) or as technique
(method).
From this point of view of doctrine it is not acceptable to a
Catholic,
or a Christian at that. As for TM as technique, in the way the
Maharishi
group presents it, it is not acceptable either because of its
intrinsic
connections with the doctrine (cf. "mantras" and 1 and 2 above).
This kind of TM is to
be distinguished from various forms of
prayer proper to the
Oriental religious attitudes, some of which
may be acceptable,
and even beneficial, if properly scrutinized
and used. TM,
however, as proposed by Maharishi and as the
end-result looked at
by the Maharishi doctrine and followers,
is, to say the least,
quite risky. It becomes not a remedy but
an escape. Its unavoidable result, within the
Maharishi doctrine
context, is the
desensitization of conscience by trying to
relieve not the guilt
and the real disorder but only its
symptoms and its
accompanying restlessness.
This document was
taken from "Todays Destructive Cults and
Movements," by
Rev. Lawrence J. Gesy, available
from Our Sunday
Visitor Press, 200
Noll Plaza, Huntington, IN 46750.
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