In yoga, on the contrary, harmony is promoted, and everything has a soul, even a stone.

Facebook archive. First published on 28.01.2016.

I watched a TV program about yoga with pleasure; this is not sarcasm — it is my inner feeling about what was happening. Only one thought kept spinning in my head: "How good it is that I do not belong to yoga's opponents, and how good it is that I do not have the fear cultivated by Christianity." I will not scold religion; that is not my business. I will speak to the essence of the concerns voiced in the program. In 11 years of practicing yoga I have not discovered the demons the holy father speaks of so vividly, although I admit I tried very hard to discover at least someone.

Moreover, all the small entities that are attracted as a result of human life activity, and which the church calls demons, try to run as far away as possible from a yogi of any level, even one who does not put his leg behind his head. This is revealed by a very simple observation: things stop breaking and smashing, and people around have less desire to enter into conflict with yogis. As for the development of egoism, which the participants in the program talk about, citing as an argument the yogic thesis that every yogi is his own god.

I will object without citing a source, because in any work that has even lain somewhere near yoga, the thesis will sound: fight your egoism, and all problems come from egoism. The thesis every yogi is his own god should be understood by a believing Christian as "created in God's image and likeness"; this thesis can also be labeled as if the church calls for egoism, since if one is in the image and likeness, then one is above everyone. In Christianity, all God's creatures are below man, and they have no soul, that is, they are soulless creatures.

In yoga, on the contrary, harmony is promoted, and everything has a soul, even a stone. The very concept of meditation came into the modern lexicon from the Old Testament, which, when translated into Latin, acquired the fashionable meditatio for the word haga, meaning: "to ponder," "to contemplate mentally," "to develop ideas." That is, an uneducated priest denies a Christian concept that has Christian roots. There is no meditation in yoga; there is the practice of dhyana, which means contemplation.

At the same time, contemplation does not necessarily have to be done with closed eyes. Likewise, at the higher stages of dhyana, the very concept of contemplation is transformed into observation, that is, contemplation without an emotional, mental, or any other connection with the object of observation. In essence, every person not only meditates even without practicing yoga, but also constantly practices dhyana at the level of observation; people often say one "checks out" or switches on "Ivanovich's frost."

In fact, this is the zero level of dhyana. :) There is no idolatry in yoga; not only is there none, but one should also take into account that more authoritative yogis do not recommend performing any rituals, and even prayers and the recitation of mantras are not recommended. Quite often moksha, or liberation, is interpreted as ritual suicide. In conversation with some yoga instructors, I have also heard the opinion that death occurs at the very highest level of samadhi. All of this is wrong.

It is, of course, difficult to prove or refute with arguments the very concept of dissolution in the Absolute after attaining Nirvana. But perhaps the argument will suit most people that there are somehow no liberated ones (those who have experienced moksha) in the world now who promote ritual suicide, and yogis, for some reason, live longer and better lives than many Christians. It would be logical if every year in India yogis attained samadhi by the thousands, thereby reducing the population of yogis all over the world. But for some reason this does not happen.

But the strangest thing in all this is that a thinking person is unlikely to watch such programs and will find the arguments described above on their own. That is, my comments turn out to be mere shaking of the air, because you cannot explain anything to fanatics, and an intelligent person believes only himself. So the formula has emerged: if someone explains something to someone, especially without being asked, then that someone is simply messing with your head.

Live happily and do not mess with your own head. ;)