Flexible Jesuit

Jesuit Yoga I

2008-05-07

Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

Some excerpts.

Several months ago I mentioned that I was teaching a seminar on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. This fundamental yoga text, from nearly 2000 years ago, is brief -- 195 very succinct verses -- but it is the reference point for all the later yoga systems....Yoga is extremely supple in its ability to take on various rationales -- nondualist, devotional, health-oriented, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. -- and my impression is that even expert teachers of disciplined yoga practice are rather fluid -- sometimes unhelpfully vague -- in their explanations as to what it is all for. The Sutras help pin down a succinct attitude toward the practice and its purpose....In the 1960, Fr. Gaspar Koelman, a Jesuit working in India, did a meticulous study of Patanjali, The Patanjala Yoga, that is invaluable even today. From a very different angle, in 1990 Ravi Ravindra, a Hindu scholar, published an insightful interpretation of the Gospel according to John entitled The Yoga of the Christ.... And --

lest we forget -- there have been many columns, essays, and letters by Christian leaders cautioning Christians against being enchanted by physical practices that ultimately mean a whole way of life -- possibly or probably incompatible with Christian values. (examples: Benedict XVI writes on the (here) , Theosophy (here) and Yoga and the Catholic parish (here) )

(See for instance, Laurette Wills' comments at http://www.praisemoves.com/ChristianAlternative.htm and, of course, the 1989 letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Some Aspects of Christian Meditation" ) So the fruits of my seminar -- this latest "Jesuit Yoga" -- need to be carefully assessed, for the sake of the general question, How can we benefit from the ancient and wise tradition of yoga, as Christians?....Note to the studious reader: The Sutras are available in numerous translations, and those interested would do well to sample several, perhaps beginning with those by Georg Feuerstein, Chris Chapple and Yogi Ananda Viraj (real name: Eugene P. Kelly, Jr. ) , or Barbara Miller.

Link (here)

Photo credit, guru Perasiriyar Brahma Shri K. S. Sundareysan of Chennai Yoga: Patanjalee Yoga (here)

Manressa Jesuit Retreat House, yoga program (here)

Great post here at A Catholic Life, entitled Father Jeremy Davies: Avoid Yoga, Massage Therapy, and Horoscopes (here)