Hello :  

The temporal lapse between the last posting to this thread and this posting causes me to wonder if I am writing these words to the ultimate emptiness of matter, or simply to myself in a maze of words.  But, because I don’t come to this site very often, the fault is surely mine.   

Between the two elements, one being the Theism of Christianity and the other being the Advaita mindset of the majority of yogis, lies a gap, more intellectual than actual, to which an overly analytical someone has erroneously ascribed an unbridgeability built on the fallacy that these elements, which must first be compared in order to be bridged, cannot be compared by dint of their mutual incomparability.   From what may very well be a comparably greater knowledge of Christianity in form more so than in substance, he seems to have inferred a necessarily dualistic Theism, in contradistinction to the non-dualistic perspective of Advaita Hinduism.  In contradistinction, however, to the overly many Christians who ‘formally’ perceive a dualistic conception of their faith, there are the fewer than overly many who ‘substantially’ perceive a non-dualistic conception of an ultimate end in which all are absorbed into the Godhead.  We are to realize, they believe, that, as we are in Christ who is perpetually and infinitely in and of God, the one and true Spirit of our universe, so we too are perpetually and infinitely in and of the ultimate One, unbridgeable tho it may seem.     

Since in its intellectualism Advaita focuses on knowledge, it is the Yoga of Knowledge, Jñana Yoga, which suits it best.  But, because intellect without affect is an empty container, a bit of singular devotion to the referent of its intellectually constructed metaphor is surely needed.  Otherwise the gap  between meditant and meditation remains incomparably unbridgeable.  A computer can be a well of intellect.  But it ain’t got no feelin’, no spirit beyond the confines of its matter. 

For the Advaita yogi, Bhakti Yoga, the Yoga of devotion, can therefore be ancillary to the method of Jñana, ... while, for the Christian yogi, who focuses on the unending compassion of the ‘Holy Ghost’, this duality of Yogas is a methodic singularity.   Knowledge in devotion, devotion in knowledge, this is the means, at least for them.   And let us not forget that Yoga, the word, can be traced to an etymon whose core denotation is ‘Union’.  Union with what?   Union with the universal Oneness of it all of course.   

Of Christians, … as there are those, few though they be, who ‘drive’ the vehicle of Buddhism toward the goal of their faith, so there are those, perhaps too few, who employ Yoga toward the same end.  The only unbridgeable here is the wall of analysis in the act of breaking all of it down until broken.   But this too is merely a perspective, as are they all.  

Dec 13, 2010 -- 11:17AM, gangajal wrote:

Is Christian Yoga really Yoga? There is an excellent article by Rajiv Malhotra about this.

www.huffingtonpost.com/rajiv-malhotra/hindu-view-of-christian-yoga_b_778501.html

What do you all think?

As a Christian I say ...NO. 

Christians should not practice Yoga in the true "spiritual form".  Why?  It contradict their beliefs. 

How?

Simple, Christianity is a belief in forgiveness.  Grace.  You can't earn salvation.  There is no Karma to work off.  Christianity says you live once, die, then are judged.  You are not reincarnated. 

Now I as a Christian have done "Yoga" ...we called it "Power Yoga"  Basically it was an exercise.  Nothing more ...nothing less...did the down dog.  

Well you asked..so that's what I think. 

In my opinion, all theist religions are based on yoga. Yoga means too link up, or commune with God. There is no difference between Yoga and prayer because they are both based on connecting or establishing a relationship with God on a spirtual level.