Is O.K. for a Christian to practice yoga? A recent article in the Christian Century posed this very question.1 A statement by the Hindu American Foundation had suggested that Americans focus too heavily on the physical exercise aspect of yoga and ignore its deep roots in the Hindu tradition. In response, some commentators flatly denied the connection between yogic practice and today’s Hinduism. However, Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological seminary, roundly condemned yoga and other forms of “Eastern meditation.” Mohler also suggested that indeed Hindu beliefs underlie yoga practice, and that Christians compromise their relationship with Jesus by engaging in them. The author of the Christian Century article, John Sheveland, claims that what Mohler and others who agree with him miss is that yoga is a holistic system of control of the body, spirituality, and ethics. In its classical form, articulated perhaps as early as the second century, yoga consists of an eight-limbed path that integrates moral restraint towards the environment, individual practices, physical postures (the “asanas” with which many are familiar), breathing techniques, control of the senses, focus of the mind, meditation, and absorption into a transcendent consciousness. From such a system, Sheveland suggests, we Christians might have something to learn: how to be more mindful and focused in worship, for example, or how to translate spiritual insight into behavior in the world. In the end, as we ponder the riches of our own spiritual tradition, especially our own tradition of contemplative prayer, we might find that we have much in common with serious Hindu practitioners of yoga.
The word “yoga” comes from an ancient root meaning “to join or unite.” One of its very few cognates in English is the word “yoke.” Have you ever seen yoked animals? Typically oxen or water buffalo, occasionally horses, are yoked in pairs, mostly for plowing. For pulling heavily-laden carts, pairs of yoked animals are often joined together in a team. There are actually at least three common kinds of yokes, depending on the kind of animal. Whichever one is used, it must be fitted to the individual animal to avoid bruising or disabling the animal. What associations do we moderns bring to the word “yoke?” Does it connote a kind of submission? Indeed, the word “subjugate” is also cognate with the same root as that of “yoga” and “yoke.” Perhaps too, when we think of yokes, we think of onerous burdens, since yoked animals are so often found pulling heavy loads.
So what kind of invitation is Jesus offering us in this Gospel when he suggests that we take on his “yoke?” Is he offering us an onerous burden which we must submissively accept? Just before the beginning of today’s passage, Jesus has entertained a query from the disciples of John the Baptist: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” He responds by reminding them that people have been healed, and that “the poor have good news brought to them.” He then vents his own irritation to the crowd – yes, Jesus had negative emotions too – by complaining that neither John, who practiced an ascetic lifestyle, nor he Jesus, whose ministry was more expansive and inclusive, received the welcome that they deserved as prophets. The “wise and intelligent,” those who were sure they understood the demands of the Law and followed the sacrificial system to the letter, seemed especially sure that they had no need of either John’s baptism or the new way offered by Jesus, and they therefore welcomed neither.
In this narrative interlude between Jesus’ second and third great sermons in Matthew, Jesus does indeed suggest that he has something new and different to offer, especially to those who are able to admit that they might need guidance, those who are willing to submit themselves to his leading. Jesus offers them a new “yoke,” one that “fits well,” which is a better translation of the Greek than “easy.” This is not a one-size-fits-all yoke. It is one that is tailored to individual disciples and their particular circumstances. It is different from the yokes borne by oxen and buffaloes, or imposed on people by the keepers of sacrificial ritual. The yoke offered by Jesus is not burdensome but is easy to bear. However, like the yokes of oxen and buffaloes, Jesus’ yokes join us together in pairs and teams to bear each others’ burdens and to help each other grow spiritually. Most important, if we are willing to submit ourselves to Jesus’ guidance, rather than feeling constrained or imprisoned, we will truly be free to grow spiritually.
So what keeps us from joining with others and becoming part of Jesus’ teams? What keeps us from accepting his guidance? Is it that we think we can pull ourselves up by our own spiritual bootstraps, that we can go it alone spiritually? Do we resist incorporation into a community? Perhaps we wonder how a mature person can take guidance from others. “I don’t need a spiritual director,” you might say, “I’m a mature adult, able to figure things out for myself.” Or perhaps we fear that Jesus will guide us into being as inclusive as he was, that we too will have to eat with the tax collectors and prostitutes of our day, with the poor and homeless, with the alkies and ex-felons.
Or perhaps we’re bound by other kinds of yokes. Perhaps our yokes are the expectations of others. Do you find it hard to say “no,” when someone asks you to volunteer for something you don’t want to do? Do family or friends pull you in directions that hinder your spiritual life? Do others expect your house to look like a picture out of Better Homes and Gardens, your son to be an Eagle Scout, or your daughter to be first in her class academically? Or perhaps your yokes are your own expectations of yourself. How many times have you said, “I have to…. Fill in the blank: lose ten pounds, eat more healthfully, exercise more, drink less, quit smoking. Do you think you should have a cleaner house? Do you wish you could go back to school? Do you think you must work a sixty-hour week, in order to make ends meet? Do you have to have the latest gadgets, go on the best vacations, regardless of how far into debt you go? Do you have to hold on to the social and political convictions you had as a teenager? To what are you yoked?
Jesus assures us that, whether our own yokes are externally or internally imposed, we don’t have to submit to them. We can let go of all that binds us and let Jesus be our guide. One way to do that is to team up with others in the spiritual quest. We can enter into a traditional relationship of spiritual direction. Or perhaps we can let Jesus guide us through shared Christian formation. Or we may find Jesus’ guidance through different forms of prayer. Christians have long known that prayer and meditation enable us to get free of the burdensome yokes that bind us. Prayer and meditation help us to hear Jesus’ guidance and follow his lead. Ironically contemplative prayer has many elements in common with classical yoga. As we relax our bodies, focus on our breath, and let go of our preoccupations as we enter the silence, we open ourselves to God’s indwelling. By God’s grace, we are then able to sense Jesus’ deeper presence in our live. There are many different paths to experiencing God in this way. In the quiet day I plan to offer later this summer, I’d like to help us experience one or two of them. For now, though, listen to what one writer experienced in a form of prayer called “walking meditation.” Poet Tess Gallagher walked with Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen monk. In her poem about the experience, she describes slowly following the monk up a mountain with about fifty other people. She says,
Our meditations
waver and recover us, waver
and reel us in to our bodies
like fish willing at last to take on the joy
of being fish, in or out of the water.
When we gather at last at the summit
and sit with him
we know we have moved the mountain
to its top as much as it carried us
deeply into each step.
Going down is the same.
We breathe and step. Breathe,
and step. A many-appendaged being
in and out of this world. No use
telling you about peace attained.
Get out of your feet.
Your breath. Enter
the mountain.2
Walking meditation, such as Gallagher experienced, centering prayer, lectio divina, Ignatian meditations, body prayer, saying the daily offices, and many other ways of praying all have the same goal: to free us from the yokes that bind us. All prayer ultimately enables us to open ourselves to Jesus’ presence in our lives and to follow his leading instead. And as we follow his guidance more closely, our lives change, for as so many of the saints remind us, as we pray, so also do we live. God willing, our lives are led by Jesus and none other.
1. John N. Sheveland, ”Is yoga religious?”, Christian Century, June 14, 2011, 22-25.
2. Accessed at http://being.publicradio.org/programs/thichnhathanh/poems-walkingmeditation/ .
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