Yoga Guru Ramdev meets Buddhist monks in Dharamshala - Sify

Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev met Buddhist Monks in Dharamshala and told them the importance of Yoga.

Addressing a gathering, he said health is the most precious gift of God and one should maintain it and Yoga is one of the best ways to maintain it.

Dharamshala he pointed out, was filled with spirituality and its energy should reach the entire world.

"After coming here I have witnessed religion in its living form. I have seen the environment submerged with spirituality. And I want this energy to reach the entire world," said Ramdev.

Many Buddhist monks, nuns and other Tibetans gathered here in the main Buddhist Temple, Tsuglagkhang to get a glimpse of the yoga Guru.

The Tibetan Prime Minister-in-exile Samdhong Rinpoche also attended the session and said that everybody was extremely happy to meet Ramdev.

"The experience was fantastic. He poured in a lot of knowledge within a short span of time. He narrated the importance of Yoga, which was great. Yoga has a lot of strength and capability," said Rinpoche.

The Yoga Guru is on a four-day visit to Himachal Pradesh where he will hold public meetings in Chamba, Kangra, Mandi and Una districts of the state. (ANI)

New yoga combines exercise with Christianity - 9NEWS.com

DENVER - Yoga is gaining a cultural acceptance all over the world, but some argue that yoga and Christianity don't mix because of the origins of the exercise.

One pastor goes as far as saying, "it's a form of demonism."

Denver resident, Niki Sparks is a devout Christian. She also practices and teaches yoga.

"I have been practicing yoga for five years and I now teach Holy Yoga," Sparks said.

She is part of a growing group nationwide that has combined the exercise with Christianity.

"Holy yoga is a combination of worship and exercise. We play Christian music and we read scripture. It's all yoga and all Jesus, 100% of each," Sparks said.

But there are many who believe the two cannot be combined.

Mark Driscoll is a pastor at a Baptist Church in Seattle.

He says yoga is Paganism.

"Yoga is opening to demonism. Should Christians stay away from yoga because of its demonic roots? Totally," Driscoll said.

The controversy lies in the origin of yoga.

The ancient Indian spiritual practice was created about 5,000 years ago.

It incorporates meditation and a Hindu practice of connecting spiritually to the universe.

"In a lot of traditional yoga classes they will talk about connecting yourself with the universe- but as a Christian I believe God created the universe and so anytime I'm connecting myself, I'm connecting myself to my creator- not the universe per say- God created the universe," Sparks said.

Sparks says yoga is really what you make of it and says she doesn't feel like she is doing anything wrong by using it to grow closer to her faith.

Yoga is gaining popularity. Today, the practice boasts 20 million followers all over the world, triple the number of followers from just 15 years ago.

(KUSA-TV © 2010 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)

Ask the Religion Experts - Ottawa Citizen

Kevin Smith is on the board of directors for the Centre for Inquiry, Canada's premier venue for humanists, skeptics and freethinkers.

I stand on one leg, arms extended in the yoga tree pose. I am not sensing universal life energy entering my crown -- concerned more that my creaky limbs might topple over. As the class pushes up to a shoulder stand, the alignment of my chakras are of less importance then positioning well away from the derriere of the person in front.

This ancient philosophy, steeped in Eastern mysticism, has gone mainstream.

Yoga for the Lululemon generation -- whose only temple they worship is their own body. Yoga is seen solely as an exercise program, and science has proven what the yogis have been saying for thousands of years.

For much of what ails us, do enough hatha, ashtanga or vinyasa and you will see the light, so to speak. Its benefits include increased flexibility, weight loss, improved circulation and a reduction of blood pressure.

Yoga is a great stress buster, which is the culprit for about 90 per cent of our illness.

Some are combining this with meditation -- prayer without god. Both activate the same parts of the brain but meditation doesn't demand supernatural belief. It promotes good moods and positive feelings, and studies show it can relieve depression.

People aren't searching for Enlightenment so much as attempting to add a bit of serenity into their hectic lives.

Practising yoga and meditation during several of my what's-life-all-about periods, has allowed me to be open to the deep mysteries of life, without the need to create gods to explain them.

Church attendance is dropping as quickly as yoga classes are filling up. All of its medical benefits result in a calmer, kinder, more peaceful person.

Yoga provides us with everything that religion is supposed to, without any antiquated, authoritative tenets. I'll take a downward dog over dogma any day.

Namaste.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen