Why I Don’t Do Yoga

Her hard snub made me wish I’d stayed in the bathroom stall.

She was a world-renowned athlete and a main speaker at our fitness conference. I respected her accomplishments and had looked forward to hearing her, but that changed after a minute alone in the restroom with her.

I smiled and said hi. She flashed a smirk, reset her gaze to the mirror, flipped and fluffed her hair, and traced the edges of her pencil-lined lips with her finger.

I felt five inches tall.

Years later, I purchased an online workout series which included her yoga program. I had never done much yoga but wanted to gain flexibility to see if it could help alleviate my hip pain, and I wanted to learn anything that would help my clients. But from the start of the program, something bothered me, something more than my restroom encounter with the instructor.

I kept telling myself to give her another chance, but with each class I felt ickier.

There were a lot of reasons I hadn’t done much yoga. It was slow. I liked fast. It was low-impact, and at the time, most of my workouts were high-impact. It killed my wrists. And I'd learn later that more stretching and balancing exercises wouldn’t relieve my chronic hip pain. Ultimately, I just didn’t like yoga, but there was more to it than only the physical aspects.

At the end of each class, the instructor clasped her hands. “Namaste,” she said. I returned the salutation, thinking it might help me like her better, until I just couldn’t do it any longer.

“What the heck does namaste mean?” I said.

Something kept grating in my spirit, and it wasn’t only her voice. I wondered, what was she coaching me to do, and what was I blindly following?

I sprung up off the floor, grabbed my phone, and within minutes, learned why I would never do yoga again.

In the U.S., the number of yoga studios are growing. Millions of people are turning to yoga. For many Westerners, yoga is nothing more than an exercise class.

I can understand what attracts people. Many studios have a spa feel. Some classes venture outdoors to connect with nature. And yoga clothes are the trendiest fitness apparel. Who wouldn’t want to look good doing an oceanside, grass-between-your-toes stress relieving workout? What could possibly be wrong about stretching, balancing, breathing, and sweating? And what kind of trainer am I to deter someone from getting fit using whatever method they enjoy?

Throughout the years, I’ve known some lovely people who practice yoga, most who would never purposefully seek out the powers it’s based on. At my fitness studio, clients occasionally recommend we add yoga, and, in the past, I’ve led stretching classes that incorporated yoga poses.

To understand why I’ll never do yoga again is to understand that before I’m a trainer, I’m a follower of Jesus Christ. If you are too this should matter, and, whether you do or don’t do yoga, I hope this helps clarify some things.

When I started exploring of the roots of yoga, I was prompted to look up one word—“namaste.” That’s when I realized yoga is rooted in far eastern religions like Hinduism and is intended for more than only physical exercise.

The word “yoga” means yoke or union.

More people, Christians included, seem to be turning to yoga for spirituality. We all want to experience God. What could possibly be wrong about being in union with God, especially when it brings us together with people of different cultures and beliefs?

First, let me say that I love Hindus. Some of my college friends were Hindu. I learned about Hinduism from them and wish I had shared more about my own faith with them.

The main conflict that yoga presents to Christians is that it links us to false gods. Hindus worship millions of gods, their supreme god being Brahman.

Brahman is not God.

The God of the Bible said, “I am the Lord your God…you shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:2-3). He also said, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God” (Isaiah 45:5).

And we know that not all roads lead to God because Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Although I wasn’t consciously worshipping Brahman during the yoga classes, I wanted to live free of deception, and I didn’t want to associate in any way with false gods. Based on what I learned next, I couldn’t simply override the system and put a Jesus spin on all of it.

Yoga is designed to affect you spiritually by supposedly tapping into seven energy centers in the body called chakras. Chakras are associated with shapes, colors, chants, organs, natural elements, and deities. Believing in chakras means you acknowledge the existence of the gods and goddesses worshipped in Hinduism.

The first five chakras are thought to be along the spine, the sixth being the ‘third eye’ (you’ve probably seen this as jewelry or as a popular tattoo) and the seventh being the crown chakra at the top of the head. This concept is rooted in a belief called ‘the kundalini,’ which means “serpent power.” Awakening this serpent power is thought to launch a person into God-consciousness. In new age and eastern beliefs, this means you are God.

Hold up.

My eyes widened as I thought of Satan in the Garden of Eden. “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” he asked Eve. You won’t die, the serpent said. Rather, “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God” (Genesis 3). Revelation 12:9 calls “that ancient serpent” the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. And Genesis 3:15 says Jesus is the heel who crushed the serpent’s head.

The practice of yoga also includes the chanting of “OM.” The sound is thought to not only help a person achieve God-consciousness, but also to call upon other gods, like Shiva, the god of death and destruction.

One of the most common yoga poses is the lotus position, where you sit on the floor, legs crossed, wrists rested on your knees with your index finger and thumb touching. The position seems harmless and is promoted as relaxation. However, it represents a spiritual concept in Hinduism, intended to unify your soul with Brahman.

Chanting “OM” and sitting in the lotus pose is an act of summoning a spirit that impersonates a false god in order to possess your heart and mind.

Yoga yokes you with a false god and demonic powers.

There’s no exercise anyone can do to awaken God from within. He doesn’t need to be awakened when He’s already in our hearts. God created the universe, but He’s not contained by it. He exists apart from physical creation. We are separate from God and void of His presence because of sin. The only way to experience His presence—in exercise and all of life—is to accept His invitation of Salvation and let your soul be washed in the blood of Jesus and be born again (John 3:1-8; 1 John 1:7).

All of this was enough to convince me, but I know people who aren’t as convinced. So, I tried to entertain their perspectives with questions like:

What if I only do yoga for exercise?

Is Christian yoga (Holy Yoga) any better?

Can’t I just take out all the Hindu stuff and replace it with Bible verses and Jesus-focused prayer?

I can understand these questions. I thought I was using yoga strictly for exercise, and my online yoga instructor was a church-going Christian. Certainly, she wouldn’t mislead others, would she?

Something to consider: Just because you don’t practice the spiritual parts of yoga doesn’t change the heart of yoga.

Hindu philosophy says, “There is no yoga without Hinduism and no Hinduism without yoga, that Hinduism is the soul of yoga, based as it is on Hindu Scripture.” A former managing editor of Hinduism Today said, “A Christian trying to adapt these practices will likely disrupt their own Christian beliefs.”

Christian yoga is an oxymoron and an attempt to adapt the Bible to fit our lives instead of adapting our lives to fit the Bible.

The issue reminds me of Paul’s warning to early Christians about eating meat offered to idols. Paul explained that the idols didn’t really exist and that if people needed food, it would be okay to eat it. However, some people might interpret it as a green light for idolatrous practices. Paul decided he would never eat that meat again because he didn’t want to be a stumbling block to any spiritually weak people (1 Corinthians 8).

This is also why I will not practice yoga or ever offer it at my fitness studio.

To me, exercise is about glorifying the One, True, Living God, the Maker of Movement. Jesus’s teachings are above all others, and I must get rid of anything that isn’t in agreement with that. Take out all the spiritual components of yoga, and I still don’t want to be associated with something that blurs the lines or points people in the direction of a lie.

Yoga contradicts the Bible. It automatically links people up with the Hindu worldview, a dangerous deception that can result in serious spiritual problems. It can lead people away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and bait them into beliefs that can be detrimental to their soul.

Even if it were my intention to find common ground with people of different cultures, beliefs, and religions through yoga, that is not the intended purpose of yoga. It would be better to find another way.

Romans 12:2 says, “to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

The Bible also reminds us, “Do not be yoked with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ with Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18; 7:1).

Yoga is a pattern of the world. There are many other forms of exercise that I can do that are not rooted in other religions. I can worship while I work out and sometimes even have a supernatural experience with God not because of any exercise technique, but because I have an interactive relationship with a loving, personal Savior. For Him, I will I come out and separate myself. And I don’t need to practice yoga to show love to non-believers when I can simply share the Gospel when and wherever I'm called to do so.

So, did God really say I shouldn’t do yoga? Just because the Bible doesn’t say, “Thou shall not do yoga” doesn’t give me God’s approval to dismiss what I learned. I heard the hiss, asked for cleansing, and returned to other forms of exercise. I pray you will too.

For more on yoga (and what I’ve quoted here), refer to Seven Reasons I No Longer Practice Yoga by Mike Shreve.

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Since 2004, Tami McCandlish has worked alongside her husband coaching thousands of people in exercise and wellness.

She is a National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer, Behavior Change Specialist, Golf Fitness Specialist, Youth Exercise Specialist, and Fitness Nutritional Specialist, and holds a B.A. in English and Journalism from Ohio Wesleyan University.

Tami is also a writer and the author of Let the Bees Buzz: Finding Redemption in the Aftermath of School Bullying.

For more on connecting faith and fitness and for stories about the healing of broken hearts, minds, and bodies join her email list at www.tamimccandlish.com.