If you practice yoga or any Eastern form of meditation different from biblical meditation, you are "opening the door wide to the enemy," Christian blogger Rosilind Jukic contends.
Writing for Charisma News, Jukic says, "Any time we mix Christian discipline with any other religious practice, we anger God."
She based her statement on the Bible verse in Deuteronomy 12:29-32, which says, "The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, 'How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.' You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshipping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods. See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it."
Jukic says yoga practitioners may argue that what they are doing is harmless since they don't use yoga for worship and are only doing it to relieve stress.
However, she says Christians should know that whatever they do in their lives should be to glorify God. "If anything we're doing does not glorify God—but, in fact, is used to glorify another god—we should immediately reject it and eliminate it from our lives!" she says.
Instead of practicing yoga or any other forms of Eastern meditation (Zen meditation, transcendental meditation, Chinese or Hindu meditation), Christians who want to relieve stress in their lives should try biblical meditation, Jukic says. Biblical meditation is done by "speaking the Word, muttering it to ourselves, mulling over it, and imagining how our lives should fit in its context," she says.
The Croatian missionary says biblical mediation reaches a "much deeper level than reading, studying, praying and even memorising" the Scripture since by doing so, people can contemplate deeply what each passage actually means to them personally.
She cites some of the pitfalls of Eastern meditation:
1. It empties the mind, giving Satan room to fill it with his deception.
2. It focuses on self, stopping people from focusing on Christ.
3. It tries to relieve stress, but man's problem is not stress but a much deeper one: pride, from which springs worry and fear that lead to stress.
4. It focuses on man being in control of himself to achieve peace, tranquillity and oneness with deity, thus dethroning God.
5. It is only escapism, with stress coming back once people return to their normal state of consciousness.
