Does doing yoga make you a Hindu?

[Fortis in Arduis]

I don't know much about it in deep, but yoga people do in the west has only the faintest resemblance to the practices of the hindu mystics. Yoga and meditation were designed to enable a person to quiet the body and superfucial mind and go deeper into sustained prayer to God. About the stretching part i said, it basically says get control of yourself, your actions, and your thoughts, through yoga postures and meditation, so that you can have single-minded intense focus and prayer on God. Most people in the US, of course, seem to not want the God part, so many yoga instructors just make it into an exercise program. A lot of people recommend Hatha for beginners, because it tends to be gentler and slower. Hatha will help with mindfulness and relaxation, but it might not be enough if yoga is your main form of exercise. Hatha can actually be seen as a reaction against classic yoga in many ways, rather than an expression or evolution of it.

In the past, my practise made more sense when I used it for that purpose. Many or at least the best practicioners do, but it is generally kept as a private matter, separate from posture practise. Hatha yoga as a reaction against classic yoga is an old and familiar theme in writings from the early 20th Century, as it was seen by many as heretical.

[Leo Iscariot]

Does doing a Hindu make you yoga?

[dollymehta]

not really yoga is a part of exercise.

[Mortimer]

i know a guy who in school rejected a meditation class because he was a christian. i dont think it makes you hindu, and hinduism has lots of wisdom in my opinion

[Goujian]

No. Just like meditation doesn't make you a Buddhist or lighting incense on an ancestral altar doesn't make you a Confucian/Taoist/etc.

[Anthropos]

Yoga is a complete body, mind and spirit system that really made me feel awesome when doing it.

Sums up the nature and purpose of yoga well, in my opinion, and I say that as someone who does not recommend it. Yoga is a spiritual discipline but it's not compatible with Christianity, in my opinion.

[jute]

No

[idioteque]

No.

In America practicing yoga is pretty common mostly among women.

[Loki]

Yoga is originating in Hinduism and Hindu philosophy and spirituality -- hence, for a Christian like me it is not approved and undesirable. We will have no fellowship with foreign religions, it is idolatry and can carry demonic baggage as well.

[Larali]

Yoga is a form of exercise here.

I don't understand it, myself-- but my daughter loves it. She's 11, and far from a Hindu