Q: What is the view of the Syro-Malabar Synod on yoga? How do you compare it with the West’s view on yoga? To what extent can we accept yoga?
A: “Yoga as a physical exercise for concentration has been practised since centuries. It means putting the body to a calm and quiet position and bringing the mind under one’s control. But many gurus went to the West and introduced yoga as a method of spiritual fulfilment. It was a time when people lost control over their own psyche and body due to the pressures of the industrial revolution. Mental concentration became a big problem for them. These yoga gurus offered a shortcut to keep their mind and body composed and concentrated. Consequently, they understood or misunderstood yoga as a means of attaining spiritual fulfilment or divine experience. Many are practising yoga in the West with that kind of an aim in mind. But, in India, yoga is mainly used as physical exercise, controlling breathing and attaining concentration. It is a holistic way of dealing with the mind and the body. It has nothing to do with spi-ritual or religious experience. As Christians, our experience of divinity is related to the person of Jesus Christ. Our concept of God is very personal. Christ experience is a personal experience for us. Our intimate relation-ship with the person of Jesus cannot be attained through any physical posture. We cannot have a God experience through a regime of physical and mental exercises. For the practitioners of yoga, transcendental experience is very impersonal. According to them, anybody who reaches a particular level of concentration achieves some kind of transcendence, which we don’t accept.”

Abp Kuriakose Bharanikulangara
Faridabad