What is a "Christian Yoga?"

Who is the “god” (īśvara) of Classical Yoga? This paper engages a persistent question in Indian philosophy and modern yoga through an extended investigation of the figure of īśvara in Classical Yoga. I specifically analyze the “īśvara sūtras” of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra in view of premodern, modern, and contemporary interpretations. I conclude that while the driving theme of the text is not a theistic devotionalism, the work still contains and boasts a supreme divinity capable of assisting the yoga practitioner in their quest for ultimate liberation. Īśvara may not be soteriologically indispensable for Patañjali, but devotion to “Him” remains a viable liberatory option to any aspirant disinclined to the path of self-reliance. Accordingly, we may wonder what Yoga’s theism means for Christians—or the alternatively religious or non-religious—who already practice yoga or who are “yoga curious.”

While forms of yoga have been practiced for thousands of years, “Christian” yoga practices are a newer phenomenon. Rather than researching Christians engaging in yoga practices today from a historical or text-based analysis, my interest arose out of my familiarity with several Christian-based yoga organizations, studios, and teacher trainings. Therefore, I ask how American Christians view their yoga practice using their own words and how Christians are molding yoga to fit within their previous spiritual commitments. This presentation is based on a previous project conducted in 2020 and my current interest in the intersections of yoga and  interreligious dialogue. This paper argues that when viewing the lived experience of Christians who practice yoga should be seen as an interreligious phenomenon between Christianity and what Jain and others have termed neo-liberalist spiritual movements, thus giving religious studies scholars a framework for evaluating Christians who practice yoga.

How might la labor de nuestras manos [the work of our hands] serve as a means to connect with the Divine, to find union with the Holy?  And how does this understanding have deep resonances in both the Christian and the Dharmic Traditions?  Nineteenth-century Bengali sanyāsī [monk] Swami Vivekananda came to espouse the understanding that seva [selfless service] is actually karma yoga (the yogic path of action), a true means for union with the Divine through our actions of selfless service.  Similarly, Jesus reminded us that whenever we serve the least of these, we are in fact serving Jesus.  Therefore, when our actions embody selfless service, we find union with the Divine, we experience communion with the Holy.  In this way, la labor de nuestras manos can be our lived-out yogic worship.  Our very way of life of selfless service to others, rooted in deep theology, becomes our worshipful praxis.

It is clear that American evangelicals’ relationship to modern postural yoga is a fraught one. This paper, based on ethnographic research conducted among Christian yoga practitioners, draws attention to the strategies by which a Christian-based yoga makes sense of the relationship between yoga and Hinduism in order to subvert concerns around the worship of other deities. This relationship is articulated in three ways:  (1) yoga as having mixed-up roots, (2) yoga as predating Hinduism, and (3) yoga as a gift to the West. In order to navigate the ethical and spiritual tensions that practitioners face regarding yoga’s religious entanglements, a Christian-based yoga must first construct yoga as a universal spirituality or philosophy that is easily detached from any one religious context. Only when properly disentangled from other religious traditions can modern postural yoga be transformed and re-appropriated into an acceptably Christian practice.