Expert: Brenda Martin - 10/22/2008

Question
QUESTION: Hello, How are you?
I have a simple question...Here it goes!
Why do Christian and Catholic believers disapprove of Yoga/meditation and OBE's (Out Of Body experiences)?
Thank you for your time.


ANSWER: The objective of yoga as a discipline is to lead a person to the spiritual experience of being “yoked” to or merged with a superhuman spirit. But which spirit would that be?

In Hindu World, author Benjamin Walker says of yoga: “It may have been an early system of magical ritualism, and yoga still retains in its meaning an overtone of occultism and sorcery.” Hindu philosophers admit that the practice of yoga can give supernatural powers, even though they usually claim that this is not the ultimate goal of yoga. For example, in the book Indian Philosophy, former president of India, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, says of the yogi that “control of the body through postures results in an indifference to the extremes of heat and cold. . . . The yogin can see and hear at a distance . . . Transmission of thought from one individual to another without the intervention of the normal communicating mechanisms is quite possible. . . . The yogi can make his body invisible.”

Out-of-body experiences “have time and again nurtured speculations about a soul that is independent of the body.”

whereas the bible tells us the "soul" is yourself, when we die the soul dies.(Ezk 18;4)there is no soul that lives independantly of the body.

For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten. Also, their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they have no portion anymore to time indefinite in anything that has to be done under the sun. All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol [mankind’s common grave], the place to which you are going.”—Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10.

Certainly the Bible leaves no room for considering near-death experiences as a prelude to life after death. King Solomon’s description of death and its effects has no hints of an immortal soul surviving into some other form of conscious existence. The dead “are conscious of nothing at all.”

all the best
Brenda

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: So the point of Yoga being disaproved by Christians and Catholics is the fact that far back, yoga was considered an occult to reach our inner spirit and to reach a "super human spirit". From my understanding, God disaproves anyone who comes into contact (spiritually)with or to worship any other "super being" but himself, God. Correct?
Also, regarding on the Out Of Body Experience, you said:
"whereas the bible tells us the "soul" is yourself, when we die the soul dies.(Ezk 18;4)there is no soul that lives independantly of the body." If that is so, how would we reach our final destination to "heaven or hell" once we have surpassed death? Why do some people claim that they have experienced the "tunnel of light", joy, detachment from the body, and a feeling of isolation that strikingly resembles the same symptoms similar to OBE shortly before death?  

Answer
HI Jimmie, you said--"GOD DISAPROVES ANYONE WHO COMES INTO CONTACT (SPIRITUALLY) WITH, OR TO WORSHIP ANY OTHER "SUPER BEING" BUT HIMSELF, GOD, CORRECT?"

There is only ONE “super being” & that is the Almighty Creator of all things, so anyone else folk try to contact are lesser, but what has to be remembered also is, we cannot contact dead humans, so if we make any kind of contact with anything, it is not human, but demonic. So yes God would not approve of folk trying to contact demons; as for worship that goes without saying, God deserves & expects exclusive devotion.

"HOW WOULD WE REACH OUR FINAL DESTINATION TO "HEAVEN OR HELL" ONCE WE HAVE SURPASSED DEATH?"

Ah good question; & the answer lies in knowing what & where mankind’s final destination lies. So just briefly for now, the bible tells us what God’s original purpose was & still is for man; that he live forever here on earth, man’s final destination was never “heaven or hell” because Adam & Eve were meant to live forever without ever dying. With that purpose in mind for mankind, there is no need for man to have an immortal soul that survives death, if you see what I mean.

Put another way; when Jesus died on earth we know his “final destination” WAS heaven, how did God achieve that? God resurrected Jesus from the grave, with no mention of an immortal soul, because if Jesus had one he wouldn’t have needed a resurrection would he?

"WHY DO SOME PEOPLE CLAIM THAT THEY HAVE EXPERIENCED SAME SYMPTOMS SIMILAR TO OBE SHORTLY BEFORE DEATH?"

Swiss neurologists, using electrodes to pinpoint the origin of a woman’s epileptic seizures, accidentally triggered so-called out-of-body experiences in the patient, states the German science news service Bild der Wissenschaft-Online. Each time the angular gyrus of the right cortex of the brain was stimulated, the woman reported the sensation of leaving her body and watching it from above. That area of the brain seems to match visual awareness of the body with sensory information on where the body is located. “The stimulation by electrodes disrupted this interaction in the patient, for which reason her sense of perception seemingly detached itself from her body,” says Bild der Wissenschaft. Out-of-body experiences “have time and again nurtured speculations about a soul that is independent of the body.”

The medical editor of The Arizona Republic wrote: “When physical prowess is at its lowest ebb, as under anesthesia, or the result of disease or injury, automatic control of bodily functions diminishes accordingly. Thus, the neurohormones and catecholamines of the nervous system are released and pour out in uncontrolled quantity. The result, among other manifestations, is the hallucination, rationalized after returning to consciousness, of having died and returned to life.”—May 28, 1977, p. C-1; also the German medical journal Fortschritte der Medizin, No. 41, 1979; Psychology Today, January 1981.

I am happy to answer any further questions this may have raised.

All the best
Brenda