Pumkinnoodle, while those are great documents that you list, Yoga within the church is quite controversial. You have those who practice yoga as Christian meditation, and those who severely criticize them. Priests from India, for example, have no illusions that Yoga opens you up to the occult, and see Yoga as a form of Hindu proselytizing in the West. They don't accept Christian yoga. Given their closeness to the source, I tend to trust them.

To practice yoga is to practice a part of Hinduism. I have a hard time convincing people, but I know from personal experience that yoga and Christianity do not mix. There are plenty of exercises, including stretching exercises that one can do which will not compromise your Catholic faith. Please don't listen to pumpkin noodle.
My husband was a practicing Hindu for 20 years and had a guru, Gurumaya - http://www.siddhayoga.org/gurumayi-chidvilasananda She said "If you have Jesus stay with Jesus." I used to do yoga and it is not just breathing and stretching and posing, although many people want to pass it off as harmless.

Hi CandiHurliman: Wow! That is really interesting! Did he always practice with a Yoga Guru?

The type of yoga I do doesn't involve a guru. Do you think all yoga goes against the churches teachings or are some yoga styles harmless?

Just curious to know more of your thoughts. Thank you for sharing! Peace be with you

Yoga means yoke. Who or what are you meditating on to achieve union with? Whose yoke?

Wikipedia: "Yoga (Sanskrit, Pāli: योग, yoga) is the Hindu practice of physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India.[1][2] The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on the Hindu concept of divinity or Brahman.[3] The word is associated with meditative practices in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.[4][5][6]"

The document written by Ratzinger makes some great points. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19891015_meditazione-cristiana_en.html

27. Eastern Christian meditation32 has valued psychophysical symbolism, often absent in western forms of prayer. It can range from a specific bodily posture to the basic life functions, such as breathing or the beating of the heart. The exercise of the "Jesus Prayer," for example, which adapts itself to the natural rhythm of breathing can, at least for a certain time, be of real help to many people.33 On the other hand, the eastern masters themselves have also noted that not everyone is equally suited to making use of this symbolism, since not everybody is able to pass from the material sign to the spiritual reality that is being sought. Understood in an inadequate and incorrect way, the symbolism can even become an idol and thus an obstacle to the raising up of the spirit to God. To live out in one's prayer the full awareness of one's body as a symbol is even more difficult: it can degenerate into a cult of the body and can lead surreptitiously to considering all bodily sensations as spiritual experiences.

31. The love of God, the sole object of Christian contemplation, is a reality which cannot be "mastered" by any method or technique. On the contrary, we must always have our sights fixed on Jesus Christ, in whom God's love went to the cross for us and there assumed even the condition of estrangement from the Father.
-
As for myself, I am not aware that 'exercise' has ever been a form of Christian asceticism. I see in myself and in others the risk of degenerating to a cult of the body— even more so in exercise that is practiced outside a particular spiritual tradition.

i have a friend who inspired me to join mfp by taking a 60 day yoga challenge, so I asked him his opinion.... here is his answer

In my reading/understanding of it, yoga itself is not a religious devotion. It's not dedicated to Krishna or Buddha or any other god. Rather, Hatha (physical) yoga is to prepare to the body to mediate/to worship.

Which gets into the more complicated history of things. The system of yoga is actually made up of 8 different limbs. However, in the United States, the yoga we talk about almost exclusively is the Hatha yoga: the physical poses used to condition, purify, and prepare the body for meditation and devotion.

There are 8 original Hatha yoga poses. These poses brought the muscles/bones into the proper alignment so that one could sit for extended periods of time and meditate. The master pose was lotus, which looks like a very crossed crossed-legged position. In this position, the lower body quickly loeses circulation, allowing the person to sit for a long time with no disturbance.

So, in the end, the hatha yoga is not the religious part of it. Rather, it's preparation for a religious/spiritual time.

And especially in the United States, we're focusing on only one limb of the yoga and not the larger system. It's the most accessible and adaptable (started with 8 poses, and at this point, every teacher has a different name/stye/set up/alignment for too many poses to count).

SO, that's my long-winded and hopefully coherent explanation!

My understanding is that Yoga is an ancient practice, originating in Hindu culture (certainly far-eastern). The practice has a religious goal; it is not simply or merely a physical exercise. If the issue was only the physical movements, postures, stretching, exercise, etc., there would be no issue. The issue is that Yoga, is a religious practice that is designed to bring about a certain state of mind in harmony with one’s body and all of this is in the service of a Hindu outlook on reality. To the degree, then, that Christianity disagrees with the Hindu perspective on the world, it will also disagree with the practice of Yoga. If someone were to say, “I do Yoga just for the physical benefits but don’t pay attention to all the religious aspects of it,” I would probably find little to disagree with. If, on the other hand, a person buys into the religious meaning or goals of the practice I would have to disagree.

can you please site some Hindu outlooks on reality that are evil ?

I never used the word evil. Hindu outlooks on reality differ from that of the Catholic church. Are you asking me to explain Hinduism?

I certainly support a “healthy mind/body connection,” etc. A problem enters, however, when what constitutes “health” involves a whole religious/philosophical outlook that conflicts with Christian faith (at least for Christians this should be problematic). Hinduism (and far-eastern religions in general) see the sensory world (including the body) as an illusion of sorts (“maya”). Their meditative methods are intended to train the mind to gradually move towards overcoming that illusion and becoming “one” with the one supreme reality that is hidden behind the illusion of this sensory life. As a Christian, I believe that the sensory world is real and that the “Supreme One” (God) is other than this world (transcendent). In Hinduism, the supreme reality (Brahma) is in fact identical to ourselves but we have to come to see that through a gradual process of enlightenment. There are certainly good things that we can learn from all of this (especially ways of calming the mind, meditating, etc.) but there are also things to be concerned about. Yoga is a meditative practice during which the mind is largely passive and non-critical in respect to the implied philosophical and religious meanings of the practice. Under these conditions, then, it seems wise that a Christian not participate in full-blown Yoga practices. If there is a way to practical Yoga stripped of those meanings, I don’t see a problem with that.

If a Christian celebrates Christmas or hunts for Easter eggs and believes some pagan ideas about those things, he would be guilty of idolatry or something of the sort. If a Christian celebrates Christmas out of respect for the birth of Christ and believes that by celebrating this event on a pagan feast of the Sun god he is showing the triumph of Christianity over paganism, I don’t have a problem with that. If a Christian “makes fun” of evil things on Halloween, that's one thing. If a Christian worships evil spirits or evil beings on Halloween, that is quite another. That takes us back to Yoga. If Yoga can be sufficiently distanced from embracing certain ideas that are contradictory to Christian faith, a Christian might be able to participate in it. Your last remarks suggest this and I’ve already indicated that potentially would be fine. I don’t know if it is still “Yoga,” though.

will try again.

From the new st. joseph's people's prayer book preceding the section of prayers titled prayers from other religions

ratsI still don't know how to resize pics properly.. this last paragraph reads: "the council stressed that "the Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence...those teachings which, though differing in many respects from the ones she holds and sets fort, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all people"

I don’t know if it is still “Yoga,” though.

exactly. Does sitting on crossed legs count?

Maybe technically not Yoga...but it's easier to say "yoga" than "stretching and breathing exercises that are similar to yoga but with the religious aspect removed." One of these days, maybe we'll come up with our own name for it...problem solved...no more controversy.

I'm wondering how naked yoga fits into this thread???

These kinds of comments are better suited in the Chit-Chat, Fun and Games forum. I'm sure you'll get the response you were going for there.

I don't think the OP should be terrified that PX90 will be responsible for her burning in hell for eternity.

I don't see where anyone made any such suggestion, and I doubt anyone in this group believes that. I was giving the Church's position on why yoga has not been recommended for Catholics in the past.

She asked if yoga was a practice of prayer to false gods and she got the history of yoga. We also explained that some "yoga" that is done now isn't the same as that religious practice. So, is yoga "bad" for Catholics? Answer: depends in how you're defining yoga and how it's being done.