But if one plunges with both feet into yogic spirituality while also pursuing a conventional faith, one risks what theologians call syncretism—or "riding two horses at once," as Needleman puts it. "It's very hard sometimes to try to be a deep Christian contemplative and at the same time be a Hindu—a Vedantan, let's say," he notes. "Not because they disagree but because the imagery sometimes is so conflicting."
Reconstructionist rabbi Sheila Weinberg also believes that syncretism is a real danger for yoga students. . . . . "I think you have to choose a community and history and identity that's going to be your home," she says. "And then I think it's possible to borrow really excellent, valuable practices that can be seen as nondenominational from other traditions. [But only if] we don't start getting confused in terms of belonging to many different communities, because then everything will be dissipated."
Huston Smith cautions anyone who mixes yoga and religion to consider the ego that does the mixing. Many people, he notes, approach their spirituality "salad bar" style, as if saying to themselves, "Oh, I think I'll take a little hatha yoga for my body and a little vipassana for my meditation." Observes Smith: "As [late Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chˆgyam] Trungpa said, the error there is thinking you know what you need. But if you knew that, Trungpa concluded, you would already be at the end of the spiritual path instead of the beginning."
From Reconcilable Differences
The question on everyone's mind: Does yoga conflict with my religion? Yoga Journal
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