Meditation and yoga are uniting peoples and religions as this news article shows:
Members of Latter-day Saints turn to yoga for its physical and spiritual benefits
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Wendy Cullum lay flat on her back completely relaxed in “shavasana” or “corpse pose,” a common closing position in a yoga class.
She and several other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were finishing up a 90-minute session in the sanctuary of the only Hindu temple in Spanish Fork, Utah, a bucolic community about 55 miles (88 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City.
This small Thursday evening yoga class at Shri Shri Radha Krishna Temple in the heart of Mormon country is an example of the embrace of yoga and meditation among members of the faith, widely known as the Mormon church.
Yoga in Sanskrit means “union with the divine.” For Cullum, her practice helps deepen her connection to her Mormon faith and God, though yoga originated as an ancient spiritual practice in India rooted in Hindu philosophy.
“When I close my eyes and focus on him during shavasana, it helps me leave all my worries behind and trust in God more,” said Cullum, who has been practicing for five years.
She’s not alone. Many Latter-day Saints who do yoga and other contemplative practices — mindfulness, breath work, meditation and more — say they are able to seamlessly integrate their faith into the process.
This is not a new phenomenon either. A 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center found 27% of members of the church believe in yoga not just as exercise, but as a spiritual practice, compared with 23% of the general public who share this belief.
Reconciling a spiritual identity crisis
Philip McLemore, a former U.S. Air Force and hospice chaplain, taught other members of his faith how to meditate for more than a decade. His yoga practice started earlier than that following a spinal injury. Yoga not only helped him heal physically, he said, but it also made him more compassionate.
Unable to achieve this positive change with his faith alone, McLemore questioned his spiritual identity.
“I had to ask: Who am I?” McLemore said. “Am I a Mormon guy, a Christian? Or am I this yogi guy?”
He found his answer in Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
McLemore emphasized the word “yoke,” which shares the same Indo-European root word — yeug or yuj — as “yoga.” It means to join or unite.
He determined that Christ’s teachings are consistent with the classic yogas in the Bhagvad Gita, the main Hindu sacred text, which speaks to the eternal nature of the soul. McLemore’s struggle ended there and his two worlds merged.
His practice now takes place in front of a small shrine in his study, with a figurine of Christ in a meditative pose flanked by those of Hindu gods Krishna bearing a flute and Shiva performing his cosmic dance.
Synthesizing yogic practices with Mormonism
For some like Thomas McConkie, delving deeper into “yogic meditative paths” led him back to his Mormon roots. He had left the faith at 13 and stayed away for two decades.
“I realized there were resonances in the depths of that practice that were calling me back home to my native tradition, to my ancestry,” he said.
As he re-embraced the faith of his childhood, McConkie said he began to see a path unfold before him forged by contemplatives, such as the early Christian hermits who traversed the Egyptian desert in the 4th and 5th centuries. Eight years ago, McConkie founded Lower Lights in Salt Lake City, a community of meditators, many of whom, like him, synthesize their contemplative faith with their Mormon faith.
“In Latter-day Saint theology, all matter is spirit and all creation is actually composed of divine light,” McConkie said. “Yogic and meditative practices help us bring forth that light and live our lives in a way that glorifies the divine.”
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