HINDU YOGA CENTER PROMOTES CHRISTIAN, MUSLIM PRACTICES

HINDU YOGA CENTER PROMOTES CHRISTIAN, MUSLIM PRACTICES

http://www.ucanews.com/search/show.php?q=yoga&page=archives/english/2001/07/w2/mon/id9007fw.txt

AHMEDABAD, India (UCAN) July 9, 2001 A Hindu yoga practitioner in a western Indian state strives to promote religious harmony through meditation, but Christians and Muslims are skeptical.

Swami Adhyatmananda Maharaj told UCA News that his Shivananda Ashram is dedicated to "the Christian discipline of life, Muslim penance and Hindu methodology of prayer." The saffron-clad and clean-shaven yoga guru, who opened the center April 28 in Gujarat's Ahmedabad city, said his "primary aim" is to spread holiness of all religions through meditation. Gujarat has witnessed a hate campaign against Christians and Muslims in the past few years.

When the center's construction began four years ago, Maharaj placed beside the foundation stone some 50 million verses from various religious Scriptures inscribed on dried palm leaves. He used sand from all religious places, including the Vatican and Mecca in Saudi Arabia, to lay the foundation.

Also, Scripture texts of all religions were deposited before laying the center's concrete floor. The center's 418 square-meter meditation hall that can accommodate some 1,000 people is devoid of religious symbols or pictures.

"Meditation is for all (hence) our center does not look like a temple, church or a mosque," explained Maharaj, who has conducted yoga camps for the Indian army, various universities and private enterprises.

Maharaj said he recommends the Indian system for all, including Christians and Muslims, as a spiritual exercise for a better life. His center conducts meditation classes in the mornings and interreligious prayers in the evenings that many, except Christians and Muslims, attend. At the evening gatherings, he uses prayers of all religions. On certain evenings, he starts prayer with the Marian rosary that the predominantly Hindu gathering recites in English in a singsong manner. The center also uses Muslim and Hindu prayers, but in Hindi. "Humanity is my religion and culture is my language," he said.

Maharaj said his meditation classes have few Christians and Muslims because the two communities are "living in their own ghettos without mixing with other religious groups." He said he plans to distribute pamphlets to interested Christian and Muslim families, churches, mosques and madrasas (Islamic learning centers) to "encourage them to learn yoga."

Rashidmian Qureshi, a Muslim butcher, said, "Our culture and all routine occupation depend on beliefs that Hindus oppose in open and practice in confidentiality." He asked, "How will meditation help hand-to-mouth people like us?"

Other Muslims in Ahmedabad, some 915 kilometers southwest of New Delhi, said they live in clusters in the city's eastern parts, to ward off attacks from majority Hindus.

Jesuit Fr. Ishanand Vempeney and other Christians said Maharaj's acts are only symbolic and do not translate into action. "There may be exceptions but a majority of those preaching hypothetically, never practice it," said the Ahmedabad-based priest, who has published a book on Jesus and the Hindu lord Krishna.

George Sebastian, a Christian in Ahmedabad who tried to practice yoga, found it "not that helpful" to relieve stress as yoga experts claim. Some yoga centers, he alleged, "either siphon foreign funds or snatch prime property. Maharaj, who built the center on a 1.61-hectare plot, dismissed such allegations saying, "What matters is the dedication to self."

Surendra Joshi, a regular visitor to the center, said the center keeps them occupied that they hardly find time to think about caste or religion. The center provides free homeopathic, ayurvedic and naturopathy clinics and conducts corrective surgery for those afflicted with cataract or stroke.

In early June a visitor alleged that Maharaj tried to sodomize him. But Maharaj dismissed the charges as malicious. "The publicity and acceptance the center and I get have forced someone to make such a case," he said.

Local police officials told UCA News that they have not recorded any case against Maharaj. END

I HAVE INCLUDED THIS REPORT BECAUSE IT INTRIGUES ME. Here, we have a Jesuit priest who himself is favorable to Yoga and the Ashrams movement [he is a contributor to Vandana Mataji’s (ed.) occult work Shabda Shakti Sangam] criticising a HINDU who is doing exactly what many of his own Catholic compatriots are engaged in fulltime – syncreticizing religious practices !!!  e.g.:

From: "Goanet Events" <goanet@goanet.org> To: <goanet@goanet.org> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 9:44 AM
Subject: [Goanet] Dance Workshop on "YESHUKATHA" THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE, GOA: prog@incentgoa.com
In collaboration with SADHANALAYA Presents TRAINING WORKSHOP on YESHUKATHA Story of birth of Jesus Christ
The workshop will include Yoga session conducted by Ms. Urvashi Desai and a half day workshop on "Aharya (the costuming) and its place in performing  art". Directed by: Dr. Sharmila Rao Starting from: Monday, November 13th, 2006 Classes on: Monday - Wednesday – Saturday. Time: 5:30 pm Venue: The International Centre, Goa, Dona Paula, Goa

For Registration & Inquiries contact: Freda Coutinho at 2452805-10 Ext. 603 or prog1@incentgoa.com

FOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED LETTERS OUT OF THOUSANDS RECEIVED BY THIS MINISTRY:

1. From: XXX To: michaelprabhu@vsnl.net Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 9:52 AM Subject: Re: yoga
Hi Mike Personally, I would never get into yoga... but it's so hard to advise others since every priest I know has a positive opinion of it. ... Regards XXX, Chennai

2. From: "L Scott" <avonlise@hotmail.com>    To: <michaelprabhu@vsnl.net>

Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 6:35 PM                Subject: hatha yoga info needed

Michael,  I happened to come across your website as a link from the catholic answers forum. and so i looked and was VERY impressed with it! so much so, that it is now in my favorites link, keep up the GREAT work! i heard that comment about the dieties from a man who used to do yoga, and had a conversion…  The man’s name is Marino Restrepo. His website is http://marinorestrepo.com/  Lise

3. From: marinorestrepo@hotmail,.com  To: michaelprabhu@vsnl.net Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 11:58 PM

Subject: Greetings from Toronto, Canada

Hi Michael: Thank you for your letter. I visited your web site again. Thank you for your great work. All of the information you are providing is vital for these times we are living, please keep it up good soldier of Christ!

In Christ Jesus, Marino Restrepo

4. From: Maria-Del-Pilar.Gonzalez-Pantaleon@ec.europa.eu Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 2:30 PM

Hello Michael, Thank you very much for your article. It is very interesting. I am going to pass it around and to put it in my church. I hope more people know about this. I did yoga for 5 years in a centre managed by a Carmelite priest. Thanks to God, six years ago I listened some tapes on the testimony of someone who did yoga for many years, and how after he has to be delivered from it, and I understood that it was incompatible with Christianity. But still there is so many Christians who do it, and who just consider it a kind of soft gymnastics...

May God bless, protect and guide you in your work to uncover all these New Age lies. Pilar