Yoga and the First Commandment

So the word Yoga means ‘union’ so depending on who you are and what worldview you hold that can have many different possibilities. But for us Christians, practicing yoga means union or communion with God the Father, union with Christ and Holy Spirit. The trinity is a great analogy of yoga as the trinity represents Father God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. We are a body, we have a mind and a soul. Jesus prayed in John 17: 22 I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one.

If you are born again you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. This practice can be an opportunity to come into alignment, revelation, and obedience of the first commandment to Love the Lord God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and the second and equally important to love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you continue to practice the awareness of your identity in Christ and have the mind of Christ renewed in you,  you realize you literally are carrying the Kingdom everywhere you go you are an ambassador for Christ. 

So how does the practice of yoga help us to live out the first command? We are moving our bodies this is what has been given to us. Not to neglect the body but to use it to his glory and worship. We being the temple of the Holy Spirit. We being a collective body being built together Christ being the head. Breathing in the breath of life as he has given us we feel it in our physical body. We renew our mind as we take all thoughts captive by becoming aware shining the light of awareness on those thoughts and meditating on the word as we move. I ask that you ask the Holy Spirit in your movement what verse he is speaking to you as you move or get into certain poses. And we are practicing presence getting into his presence will get you from this anxious mind which is worry about the future to this renewing of the mind that God holds your future. There is a peace of God that transcends understanding that comes from being in the presence of God. We practice that as well. We activate kingdom qualities as we move from pose to pose and notice the steam of thought and gives us an opportunity to practice on ourselves recognizing a critical judgmental spirit into cultivating this garden of Eden in our mind of the fruits of the spirit. We are partnering with him to becoming a gardener of our minds.