There is no official doctrine from the Catholic Church denouncing the practice of yoga. The question that yoga may have aspects which are incompatible with the Catholic faith has caused debate. Rev. John Hardon, a Jesuit priest is insistent that yoga is incompatible with the Catholic Church. Others, like Rev. Thomas Ryan, are convinced that Catholics can benefit from yoga. Rev. Thomas Ryan, a Paulist purist, is a yoga instructor. The "Yoga Journal" estimates 15 million people in the United States practice yoga.
Catholic Prayer
In general, Christianity is practiced between persons, whereas Eastern Religions focus the practitioner on his self. That is the basis of some dissent regarding Catholics and yoga. Catholic prayer is personal and communitarian at the same time. It is not based on impersonal techniques or concentrating on oneself. Catholic prayer leads to love of neighbor and to the acceptance of trials, which brings you closer to God. By receiving the Holy Spirit, you glorify God and share in the Trinity of God, Son, and Holy Spirit. St. Augustine wrote that to find God, you must abandon the exterior world, and re-enter into yourself. You are not to remain in yourself, but to go beyond yourself because you are not God. To remain inside your self is the danger. God is in you and with you, but he transcends you in his mystery.
Eastern Religion
Eastern meditation has focused on psychological symbolism, which is absent in western prayer. It ranges from specific postures to life functions like breathing or beating of the heart. Not all persons are able to pass from the material world to the spiritual world through these postures. Some exercises do produce a feeling of quiet and relaxation, resembling spiritual well-being. It would incorrect to give these feelings the significance of the interference of the Holy Spirit.
Meditation
Genuine practices of meditation come from the Christian East and non-Christian religions. Meditation cannot be considered improper because it can be a means of assisting the individual to come before God with internal peace. Each person needs to find her own form of prayer, which will let the Holy Spirit to guide her to God. The love of God cannot by mastered by method or technique. Connection with God does not depend on any particular method. There are different levels and different ways of sharing one's experience with prayer, but they do not have to always be exactly the same.
Yoga
The Catholic Church does not reject what is true and holy in other religions, nor are these ways rejected because they are not Christian. On the contrary, according to Pope Benedict XVI, you can take from them what is useful so long as the Christian concept of prayer, its logic and requirements are never obscured. Most westerners do not do yoga as a spiritual practice, but as a form of exercise. The physical poses of yoga promoting health and well being are acceptable.
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