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Jesus teach me Yoga Bethel’s holy (unholy) yoga Beni Johnson, wife of Bill Johnson is a pastor at their Bethel Redding Church. Among her many spiritual practices that are not found in the Bible (like contemplative prayer from the mystics and practicing reflexology) she also is a yoga practitioner, in what has become known as Yahweh yoga (on her face book page). these consist of unbiblical practices derived from other spiritual systems that Christians should Not be practicing nor even experimenting with because of the origins and anti-Christ nature of the beliefs and practices surrounding them Apparently, Bill and Beni want to lead the Bethel Church movement and certainly Christianity into taking back yoga, to redeem it from Hinduism, Buddhism and the New Age movement, because according to Bethel’s philosophy laid out in their book, the physics of Heaven it was taken from Christianity. The proof of this outrageous claim is completely non - existent. They claim they are taking the eastern aspect of yoga out, (so why then, even call it yoga)? Because, the word Yoga means to be yoked with (to become one with) Brahman, the highest Hindu God. Bethel (like others) are purposely attempting to repackage yoga in order to get the Christian church to practice it. Yoga is being used and practiced in an even greater degree by them than the Interfaith Emergent Church movement, if they can incorporate yoga into the Church today, then ultimately nothing could be forbidden to enter the Church in the future, anything could be used by them in their pragmatic approach of redeeming anything, not only from the New Age movement but from any religious or occultic practice; for they say, “there are precious truths hidden in the New Age that belong to us as Christians and need to be extracted from the worthless.” Jonathan Welton one of the authors of The Physics of Heaven says “Every time a counterfeit shows up, take it as the Lord presenting you with an opportunity to reclaim . . . the Church’s stolen property.” This clearly includes yoga.
Bethels Statements of Practice “We know that yoga is a spiritual discipline much like fasting, meditation, and prayer that cannot be owned by one specific religion. While yoga predates Hinduism, Hindus were the first to give yoga a written structure. Yoga postures were originally named in Sanskrit. Holy Yoga teaches instructors to teach in their native tongue to avoid any confusion.” Stating that, Yoga predates Hinduism,is not true. She learned wrong, Yoga is directly attached to Hinduism. The Hindu book “the Baghavad Gita” lists Lord Shiva, who is called “The Destroyer,” as Yogeshwara, the Lord of Yoga, the first Hatha Yoga teacher. His hair is entwined in serpents. That’s where yoga came from. He is immersed in his own divine nature, as the serpent energy of the Goddess Kundalini - flows around and through his body. They say, “Holy yoga is experiential worship created to deepen people’s connection to Christ.” They say Yoga will change you as a human. Yes it certainly will but it will never change you into the image of Christ as they claim. On their website it says, “we are Christ centered,” that may settle it for some people. But these words carry no weight, for the Bible says God hates a mixture. And you can’t have more of a impure mixture than yoga with Christ, and the Bible; the Bible which is our God’s word. In one video they actually introduce it by saying “we are serenity, we are peace, we are yoga, we are Jesus.” Really they are yoga and JESUS! Then several women repeat “I am Holy Yoga.” Then they are holding up signs that say peace love and yoga, warriors, chosen and most ironic, “truth seekers.” It is sad and very disturbing to see how deceived they are to embraced this inside the church. https://holyyoga.net/training-overview/ One yoga master from Bethel states in her appeal to join them, “What is yoga what is its history, what are chakras, what are sutras, yamas and niyamas … what does God think about them?” Since They say their mission is to bring the love of Christ through this modality of yoga. However, Biblically God rejects it. Why? Because the Bible does not give us any example of using another religions practices and ways to bring the gospel message, and the Lord says, “what does light have to do with darkness.” Brook Boon, on the topic of “om” she says in the classic sense “it is the vibrational hum of the universe. That at the base of everything is this hum or vibration that is the unifying sound of the universe…. They practice the om in order to combine energies in class basically. So its not about a deity, it’s not necessarily about worship at all… there is this natural hum of the universe, this creative hum and what we want to do is om so that all of us get on the same collective page. … the idea is to bring the energy together. She then explains we do not om because it lends itself to more questions than answers. In other words it would cause controversy and she has no problem doing it but. “So our perspective prayer does the same thing... Let me stop here to ask "is that what prayer does?" Bring energy together? She has reinterpreted what biblical prayer is. She goes on to say there’s nothing inherently wrong with om as well. When we teach the energy portion, the chakra portion… we use scripture from first John 1:1-5. She goes on to misinterpret this passage as an idea of speaking in creation “God was the word, God is the word… so there is this essence of vibration in speaking, the word is the vibration, and it is a frequency of how God emulates himself. She then says in the creation story that God spoke creation into existence, so inherently when we speak there is this vibrational tone that creates…” (To Om or not to Om Christian yoga daily meditation- Brook Boon) Concerning this bizarre misinterpretation of 1st John 1:1-5 … In 2nd Peter 3:16, it says, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter, in reference to some things hard to understand says … “That untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also to the rest of the Scriptures”. The sad thing about them using 1st John 1:1-5 in this false way, is that anybody taught the Bible correctly would never interpret it in the way they have, their interpretation is a typical new age interpretation, completely divorced from the biblical perspective. This idea is fully incorporated in Bethel through their teachings in the book The Physics from Heaven and opens the door for a new age view. So it encourages Christians “Exploring the mysteries of God in sound, light, vibrations, frequencies, energy, and quantum physics.” They describe God as bringing a new sound vibration from heaven to earth, a new Pentecost. Judy Franklin writes in the book a prophetic word on the importance of this sound. "the people who hear this sound that I will release will be changed. This sound that I will release will cause people to think differently.” They go on to say that this sound will change our DNA itself, along with other unbiblical things that Gods word does not address or teaches. The girl who is teaching Yoga has very little knowledge of what true yoga really is and the sadder thing is, is that she is teaching and deceiving others into this, as she is deceived herself. In Hinduism Om is a meditative chant that one does before, during or after the yoga asanas (body postures). Brahma the creator said, “I am one, but may I become many?” According to Hinduism This thought created a vibration that settled into a sound- Om and from this vibration, everything in the universe sprang into existence. Om is also a representation of the four states of the Supreme Being as one embraces the stillness. One Upanishad teaches that the perfect state or super conscious state is a part of Om. Vibrations from it clear and cleanse a person's energy system, the chakras. It is to connect us deeper with the entire universe. The practitioner can become one with the vibration and feel the universe as their own body. The last sound of Om (aum) It is pure consciousness of the Self or the Atman. Which is (the true self, beyond ego or false self). When we use inspired practices of other gods from the east, or from anywhere else, our hearts and minds are not protected, but will rather embrace every wind of doctrine, which is exactly what we see happening to people in these movements. They say Holy Yoga embraces the essential elements of yoga: their coursework includes: Christian mystics, the yoga sutras (ancient Indian teachings, from the east) and chakras (the wheels of the so called, spiritual energy center inside the human body) Including, Physiology of the breath, meditation and movement. Advanced assists, postures, yoga tricks breath work, meditation and physical postures which are all part of Hinduism's Yoga, which even the yogis will warn, can be very dangerous, even if practiced correctly. “Holy Yoga embraces the essential elements of yoga: breath work, meditation and physical postures. In all of these elements, Christ is the focus of our intention and worship.” They claim that Christ is the focus of their intention and worship. How can he be when you have yoga as the basis? It is not biblically possible when you have a person being yoked to another god through the yoga positions? Even if they are not aware of it themselves. They have Christianized yoga just enough to sound acceptable, believable to the uninformed, undiscerning and emotionally driven person, again, if they can incorporate yoga into the church then it is another wall of defense broken down that guarded the church Bethel states, “Holy Yoga exists to establish Christ-centered communities across the globe where individuals are intersected by the living God through the practice of yoga and living beyond themselves.” “We exist to take the gospel to the ends of the earth through the modality of movement.” (which means by experience) “Holy Yoga exists to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth through the modality of yoga. In its most basic form, yoga is comprised of three tenets: asana (posture), breathwork, and meditation. It is our aim to offer sacred space that will allow you to grow in intimacy in Christ. We pray these guided meditations and simple tools will foster your relationship with God.” How can another religious system that Jesus does not mention or use, do this? Another religious system with different gods. God’s Name will not be Glorified through another religious system, with its various gods? The fact is, Gods word is against this and addresses it through Isaiah … Isa. 2:6 the Lord rebuked the house of Jacob, because they were filled with eastern ways. In Acts 19:19: says Many who used magic arts brought their books together and burned them: unlike Bethel they didn't try to redeem the occult. The next verse says the word of God grew mighty and prevailed.”
The word of God does not prevail at Bethel, experiences, visions do. And many of the youth are receiving obvious false visions. Again, The Bible says what does light have to do with darkness, Yoga is darkness. God spoke to Israel to not adopt the ways of the nation’s surrounding them, specifically the eastern ways. This has not changed for the Church. Not once did Jesus recommend anything outside of God’s word for our spiritual life. Unfortunately. that no longer has meaning to those who have received a new anointing. It wasn’t until this last century those who were involved in interfaith, contemplative prayer and meditation were open to have a mixture, so they synthesized the other religions practices. One proponent of redeeming the new age is Jonathan Welton Says “I have found throughout Scripture at least 75 examples of things that the New Age has counterfeited, such as having a spirit guide, trances, meditation, auras, power objects, clairvoyance, clairaudience, and more. These actually belong to the church, but they have been stolen and cleverly repackaged.” Meaning the new age movement took what was once for the church. It is he that is doing the repackaging on nearly everything in the Occult and pastor Bill sees nothing wrong with it since he is involved.
Yogi Baba Prem, a Hindu Yogi, a Vedavisharada trained in the traditional guru system has this to say about Christian yoga: “It was quite astonishing to see on the flyer "Christian Yoga! This Thursday night ... I could feel the wheels spinning in my brain. "Christian Yoga," I thought. Now while Christians can practice yoga, I am not aware of any Christian teachings about yoga. Yoga is not a Judeo/Christian word! ... It is a Hindu word, or more correctly a Sanskrit word from the Vedic civilization. So how did we get "Christian Yoga"?... If the leaders know yoga is a spiritual practice from outside Christianity, then they most certainly know it is not Christian, so their intent then is clearly to Christianize yoga in the Church and know that the New Age movement did not borrow, steal Christianity at any time out of yoga. This can only mean they have fabricated their answer, with a conscious agenda to change Christianity with the eastern ways via the New Age movements influence.
Swami Sivananda Radha writes
in his book on Hatha Yoga: Bethel’s holy yoga - “Mission: The Foundation educates, inspires and mobilizes the Holy Yoga community to transform spiritual landscapes worldwide by becoming Kingdom catalysts for change.
Their training Cost does not come cheap, its $1,995. It’s being said that, “for every counterfeit there has to be the genuine.” Johnson wants us to reclaim counterfeits, one is yoga. Certainly the devil counterfeits, but he also invents, and most of all he deceives. Yoga’s intent is to have union with the Hindu deity, it has nothing to do with Christ. You cannot apply other religions spiritual exercises to Christianity. Swami Sivenanda Radha, another well-known yoga teacher, has said in the book, Hatha Yoga, "Asanas are a devotional practice...each asana creates a certain state of mind...to bring the seeker into closer contact with the Higher Self." That is how it was designed. Yoga Journal states “as yoga students practiced the physical positions, they would eventually be ready to investigate the spiritual component which is “the entire essence of the subject.”’ It’s like opening a door to get a foot in and then the door eventually gets swung open. When wide open infiltration by those inside the New Age Movement itself takes place.Pastor's Bill and Beni Johnson know exactly what is going on and where he wants this movement to go. He is allowing many new age practices. One CANNOT practice Hinduism without Hatha yoga, it is an integrated part of their religions practice. However, one CAN practice Christianity without yoga. To keep oneself from a mixture they must eliminate both other religions and new age movement practices, such as Yoga. All this and much more makes Bill Johnson’s Bethel church a new age hybrid of Christianity.
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