Last year I got into doing yoga. I picked it up as a supplement to my marathon training, I thought it would add some flexibility and help me avoid injury (I had the first serious injury of my 18 year running career last fall). So now I do yoga twice a week. It's a great workout and, for me, yoga is purely physical. Then a couple of weeks ago I saw a documentary from a few years back on the business of yoga. To be honest, it wasn't very good and was pretty much a waste of an hour of my life. But the one thing that struck me as I watched was the emphasis that the yoga purists put on the spiritual aspect of the practice.
Classic yoga comes from the Buddhist traditions with a heavy emphasis on meditation as a means to "ecstasy" or totally self-awareness. The idea is that through yoga you are able to focus simply on your breathing through a structured series of physical poses. That singular focus then helps you separate yourself from the world around you. Once you have separated from the world you are able to shift your focus to your spirit/soul/god and when you can focus on that one thing you will achieve human perfection in a state of enlightenment (that's a little simplified, but the explanation will do for the novice - that's me).
Many will carry this idea of the search for spiritual enlightenment to great extremes. At the end of the documentary one of the "experts" was heading to India for a three-year "internship" where she would be completely silent and, by the end of the three-years, she would be able to meditate for 24-hours straight. She claims that this is the ultimate goal in life.
I found myself feeling very sad for all these people as I watched the film. There is an intense spiritual need that is going unmet in their lives. They have failed to meet this need so they took up a religious practice that seems to offer them some hope. Unfortunately, their hope is the fact that if they continue to work out this journey that they can eventually reach whatever it is they were created for. That is, if they do more and more and more then the universe will somehow reward them based on their efforts. So these people pour their hearts and their souls into this ancient practice without knowing if it will actually work, but they are confident in their efforts to reach their god. When I think of the intense disappointment (I really don't think the word "disappointment" begins to cover it) they will face when they die, I'm dumbfounded.
Hope that rests in ourselves is hopeless self-deception.
The truth is, there is only one person in the history of the earth who is worth hoping in - Jesus Christ. I often admit to others that I have a tendency to slip into a false, works-based salvation theology when it comes to my own life. I guess this is part of why I feel so bad for these people seeking "ecstasy" and hope in some arbitrary means of breathing and focus. I get it. I understand why they try so hard, I understand why they try to clean themselves up. I do the same thing. The problem, is that this never works. We cannot do enough or clean ourselves up enough to enter the presence of the living GOD.
Again, I come back to my hope. Not a hope that I can somehow be good enough, smart enough, progressive enough, to make my way to the GOD of the universe. Just the opposite. My hope is in the GOD of the universe who has made His way to me, whose love draws me to Himself. My hope is in the GOD who accepts a man who is wicked, foolish, and often backsliding. All I can do is repent and rest in the love and forgiveness that He offers in exchange for a simple act of belief.
While I will attempt to continually grow and progress in my Christian walk, I will always return to a hope in nothing of what I deserve (that would be the worst reward I could think of), but a hope (a certainty) that, as a co-heir with Christ, my reward will one day be an eternity in His presence.
So, where's your hope?
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