Yoga
Yoga is the very heart of Hinduism. It is sold in the West as science, but in fact is religion. It is promoted in the West as beneficial to health, but in the East it is a technique for dying.
The goal is to reach moksha, allegedly escaping the world of illusion (maya) of time and sense into liberation from the endless cycle of birth and death and rebirth through reincarnation. The latter is another of Satan’s appealing lies which offers endless chances by denying God’s declaration that it is appointed unto man once to die (Heb 9: 27). Many Roman Catholic priests and nuns practice yoga, and some who have become deeply involved in Eastern mysticism of various kinds, such as Thomas Merton, are highly honored among Catholics.
Yoga is a sanskrit word that means yoking and refers to union with Brahman, the ultimate god in Hinduism. The goal of yoga is self-realization, to realize that atman, the individual soul, is identical with Brahman, the universal soul, i.e., that you and god are one; indeed, that you are god but just don’t know it and need, through yoga, to discover this great truth.
Your yoga teacher will probably deny all of this, but he (or she) cannot deny that this practice comes from Hinduism. It was not invented in the West.
Yoga was introduced by Lord Krishna in the Baghavad Gita as the sure way to the Hindu heaven. Shiva, one of the most feared Hindu deities, known as The Destroyer, is addressed as Yogeshwara, which means Lord of Yoga.
Hatha yoga, known as physical yoga, is alleged to be devoid of the mysticism in other forms. Not so. One of the most authoritative hatha yoga texts, the fifteenth-century Hathayoga-Pradipika, declares that Lord Shiva was the first hatha yoga teacher.
As for the mantras, if one of them means all is truth, that should give you the pantheistic Hindu connection. You know that all is not truth; indeed, this very idea is a satanic lie! Substitute Jesus as your Christian mantra? No! Any mantra (like the Catholic rosary) violates Christ’s command to use not vain repetitions as the heathen (Mt 6:7). True yoga mantras are all the names of Hindu gods. Furthermore, the greatest yoga teachers all declare that the repetition of a mantra is a call to that god (i.e., the demon it represents) to come and possess the meditator. People have become demon possessed through yoga. The great yogis all warn of the grave dangers involved, even though at the same time they promote the alleged benefits.
You could benefit physically from stretching your muscles, etc. However, the spiritual price you pay is not worth it. If you are interested in physical fitness, then practice exercises designed for that, not those designed specifically for achieving union with Brahman.
One of the most popular forms of yoga in the West is Transcendental Meditation (TM). Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at first introduced TM to the West as a Hindu religious practice. He openly taught that its purpose was to produce in the meditators’ bodies soma, a legendary substance that would allegedly feed and awaken the pantheon of Hindu gods. But when TM was excluded from public schools and government funding, Maharishi quickly and dishonestly deleted all reference to religion and began presenting TM as pure science.
Such deliberate deceit says much about Maharishi’s integrity. Nothing was changed except the labels. Former TMers have filed lawsuits asking millions of dollars in damages because of the traumas they suffered through the practice of TM. More recently, TM has practically taken over the town of Fairfield, Iowa, where Maharishi’s International University is located and is being funded by the government in spite of its religious nature.
For further insight into yoga in general and TM in particular, please consult Yoga and the Body of Christ, by Dave Hunt (The Berean Call).