Yoga has become wildly popular in the West in recent years, promoted as a science and an exercise program conducive to good health. Dave Hunt, in this well researched book, wants us to know that yoga has its roots in, and is the very heart of, Hinduism. Its goal is to get in touch with a god or gods and to experience enlightenment – oneness with the universe (p. 35). While physical yoga is advertised as stretching exercise and quiet meditation to slow us down and bring calmness in the midst of a hectic world, the facts are that physical yoga is designed to lead to spiritual yoga (pp. 18, 92, 152-153). Thus, yoga can easily become a gateway to Eastern mysticism.
Christians involved in yoga, or contemplating such, would do well to read and digest what Hunt has to say and flee any form of yoga. As Hunt writes, “If the goal is physical fitness, one should adopt an exercise program developed for the purpose, not one designed for reaching godhood in [Eastern mysticism]” (p. 92).