The Yoga of Jesus

Book Reviewed by BP Khanal

This book is written with a perspective that obviously stands against Biblical facts. Focusing on what Jesus have done or where He had spent almost eighteen years of His youth, the book fills the pages with much assumptions. Bias idea to Bible is the main thread, which runs through the pages to promote ‘yoga’ into the unstated teaching in New Testament.  The arguments, sequentially arranged extra-biblical opinions are in the book, have intentional misleading aim, particularly the innocent Christ-following Christians and ordinary church members are at target. The author is falsely emphatic and reinforcing onto misinterpreting the New Testament verses, and attacking the church and entire Biblical teachings. The book also distorts the very image of Christ as if the whole concept of Christ the Messiah of Bible into an impersonal idea – namely the ‘Christ-consciousness’.

There are numbers of misguiding precept have been built in the book, and are all falsely emphasized in the name of ‘hidden teaching’ of Christ, which obviously are against the Bible.

1. a.    Yoga: It is forcedly said that every seeker can know God not through mere belief but by direct experience via yoga meditation. The author of the book is making Yoga as the core of all spiritual practices, but the Bible does not put even the meditation as the core, but obedience to God’s Words through simple acts of faith.
2. b.    Denial of Jesus as Only Son of God: In the beginning pages, it is clearly written that “he (Jesus Christ) was not the only son of God, nor did he claim to be. Instead, he clearly taught that those who do the will of God become like himself, one with him” (from author’s quotation, page 2). So, if denies the most essence of Bible’s teaching then what else can be expected from it?
3. c.    Mere Speculation: It is speculated that almost 18 years of His life from His 12^th to 30^th Jesus visited India and Tibet and learned from the riches of religions and their gurus. But for a Bible believing Christian it is just a heretical notion have been developed over the period of times, there is no biblical support to this idea.
4. d.    Animism: According to Yogananda, the creation is nothing but Spirit, seemingly and temporarily diversified by Spirit’s creative vibratory activity, this only comes from a animistic belief system (page 24).
5. e.    Synchronization: Word (Rhema), Amen, Hum (Pali) and Aum (Sanskrit) are the same holy cosmic sound that witnesses the manifested Divine Presence in all creation. This is the driving idea saturated in allover the book.

Book: Yogananda, Paramhansa. The Yoga of Jesus: Understanding the Hidden Teachings of the Gospels. Los Angeles, California: Self Realization Fellowship Publishers, 2007.