As Apprising Ministries pointed out in Rob Bell, Yoga Masters and Jesus? in a sermon on breathing by Emergent Church leader and icon Rob Bell he informs us:

[In Yoga] it’s not how flexible you are, it’s not whether you can do the poses, it’s not how much you can bend yourself, it’s can you keep your breath [breathes in and out] consistent [breathes out] through whatever you are doing.

And the Yoga Masters say this is how it is when you follow Jesus and surrender to God. Is it’s your breath being consistent. It’s your connection with God regardless of the pose you find yourself in. That’s integrating the divine into the daily.

As you read on below you will see very clearly why “Yoga Masters” have no place whatsoever in the Body of Christ. And lest you think this was some mere aberration by Rob Bell the following from Bell’s sermon “I will say it again, and again, and again” Sunday, November 16, 2008 leaves us no doubt as to his continued practice of the Contemplative/Centering Prayer at the heart of spiritually corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism: 

It’s interesting how many traditions (pause) When you read the great enlightened ones; meditation, centering prayer, reflection—in every tradition you can find the mystics—and what’s always at the heart of the spiritual lives, the everyday lives of the great ones was always a period of time. Whether it’s prayers, chanting, meditation, reflection, study—whatever you call it—what is it essentially; it’s taking time to breathe. Because when you’ve been breathing, (slight pause) in a proper sort of way, you’re far better equipped to handle what life throws your way. (Online source)

Aspiring politician, and friend of Rob Bell, Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt is another who’s also involved with so-called “Christian” Yoga. As a matter of fact, in yet some more lunacy in the Lord’s name within evangelicalism, here’s Ingrid Schlueter at Slice of Laodicea concerning Pagitt’s wife Shelley and this past year’s Zondervan National Pastor’s Conference:

Yes, folks, it is time again for the National Pastors Convention in San Diego. Cue the sitar players, start up the incense, and drag out the yoga mats! You think that I jest about the yoga, and you are wrong. Under the heading, Christian Yoga, it reads: “Join Shelly Pagitt for a time of prayer, stretching, and meditative reflection as you begin your day at the NPC. If possible, please bring a mat with you for the stretching time.”

Shelly Pagitt, wife of emerging Pied Piper, Doug, will be bowing before the pastors and their wives and saying, “Namaste”. That’s how a yoga session starts, and the words are Sanskrit for “I bow to the divine within you.” Yoga journal describes “Namaste” this way. “The gesture Namaste represents the belief that there is a Divine spark within each of us that is located in the heart chakra. The gesture is an acknowledgment of the soul in one by the soul in another. “Nama” means bow, “as” means I, and “te” means you. Therefore, Namaste literally means “bow me you” or “I bow to you.” (Online source, bold hers)

In closing this for now I’ll share with you the “wisdom” of Yoga Master Sri Aurobindo, one of those “enlightened ones” Rob Bell lavishes such praise on above and who forgot more about Yoga than Bell and Pagitt will ever know. Think Yoga can be separated from its Hindu context; think again. And as Yoga continues slithering its way into more and more evangelical Christian churches you may wish to note very carefully its goal of integrating all of mankind, which I highlight below:

Indian Yoga, in its essence a special action or formulation of certain great powers of Nature, itself specialised, divided and variously formulated, is potentially one of these dynamic elements of the future life of humanity. The child of immemorial ages, preserved by its vitality and truth into our modern times, it is now emerging from the secret schools and ascetic retreats in which it had taken refuge and is seeking its place in the future sum of living human powers and utilities.

But it has first to rediscover itself, bring to the surface the profoundest reason of its being in that general truth and that unceasing aim of Nature which it represents, and find by virtue of this new self-knowledge and self-appreciation its own recovered and larger synthesis. Reorganising itself, it will enter more easily and powerfully into the reorganised life of the race which its processes claim to lead within into the most secret penetralia and upward to the highest altitudes of existence and personality. In the right view both of life and of Yoga all life is either consciously or subconsciously a Yoga. (Synthesis of Yoga, Vol. 20, 1,2)

See also:

SADDLEBACK CHURCH PASTORS USING ROB BELL TEACHINGS

KEN WILBER: INTEGRAL THEORY MEANS EVERYBODY’S RIGHT ROB BELL

CROSSTALK RADIO: KEN SILVA ON ROB BELL AND WARNINGS ABOUT THE EMERGENT CHURCH MOVEMENT

ROB BELL RESOURCES FROM APPRISING MINISTRIES

IS ROB BELL EVANGELICAL?

ROB BELL CONTROVERSY OVER DOCTRINE