In this issue, I reflect on a journey to discover points of congruence between yoga philosophy and Christian theology.

Two years ago I began practicing yoga, at a community drop-in class held in a Longmont bike shop after hours. I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about with yoga but after the first of two car accidents I found myself unable to ride my road bike because of the strain the cycling position put on my neck, and I was looking for a replacement fitness activity. I began my first yoga class quite confident in my body’s ability to be flexible, strong, and have good balance. Within the first ten minutes of that class, I was utterly humbled on all three fronts.

Something drew me back for the next week’s class and the next week after that. Several months later I mustered the courage to try out a “real” yoga studio (although I still practice at the bike shop!). In the studio classes I was generally the oldest person, and usually the least adept at the poses or “asanas”. But I stuck with it, adding more classes as I had free time. I fell in love with my teachers and got to know my fellow students. The mood in class was generally light-hearted, and I developed a reputation for good-natured (and funny) wisecracks (generally delivered whilst balancing precariously) that made everyone laugh.

When that studio closed and merged with a large climbing gym, I realized that—fun aside—yoga for me had become an important and beautiful spiritual practice and I needed a quiet studio—a sacred and peaceful space—to support that. Reluctantly, I said goodbye to my teachers and struck out looking for a new studio home. I found one on Main Street in Longmont and have settled in there to a new rhythm of classes. My new teachers know me by name now and I’m getting to know other students who are regulars. I’m still one of the older folks in class, but the gift of practicing with people in their 20’s and 30’s is that I’m learning that they too have wisdom to share.

I know the asanas and some of the inversions and arm balances well enough now that when the teacher calls out a sequence or “flow” I can lose myself in the movements without thinking. That is its own kind of gift. I used to get lost like that in the Zen of cycling, but then my front tire would wobble alarmingly over a stone or a car would rev its engine behind me and I’d snap back to full alertness.

I began practicing yoga with a certain measure of suspicion, waiting for the day someone would expect me to worship Buddha or Ganesh (the elephant-headed god of Hinduism), but that day never came. Instead, when the teacher began each class with a reflection on one of the “sutras” (rules or proverbs from Hindu philosophy) I was continually stunned and delighted at the congruence with teachings from Christian theology. Hinduism and Christianity are very different paths, and yet both are headed in the direction of union with the divine.

It makes me think of the late Roman Catholic theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his teachings on the rise or development of the collective consciousness of humanity. de Chardin imagined that as humanity became ever more aware, awake, and spiritually developed, our growing collective consciousness would move the world toward something he called “the Omega Point”, which was a condition of union with God, unity with one another—perhaps what Judaism calls “shalom”—such that Creation would have reached its end purpose and Christ would come once again. For most de Chardin’s life, the Roman Catholic Church was not at all happy with him and his teachings, considering his intertwining of science, evolution, and theology to be a threat to the Church’s traditional doctrines.

But I am fascinated by de Chardin’s notion of the Omega Point, for in my short lifetime I have witnessed something remarkable: When I was a child it was unheard of for Christians to affiliate with Jews or Jews with Hindus or Muslims with Christians. We were all on rigid—and yet parallel—paths toward union with God but nobody stepped off their own path. A few decades ago, the term “Interfaith” became part of our common lexicon, and stepping off one’s own path to learn about the journey of the other grew accepted and even commonplace. Now, there seem to be abundant books and teachers who find and expound on the points of congruence, convergence, or intersection between spiritual paths. It’s as if our rigid parallel paths are softening, and that softening calls to mind the words of Jesus in the 12^th chapter (vs 24) of the gospel of John: “Very truly, I tell you,” he says, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

Think about it: a seed “dies” by softening its rigid outer coating. That softening is critical if the seed is to transform and crack open, sending its green exploratory shoot towards the warmth and light of the sun. When I witness the rigid parallel paths of some of our faith traditions “softening” it occurs to me that they thus become bendable, and—once capable of bending—they can then arc toward a common point of union with God—the Omega Point—the divine light toward which people of many faith traditions aim our hearts.

de Chardin was a brilliant scientist as well as a theologian, and I find his writing rather impenetrable. Fortunately, others have translated and commented on it. I’m currently reading “The New Spiritual Exercises in the Spirit of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin” and have ordered “Teilhard de Chardin on Love: Evolving Human Relationships”.

I’ve also ordered a book in which the late Marcus Borg (a favorite theologian of many at St John’s) and American Buddhist monk Jack Kornfield together wrote “Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings”. And another book on order is “The Yoga of Jesus: Understanding the Hidden Teachings of the Gospels” by the late Indian yogi and guru Paramahansa Yogananda. I imagine I’ll find within these books echoes of Episcopal priest and theologian Cynthia Borgeault’s book “The Wisdom Jesus”.

Scholar of Celtic Christianity John Philip Newell is the author of another open book by my comfortable chair: “Christ of the Celts”. In his work, I find themes one also finds in the work of Franciscan friar Richard Rohr. How fascinating it would be to gather Rohr, Newell, Borgeault, de Chardin, Borg, Kornfield, and Yogananda in a circle, light a fire, pour some wine or some tea, and listen to them weave together all the loose threads of the world! Perhaps that’s how the crowds who gathered at the feet of Jesus felt about his teaching.

I am and plan to remain a solid lifelong Episcopalian but I cherish the grace and freedom to deepen my understanding of Christ by walking with one foot occasionally on the path of another faith tradition. Often those traditions say the same things as does Holy Scripture, but in words that I can better understand or that deepen my understanding of the bible. I am grateful to belong to a denomination that values intellectual pursuit and permits its members to draw on spiritual practices—both outside of and within our tradition—that illumine and enlighten them. We are living in a time of spiritual richness—a banquet—and today is one of those many times I feel privileged to be alive.