Yoga IS a Religion (IMO)

This is just a short post to clarify why I don't practice Yoga.

Recently, when I was posting on FreeBeingFree about how I was dealing with my depression, I mentioned these non-Yoga stretching exercises. The ones I found are perfect for me - especially the nighttime stretch I've been doing.

Many people debate whether or not Yoga is a religion. Most of those people would probably agree with the following:

And while there is a lot of debate about whether or not Yoga is a religion, what matters to me as a Christian is that almost everyone agrees with the following:

Yoga (/ˈjoʊɡə/ (listen);^[1] Sanskrit: योग, lit. 'yoke' or 'union' pronounced [joːɡɐ]) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciousness untouched by the mind (Chitta) and mundane suffering (Duḥkha). There is a wide variety of schools of yoga, practices, and goals^[2] in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism,^[3][4][5] and traditional and modern yoga is practiced worldwide.^{[6] (source)}

And,

It is a philosophy and a spiritual practice and many people with different religious beliefs find it is a complement to their faith. (Source) [my emphasis]

My Christianity is the only spiritual practice I need. And any other spiritual practice is forbidden to me as we Christians are not to mix the sacred with the profane.

Anyway, I know that will offend a lot of the people who practice Yoga (a "spiritual practice", mind you) apart from Eastern religions and faiths. There are churches that provide Yoga classes. That baffles me And even if in doubt, shouldn't we as Christians, just abstain from the practice?

So I wanted to clarify why I was so excited to find stretching exercises that don't include anything that could glorify other gods and religions.

There are many other stretching exercises offered by Caitlin Englebert on her YouTube channel. 

Peace

--Free

(Willingly) Lured, Lied to & Deceived

The title of this post should be more like "Entertainment and Social Media Are Going To Kill Us". You all do know that I have a problem with being over-wordy though. I am working on that. Anyway...

 I was just looking at the trailer for an upcoming documentary about a certain actor. The "celebrity" has been under fire for being sexually seedy and potentially/allegedly dangerous. The rumors about this person have apparently been around for a while. People not in the entertainment industry (aka "fans") are shocked and titillated and cannot wait to see this documentary. I myself am interested. 

Here's the thing. By believing in the illusion of celebrity and all that seems to glitter within that world, we allow ourselves to be deceived. We accept the deception - when it's called entertainment - to be part of our lives. We feel connected to the actors rather than the characters they portray. We let the stories portrayed color our perception of the people playing the roles. The attractive or smart or kind or loving person on that screen probably has zero in common with the actor. The better the actor, the more we buy the lies. The lies are only supposed to be entertainment, people.

She's already physically attractive.
I don't get it.

This creates problems in our lives. For years, I myself had trouble appreciating some of the people in my everyday life. That new person at work who was slightly shy and awkward wasn't anything like the cutely shy, sweetly awkward, and photogenically loveable character played by ~fill in the blank~ in that one movie or TV show. My boss was just a jerk and not the jerk that was just charming enough to make me want to eventually fall in love with him. My life was not like the ones portrayed in the movies. I was not going to speed through the highs, lows, and serious complications the way a fictional character does. My problems are never solved within a 30-minute episode (minus 10 minutes of commercials). When I hurt someone in real life, there was no sequel lined up where I could fix everything and undo any damage.

Life is life and "art" is art. Art might imitate life but it should never be the other way around. We don't have scriptwriters, a makeup crew, and perfect lighting in our real lives. We don't often get second-chance "retakes".

I was talking with one of my brothers the other day and he mentioned something about some young "influencer" who'd died in a very unnecessary way. He or she had fallen to their death while trying to take a selfie while balanced on a cliff (or something along those lines). When I hung up the phone and looked up the story, I ended up going down a rabbit hole, looking at other similar stories.

What is happening to us as humans? There is a whole generation of young (and not so young) people who are risking their physical and mental health to be internet famous. The term "Influencer" now bothers me so much.

Six or seven years ago, when I started doing product reviews, I joined sites like Influenster, Tomoson, She Speaks, and Buzz Agent. I did it to get free and "first-look" products. Now I mostly do my reviews on Amazon and Walmart. The other sites have gotten outflanked by the Instagram nation of serious influencers. These are the pros at garnering Likes, Follows, Shares, and so on. It has gone from people just trying to score free and discounted products to multi-million dollar opportunities.

Remember YouTube back in the day? When people were posting videos about side hobbies and random life events? Those days are gone, children. These days, some people base their entire livelihood on their video changes. It's all about sponsors, monetization, and fighting like junkyard dogs to hold your place among the big-money earners.

It must be in human nature to make a mile out of every inch. Movies and television - meant, I think anyway, for pure entertainment - have turned into some sort of instrument of mass social programming. Many of us base the way we act, dress, love, make love, parent, etcetera based on the make-believe world of the flickering screens. Social media outlets - meant, I think anyway - to connect us have become instruments for division. It's not about how to keep in touch with the people we know and love or how to help each other. It's more about how to look like we're "living our best life" and who's prettier or richer or sexier or smarter or more powerful? 

We are building our own destruction. We are putting up walls instead of tearing them down. We are doing more harm than good. By trying to appear to be the best, we are becoming the worst.

The thing about progress (if that is what it's called) is that curiosity pushes us forward and selfishness won't let us go backward. We have such a problem with being content. We see contentment as complacency and complacency as laziness. And look where we are.

Peace

--Free

Death, Dying & the Last of It

 I read obituaries. This is something I have been doing for about 15 years. When I was young, I didn't think much about death or dying. I lived as if eternity didn't matter. I lived without thinking about what is after Death. I rarely considered the idea of eternal Judgement. I thought that what mattered most was life - not what came after life. At some point, I started to consider my eternal fate. I wondered, "What if I die and there is a Heaven and Hell?"

What do you believe? Is there a Heaven and Hell? What will happen when you die? Will you just forever be over with? Or will you close your eyes in this life to wake up to the next stage? What is that next stage? What do you believe and why? How sure are you?

Death became more "real" to me when people I knew began to die. I wondered where they were. I would think about how they had lived their lives and what they had lived for. And then I realized that one day, my obituary is the one people would be reading. That is when I started paying attention to death notices. I was curious about how strangers - the famous and the non-famous - had died. How old were they when they died? What had caused them to die? And then, as I read more obituaries, I realized that no matter how famous, infamous, celebrated or ordinary someone was, Death was their ending. We, the living, after we finished grieving, we went on living.

When Michael Jackson died, I remembered how "larger than life" he'd always seemed. From the time I was a tweeny-bopper until the day Jackson died, he was the biggest celebrity. I'd lived through the Jackson 5 cartoons and tours and the brief breakout careers of some of the guys. I'd lived through LaToya trying to breakout, Janet actually breaking out and making it big. I'd watched the show where Michael moonwalked right into megastardom to eventually become known as "The King of Pop". And when he died, he was just dead. People cried and raved and mourned hard until they went on with their own lives. Micheal Jackson became a memory. He was someone who had lived so large and then he was just dead. Dead like someone who'd never been known for anything but living a regular life. Dead like someone who'd been so unknown their body had gone unclaimed. Dead is dead is dead is dead. All that fame and talent and clamor of his fans didn't change the fact that he was dead.

So. How does any of a person's life here among the living matter to their after-life existence? Is Michael Jackson famous where he now exists? Does he matter any more than anyone else where he now exists? I don't think so. I think he - like we all will - is living his eternal life however he is living his eternal life. It will be the same for you and for me and for the person who dies unknown and unmourned.

And so when I see people who give away everything to be famous or known or celebrated or rich or envied, I think about the dead. I think about the existence after this one.

So, yeah, I think that we all need a reminder of how close death is to us. It doesn't matter how old or young you are, you can be taking your last breath at this moment.

There are times when I get bogged down in regret or get high on pride. That's when I need a reminder. There are some people who are so busy living that they forget they will, one day, die. That's when they need a reminder.

Your choices matter. Your actions matter. One day, you will cease to exist in a living body. 

How important is money? Fame? Is anything worth your soul?

You are dying. I am dying. That is a fact. 

Being beautiful won't keep Death away. Being thin or rich or powerful - none of that can defeat Death. 

There is Life, there is Death, and there are Consequences. It all matters. 

Some people are banking on this life. They are after everything they can gain here - power, wealth, beauty, fame, etc. They are selling eternity for the now. And there is nothing wrong with having power, wealth, beauty, fame or etc. The error is in choosing it over eternity.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. (2 Corinthians 5:10 ESV)

When you need to be reminded of life and death and eternal existence, go read some "notable" obituaries. Read them and think about what matters here in the now and what will matter there in the next - whatever that "next" is.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21 ESV) 

Think about the next life as you live this one. It matters.

Peace

--Free