How This Network Came into Being
by Fr. Tom Ryan, CSP

This story begins in India where, in 1991, following the World Council of Churches General Assembly in Canberra, Australia, I went to spend a study sabbatical in various Hindu ashrams, Buddhist monasteries, and at the Henry Martyn Institute for Islamic Studies.

Some seventeen years earlier, in 1974, I had begun to meditate. Somewhere within the first two or three years of seeking guidance and direction, someone mentioned to me that yoga was originally designed to help people meditate better, so perhaps I should check it out. I made a mental note of it and resolved to do so when the opportunity presented itself.

It was a long wait, but the opportunity finally came in 1991 at Shantivanam, the ashram in South India at that time directed by the Benedictine pioneer in interreligious dialogue, Fr. Bede Griffiths (d. 1992). There was a yoga class offered each afternoon at the ashram, after which we sat in meditation. Within a week I could feel a qualitative difference in the stillness of my body and mind while meditating .

I wanted to learn more, and throughout the remainder of my stay in India, embarked on a serious study of how yoga worked both physiologically and psychologically. Along the way in the various ashrams and monasteries, I met many others from North America and Western Europe. Inevitably, the conversation would include why we were in India.

My own reason for being there was that, after ten years directing the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism in Montreal, Quebec, and working entirely in the field of inter-church relations, I wanted to broaden my own horizon to include interfaith as well as interchurch dialogue. The way I learn best is to immerse myself in a situation experientially, let the questions arise, and allow the learning to go forward naturally around the questions. So I had come to a country where three other world religions were in significant representation. My goal was to simply experience each up close by participating in its life for as much time as I had.

A Recurring Theme

What I heard most often from other western guests in these places is that they were looking for teachers, someone who could teach them concrete methods and means to take them into a deeper experience of God. Christianity, they said, talked about faith and love, but did not provide the practical disciplines for living. This theme recurred so frequently in these conversations that I began to experience a call in it. I knew that my interlocutors spoke for many seekers in my back-home context as well. I had not anticipated this sense of call; it is simply what happened.

My thoughts began to run in the direction of getting an ecumenical center for spirituality up and going when I returned to North America, a place where we as Christians could bring forth and more effectively teach some of the valued spiritual life practices from our own treasure chests, at the same time as we continued to learn things of value from other religions.

Within two years of my return, the place was providentially provided, and the project—called Unitas (Latin: unity)--was launched. One of my own contributions to the programming was to become certified as a yoga instructor and to begin offering a weekly class called “Prayer of Heart and Body” which combined yoga and meditation in a Christian context.

Also during that time, in direct response to the complaints heard from other westerners in India, I wrote two companion volumes. The first was Disciplines for Christian Living: Interfaith Perspectives (Paulist, 1993), and the second grew out of my weekly class which led first to a weekend and then a week-long retreat and, finally, a book: Prayer of Heart and Body: Meditation and Yoga as Christian Spiritual Practice (Paulist, 1995, now in its 5th printing). A more recent publication, the DVD Yoga Prayer: An Embodied Christian Spiritual Practice (Sounds True, 2005) demonstrates how I continue to work with the yoga postures as a way of praying through the body.

The Prayer of Heart and Body retreats became a staple of our programming at Unitas, and over the next five years (1994-1999), a growing number of participants in these retreats saw possibilities for offering similar sessions in their back-home contexts. They saw that they could assist the many Christian yoga and meditation practitioners they knew to root their practice in the soil of their own faith. So they entered various programs of yoga teacher training certification and began to offer classes in their own towns and cities. Some who made these retreats were already certified instructors who simply returned home with a vision of new possibilities for their work.

Once these instructors had logged two or three years teaching, I began to receive inquiries as to whether it would be possible for us to come together for a few days to deepen different aspects of the teaching. Many also reported a sense of feeling isolated and expressed a desire for mutual support and an opportunity to share with others both the joys and cutting-edge challenges of their work.

In 1999 my community, the Paulists, called me to New York City to open and develop a Paulist North American Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations. I arrived there in January 2000. One of the reasons New York City had been chosen as the site for this new office was its proximity to Mount Paul, our retreat center in Oak Ridge, NJ, just an hour outside of Manhattan.

Oak Ridge I: July 21-26, 2001

In my invitation to the growing network of yoga instructors to come together for five days at Oak Ridge, I proposed that we undertake to offer the various program components ourselves and serve as resource people for one another. Participants were invited to prepare either a presentation on a question of interest or to lead one of our yoga sessions. We would keep costs low by eliminating honorariums and hold the fee to whatever would cover room and board. A yoga teacher from Connecticut, Karen McGee, accepted to handle the administrative aspects gratis. Clearly, this gathering was going to be “by the people, for the people, and of the people” interested.

Eighteen yoga teachers and practitioners from across the U.S. and Canada dovetailed their summer schedules to participate. Among them were two Catholic priests, two Protestant ministers, three psychotherapists, a medical doctor, a spiritual director, a retreat center program director. Roughly half had graduate degrees in theology. If the absence of published Christian reflection on yoga is any indication, it may have been the first time in the North American context that a group committed to both yoga and meditation came together for several days to reflect on their experience precisely as Christians. The common denominator was that every one had made a Prayer of Heart and Body retreat, so I knew them, but they did not yet know one another except where they’d been on the same retreat. A network did not yet exist.

In addition to early morning and mid-afternoon yoga practice sessions followed by meditation, those who carried a particular subject with passion or interest were invited to make a presentation in one of our twice-daily reflection sessions, and elicit the wisdom of the group in discussion. A sampling of subject titles: “Christology and Yoga;” “Bodies, Breath, and Bible;” “Praying with Movement;” “Meditation, Mind, and Mantra”; “Connecting the Inward and the Outward Journeys.”

It was a rich feast, involving reflection upon the incarnational and relational nature of Christian theology; the challenge of integrating both the inward (individual, psychological, contemplative) and outward (social, political and ecological) journey; the joys and difficulties experienced by Prayer of Heart and Body practitioners; and the obstacles faced by those who are trying to introduce yoga and meditation into explicitly Christian contexts. Some of the presentations begged to be shared more widely, and I invited the presenters to write up their talks toward a possible edited volume that might enable us to reach a larger forum.

In one of our reflection sessions, each participant was invited to write down the words s/he uses in responding to questions like: “What is ‘Christian yoga’?” “How can yoga be Christian?” “How does yoga contribute to a Christian’s faith development?” The rich tapestry of responses revealed that this was a young and fresh conversation, full of promise, with lots of room in it for further growth and development.

In our closing session we spoke of how we might stay in touch with one another and keep the dialogue going via the internet. One of the participants proceeded to reserve a few possible domain names for a website, but neither a listserve nor a website resulted. What seemed most doable given the basis of volunteerism on which everything moved forward was for participants to simply continue their personal contacts with one another.

Oak Ridge II: August 2-7, 2003

In January 2003 I sent out a letter of invitation to come together again. By this time, the list of invitees had grown through my ongoing retreats and programs as well as through the recommendations by previous participants of those whom they had met. I decided to drop participation in a Prayer of Heart and Body retreat as a criteria for invitation. There was a risk in this of ending up with a too-disparate group with no common universe of reference where meditation and yoga were concerned, but the risk was engaged out of a sense of respect for how the Holy Spirit works in many marvelous ways.

23 people from nine states (MD, WDC, AL, GA, NY, NJ, MA, CT, PA) and three Canadian provinces (AB, QC, ON), and Switzerland came together for Oak Ridge II. Karen McGee again rendered vital service as our volunteer administrator.

The theme of “embodiment”, already introduced at Oak Ridge I, emerged more strongly and with sharper definition. Embodiment in our discussions refers to how the fruits of spiritual life practices such as hatha yoga and meditation find application relative to other “bodies”--like the civic body (e.g., in work for the poor), or through active membership in the body of believers in one’s local church community, or in care for the environment, our earth body. This is clearly an expanded framework of reflection, especially for those coming with just their own personal yoga or meditation practice and relationship with God in mind.

Participants have engaged with this theme in varying degrees and ways, recognizing in it a distinctly holistic emphasis that Christian faith via the Incarnation brings to the whole notion of embodied spiritual practices. A measure of how it has stamped our reflection is found in the book that largely issued from the Oak Ridge I and II discussions and contains chapters written by several participants: Reclaiming the Body in Christian Spirituality (Paulist, 2005).

The Oak Ridge II gathering gave clear indication that people in different parts of the continent were working with yoga and meditation in various ways, and making an effort in doing so to be consistent with the logic of Christian faith. Our conversations in plenary sessions made it increasingly clear: we have no desire to “christianize” yoga. There is only a strong desire to live a holistic Christian spirituality, as well as a conviction based on experience that yoga and meditation can make a positive contribution to this.

We recognized that “Christian yoga” is a descriptive phrase that raises more questions than it answers, and runs the risk of creating the impression that we are co-opting yoga and retro-fitting it in Christian terms, failing to respect its own integrity on its own terms. To avoid such an impression, many in our network choose not to describe their teaching and classes as “Christian yoga”, while others, recognizing its liability, continue to use it for lack of something better. The terminological ambiguities make clear that a concise language is not there yet enabling Christians who practice yoga to convey to others that what they are doing is integral to their life of faith and not outside of it.

The informal, low-key association of Christian teachers and practitioners of yoga that took shape in the Oak Ridge I retreat continued to evolve in the second gathering as a forum for ongoing networking with one another in our reflections around these and other questions.

Oak Ridge III: May 24-29, 2005

The time of the year was not great—encompassing the Memorial Day weekend—but thirty-four people organized their personal, family, and professional calendars to come anyway. Those who gathered--almost twice the number at Oak Ridge I—gave clear indication of how the network is growing. Whereas the previous two retreats had brought together people largely from the East coast states in addition to three Canadian provinces, this time California, Texas, Michigan, Minnesota, and Bermuda were represented as well. There was also a considerable number who wanted to come but weren’t able to. Bernadette Latin handled administration and logistics with efficiency and grace.

The evaluations repeatedly expressed appreciation for the morning prayer and evening prayer rituals in the chapel; the laying on of hands in blessing of the presentor/leader before and after each session; the variety of subjects addressed and of teachers and styles in both yoga and discussion sessions; the balance of meeting time and free time; the beauty of the lake and woodland trails; the food and the friendship.

As one respondent wrote: “I love basking in the presence of people who ask the same questions and think about the same things that I do. Some of the questions being:

• How do I take this “off the mat”?
• To what extent can we embrace the roots of yoga without compromising our faith?
• How do we present this to the Christian community?
• How can I communicate the gospel and God’s love in my teaching?
• How best to be a Christian presence in the yoga community?”

These were the kinds of questions addressed in the plenary sessions on “Yoga and a Sacramental Perspective on Life,” “Embodying the Practice in Our Living;” The Yamas, Niyamas, and the Spiritual Life;” “Yoga and the Beatitudes;” “Different Methods and Forms of Meditation;” “How Do We Respond to the Resistance and Misunderstanding Encountered?”

A new and appreciated addition to the programming was workshops on a variety of topics, such as:

• Lectio Divina: an ancient form of praying with the Scriptures
• Restorative Yoga as a form of meditation and healing
• What can a Christian expect from asana and meditation?
• Praying with our senses
• Passage meditation: an invitation to drink deeply of Scripture and of the saints’ great prayers
• Least likely to meditate: confessions of a career multi-tasker

The recurring focus on meditation in the workshops highlights an important emphasis in all three Oak Ridge retreats: the reconnection of yoga to meditation in Western practice. The history and development of yoga makes clear that it was originally designed to help people enter into a conscious experience of communion with God in meditation. In other words, these two consciousness disciplines were originally Siamese twins with bodies joined together at birth, but in the practice of many they have been separated and live independent lives, sometimes never seeming to meet at all. Such a restoration of the fullness of yogic practice would be a gain for practitioners of every stripe, and contribute to the health and balance of these disciplines themselves.

A clear and significant fruit for the wider world emanating from Oak Ridge III is the creation of this website: Christians practicing yoga. With this new instrument of communication, the network can connect continents and grow by quantum leaps. We are all indebted to participant Keri Mangis who stepped forward and made it possible.

Participants at this third gathering also discussed the possibility of a national conference. Stay tuned!

For synopses of the publications mentioned in this article with links to where they can be obtained, see www.tomryancsp.org