Now “Catholic Yoga” in America

World-famous Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago (USA) is offering “Catholic Yoga” classes.Website of this Cathedral, which is both a parish and the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, says: “Join us as we explore the multiple spiritual and physical benefits of yoga practice while explicitly integrating prayers and spiritual themes of our Catholic faith.”“Typical sessions will include an opening prayer, inspired movement & strengthening, and contemplative prayer to close. The program will be focused around various themes to coincide with the liturgical calendar and progression of our faith life across the seasons”, it adds.Do not be afraid of yoga, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed tells practitioners of different faiths.Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, yoga was a world heritage to be utilized by all. One could still practice one’s respective faith and do yoga. Yoga would rather help one in achieving one’s spiritual goals in whatever religion one believed in. It was not at odds with any faith and rather made one spiritually healthier.Rajan Zed further said that yoga, referred as “a living fossil” whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, was a mental and physical discipline handed down from one guru to next, for everybody to share and benefit from. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.Instructors for “Catholic Yoga” include Ali Niederkorn, who claims to be “a devoted Catholic and a practicing yogi”; and Dina Wolf, who teaches vinyasa flow yoga and who has taken Hatha yoga classes.This Cathedral, whose tagline is “the place where Chicago goes to pray" and whose traces go back as far as 1843, is Chicago’s “one and only” Cathedral and attracts thousands of visitors each week from world over. Monsignor Dan Mayal is the Pastor while Francis Cardinal George is the Archbishop of Chicago.