So you’re saying the Christian can do yoga and reject Hindusim, but after they practice it for awhile, they’re going to end up accepting it?
Yep, but not out of faith, but because their own experience will validate it. You see Yoga like any other science makes predictions. If you do x, then y will happen. If you read the Yogasutras it gives you a full description of what will happen as you maintain a full Yoga practice. In modern consciousnesss studies, a subset of transpersonal psychology, the same predictions are made as to what is going to happen at different points in your meditation. These can in turn be measured quantitatively using MRI scans and EEG to measure brain wave states and neural activity.
Another great researcher is Robert Monroe who has founded the Monroe institute and pioneered hemi-synch technology for brain entrainment. He has developed the focus-level scheme which shows what happens at different focus levels. Focus 10 is mind awake/body asleep; Focus 15 is loss of time and space; Focus 20 is the diassociation of consciousness from body. Focus 20+ is astral projections.
There is plenty of peer-reviewed data on the practice of full Yoga to have a scientific concensus as what exactly will happen as your practice develops and becomes mature.
In Psychology, Kundalini awakening that takes place if you engage in Yoga or a similar spiritual practice, is now recognised as a formal condition under the DSM as the “Kundalini Syndrome/spiritual emergency” The symptoms described are similar to as described in Yoga:
Lee Sannella was able to group symptoms into categories, which Kason picked up with some modification. For Sannella, the indications consist of motor phenomena – auto-movement, unusual breathing, and paralysis; sensory phenomena – tickling, sensations of hot and cold, inner lights or visions, and inner sounds; interpretive phenomena – emotions, distortions of thought, detachment, disassociation, and a sense of oneness; and non-physiological phenomena – out-of-body experiences and psychic perceptions.[37] Other symptoms include:
Researchers affiliated with the fields of transpersonal psychology and near-death studies (see references below) have suggested some common criteria that describe kundalini problems, of which the most prominent feature is a feeling of energy or heat rushing up the spine[11][38].
A few theorists within the transpersonal field, such as Greyson[16], refers to this symptomatology as the “Physio-Kundalini syndrome”, while other Western academics use the description Kundalini-experience/awakening[39][40]. The process is not always sudden and dramatic, it can also start slowly and increase gradually in activity over time[41]. If the accompanying symptoms unfold in an intense manner that destabilizes the person, then the situation is usually interpreted as a “spiritual emergency”[42].
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini_syndrome#Listing_in_DSM-IV)
Finally, reincarnation has also become a serious subject of empirical study in investigative science, one of the pioneers in this field being Ian Stevenson, the author of “20 cases suggestive of reincarnation” has done cross-cultural studies in reincarnation with thousands of subjects and meticulously recorded the empirical data, recording past life memories and studying birthmarks and birth defects and their correspodence to past life. Since, there have been many researchers into reincarnation, producing highly compelling scientific evidence for reincarnation.
There is no dearth of scientific evidence validating everything Yoga says. This will become more or less fact in a few decades and the Christian again is going to have to reconcile science with their faith. However, you yourself will get direct validation by simply maintaining your practice. You can try your own experiment and follow a full Yoga training program for a year and see the results for yourself.
To be honest I think it would be rather ignorant to dismiss such huge body of peer reviewed data as well as the countless experiences of ordinary people like myself, Kareng, Core, Pandra who have experienced many of these for ourselves.
