Christian yoga: Too much of a stretch?

Yoga: Hindu implant or useful import? Christians don't agree on the answer. But there is a coterie of believers who try to merge the two, and their case in Christians Practicing Yoga is about as good as it gets.

"Christians connect instinctively with an embodied spiritual practice that inclines toward deeper prayer," the homepage says. "It is embedded in our spiritual DNA to go to God the way God came to us -- in and through the body."

The site offers a variety of approaches. There's the ancient devotional method called Lectio Divina. Contributor Lori Smith suggests chanting, a practice it shares with Christianity -- and with Sufism and native American religions.

Writer Bernadette Latin goes into satisfying, lucid detail about yogic values, such as Brahmacharya (moderation) and Ishvara Pranidhana (devotion to God). She draws some parallels between eastern and western beliefs, likening, for instance, the Sanskrit prana (life energy) to the Hebrew ruach (spirit).

Many Bible verses are offered, including Acts 17:28: "In Him we live and move and have our being." There's even a mini-directory of schools for face time with practitioners.

Much of the site is rather defensive. Latin, who seems to be the main ideologue, argues that yoga is a mere discipline that has been used by Hindus, Jains and Buddhists, and can be adapted to Christianity as well.

Father Tom Ryan, another site maven, supplies a helpful FAQ file for questions about mantras, Kundalini, and invoking Hindu deities. He even takes the offensive, saying that "incarnational faith" must include actions -- not just yoga but benevolence, human rights and social justice.

Happy Hindu New Year

The Hindu Festival of Lights, starting this year on Oct. 28, is like Christmas and New Year combined. And it's celebrated not only in India, but wherever Indians have settled: the U.S., the U.K., Africa and South America.

Learning about Divali online, though, can be a problem. Most Web sites for the holiday are either 1) laden with Sanskrit terms, assuming you already know the stories being taught, or 2) glitzy online catalogs for holiday sweets, jewelry, artifacts, incense and the like.

But there are exceptions.

Start with this bare-bones site, from the University of Kansas Medical School. Part of a list of holidays, it has a nice, simple description -- no Flash, no pictures -- of each of the five days of the Divali observance. It also links to a Hindu site that explains why Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and fortune shown above, is honored on Divali.

Now you may be ready for the holiday site by Rangoli. VGreets has a concise explanaton of these seasonal designs sometimes called visual prayers. You can also find Rangoli galleries here, here and here.

Want more depth? India Travelogue provides a lengthy, 1,900-word essay on the festival, how it varies around India, and the three stories associated with the time.

A crust of gods

The temples of India stand as nexi among several crafts. As shelters, they house worshipers and their priests. As art, they are crusted with sculptures of gods, animals and humans. And as theology, they represent the cosmos, a mandala, even the deity itself.

TempleNet -- created, interestingly, by a musician -- comes close to a canonical list of these astonishing structures, along with stunning photos, although most are too small.

The site lists temples all around India, classifying them by region and their major deities, including Ganesha and Skanda. And it explains important architectural differences between north and south, as well as border states like Karnataka.

Along the way, we get some "hmmmm" details. One is that architectural styles were influenced more by different regions than religions, such as Jain or Hindu.

There's also a thought-provoking piece on the Indian sense of time -- from kaashta, or 18 eyeblinks, to the purported 309.6 trillion year life cycle of the creator Bhrahma.

Like other enormous sites, TempleNet has a few flaws. Some links are broken. The quality of information is uneven. And the articles often assume prior knowledge. The latter problem is partly fixed by a glossary, but not all the terms are defined.

One glaring problem: Finding an explanation of the overall concept of a temple. There is, in fact, an article about that, but it's buried in the archives. A search engine would help find it, but that's one of the broken links.

Don't leave TempleNet without clicking the "special music feature" link. It leads to a page of "Indo-Celtic" music, blending instruments from east and west. The idea sounds weird, but the nine samples are nice.