10/11/2025
Yoga classes often lead people into the New Age because the practice is rooted in Hindu beliefs that contradict the Gospel. New Age and Hinduism are intertwined, as we’ll discuss in this article.
Before I was saved, I practiced yoga almost daily for over 20 years, and yoga classes led me into New Age polytheism, where I began worshipping Hindu deities.
Even when instructors claim the class is only about fitness, the worldview beneath the movements points people away from God and toward a system that praises the self, glorifies creation, and denies the truth of sin and salvation.
Yes, Hinduism is an ancient system, yet God’s Word is even older. Hinduism is paganism, and God warned believers to avoid paganism in the Old and New Testaments. Ancient Hindu texts teach that yoga poses merge people with Hindu deities and teaches to glorify the deities through yoga poses.
The Hindu roots of yoga teach reincarnation, which denies the finality of death and judgment that God declares in His Word; “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
Yoga philosophy also promotes the heresy of inner divinity where people are taught that answers are found within themselves, yet God says the human heart is deceitful and desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9). When someone is told to look inward for truth, they’re being steered away from the God who calls us to look to Him for wisdom through His Word (Psalm 119:105).
Guided savasana meditations quietly train people to empty their thoughts or visualize energy, light, or spirit guides, which is the opposite of biblical discernment since God calls us to meditate only upon God’s Word and to be sober-minded and alert (Psalm 1; Joshua 1; 1 Peter 5:8).
Yoga often wraps these meditations in soothing language, yet the ideas presented create an appetite for New Age spirituality where the self becomes the authority instead of God. This is how yoga students are taught to trust their own feelings instead of God’s truth.
Yoga classes also push a hyper focus on self-care that subtly shifts into selfishness and pridefulness. Instead of learning to deny ourselves and follow Christ, the message becomes that you’re your own healer, your own guide, and your own source of peace, and that you deserve to spoil yourself.
Yet Jesus said that apart from Him, we can’t do anything (John 15:5). When the self is elevated, Christ is sadly diminished, and the enemy promotes that subtle reversal because it mirrors the lie in Eden where the serpent told Eve that she’d be like God.
Hinduism and the New Age are both openly polytheistic as they teach devotion to many deities and spiritual forces. Yoga studios often display statues or artwork of these false gods while instructors explain the meaning of poses that were created to honor them.
Yoga postures have been historically offered as acts of worship to Hindu deities. God commands believers to “flee from idolatry” (1 Corinthians 10:14), yet yoga quietly normalizes false worship by wrapping it in fitness language.
Before I was saved, yoga classes pulled me into honoring gods that aren’t God, which is why I warn so strongly that yoga is never just exercise; it’s a spiritual system that glorifies idols and steers hearts away from the Lord.
Finally, yoga often promotes “manifesting” your destiny where people speak desires into the universe or visualize outcomes to bring them into reality. This is the same lie that New Age teachers repeat, which is pride dressed up as spirituality. God calls us to pray according to His will, not command the universe to obey our preferences. “The heart of man plans his way, yet the Lord establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).
This is why yoga and the New Age are coiled together like a serpent: they share the same themes of self-exaltation, hidden wisdom, inner divinity, and spiritual practices that bypass Scripture. Christian women need discernment, because the enemy begins with something that looks harmless and feels helpful, yet leads hearts away from the Gospel.
Stretching is natural and healthful, but yoga poses are not for Christian women, even if Bible verses are added to the yoga session. Just like we cannot redeem an Ouija board, pagan practices can’t be redeemed or “Christianized.” Yoga isn’t like the neutral meat in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10; it’s like the unredeemable pagan temple and rituals. Sister, please mark and avoid all forms of yoga, including so-called “holy yoga” and stick with non-yoga forms of stretching.
For more information, please see “Yoga & Spiritual Warfare” available to read for FREE at https://a.co/d/8XukSY5. This is an excellent resource for apologetics and evangelism to people who are deceived by the New Age.
~Doreen Virtue
