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Associated Press
26-05-2025
- General
- Associated Press
Members of Latter-day Saints turn to yoga for its physical and spiritual benefits
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Wendy Cullum lay flat on her back completely relaxed in 'shavasana' or 'corpse pose,' a common closing position in a yoga class. She and several other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were finishing up a 90-minute session in the sanctuary of the only Hindu temple in Spanish Fork, Utah, a bucolic community about 55 miles (88 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City. This small Thursday evening yoga class at Shri Shri Radha Krishna Temple in the heart of Mormon country is an example of the embrace of yoga and meditation among members of the faith, widely known as the Mormon church. Yoga in Sanskrit means 'union with the divine.' For Cullum, her practice helps deepen her connection to her Mormon faith and God, though yoga originated as an ancient spiritual practice in India rooted in Hindu philosophy. 'When I close my eyes and focus on him during shavasana, it helps me leave all my worries behind and trust in God more,' said Cullum, who has been practicing for five years. She's not alone. Many Latter-day Saints who do yoga and other contemplative practices — mindfulness, breath work, meditation and more — say they are able to seamlessly integrate their faith into the process. This is not a new phenomenon either. A 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center found 27% of members of the church believe in yoga not just as exercise, but as a spiritual practice, compared with 23% of the general public who share this belief. Reconciling a spiritual identity crisis Philip McLemore, a former U.S. Air Force and hospice chaplain, taught other members of his faith how to meditate for more than a decade. His yoga practice started earlier than that following a spinal injury. Yoga not only helped him heal physically, he said, but it also made him more compassionate. Unable to achieve this positive change with his faith alone, McLemore questioned his spiritual identity. 'I had to ask: Who am I?' McLemore said. 'Am I a Mormon guy, a Christian? Or am I this yogi guy?' He found his answer in Matthew 11:28-30: 'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.' McLemore emphasized the word 'yoke,' which shares the same Indo-European root word — yeug or yuj — as 'yoga.' It means to join or unite. He determined that Christ's teachings are consistent with the classic yogas in the Bhagvad Gita, the main Hindu sacred text, which speaks to the eternal nature of the soul. McLemore's struggle ended there and his two worlds merged. His practice now takes place in front of a small shrine in his study, with a figurine of Christ in a meditative pose flanked by those of Hindu gods Krishna bearing a flute and Shiva performing his cosmic dance. The body-mind connection Like McLemore, LeAnne Tolley's yoga practice began with an injury that left her unable to do her typical gym workouts. Tolley, a Latter-day Saint and a yoga teacher, uses yoga therapy to help her clients with eating disorders and other behavioral issues. Tolley said when she started practicing yoga, she met with resistance from some Christians outside her faith, even though she saw no conflict. She said yoga changed her life by helping her overcome 'exercise addiction' and understand that the mind and body are connected. 'Most Western spirituality sometimes places excessive focus on the spirit and leads people to believe that the body doesn't matter,' she said. 'My faith teaches that God has a physical body — an exalted, celestial, perfected body. What it means to become like God is to get to a point where my body is just as important as my spirit, that they are all perfectly aligned.' It's dismaying, she says, for her to hear some people tell her she cannot do yoga and be a Latter-day Saint. 'What I've learned from yoga only fortifies, enhances and deepens my personal faith,' she said. 'The pieces in yoga that don't fit in with my faith practice, I just leave them out. I just take those pieces that help me and make sense for me.' While many Latter-day Saints have adopted yoga for health and fitness, the church took the intentional step of recommending yoga as a way for its missionaries to stay physically fit, said Matthew Bowman, chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. He said some church members, particularly women, have talked about how yoga helped them get in touch with their own divine identity and their identity as women. It has also helped some unpack a contradiction within the church's theology, where there is sometimes shaming around the body while also insisting that bodies are divine, Bowman said. Spiritual practice in lieu of religion For Naomi Watkins, who says she left the Latter-day Saints after experiencing a disconnect between her body and mind about eight years ago, yoga offered a spiritual lifeline. 'Being a woman in Mormonism, I felt very cut off from my body because of the garments I had to wear and having seen how women were treated differently,' she said, adding that breathing exercises, or breath work, in yoga helped her make that vital body-mind connection and quiet the constant inner chatter. Above all, Watkins said, yoga gave her the freedom to take cues from her body and move in ways that felt right and good. Now, yoga is her spiritual practice. 'It's about reclaiming my own inner voice, my wisdom,' Watkins said. 'Our cells carry generations of practices and stories and knowledge. Yoga has helped me tap into those things for myself in a way my faith did not. I know how my body talks to me now. My body often knows things before my brain does.' Synthesizing yogic practices with Mormonism For some like Thomas McConkie, delving deeper into 'yogic meditative paths' led him back to his Mormon roots. He had left the faith at 13 and stayed away for two decades. 'I realized there were resonances in the depths of that practice that were calling me back home to my native tradition, to my ancestry,' he said. As he re-embraced the faith of his childhood, McConkie said he began to see a path unfold before him forged by contemplatives, such as the early Christian hermits who traversed the Egyptian desert in the 4th and 5th centuries. Eight years ago, McConkie founded Lower Lights in Salt Lake City, a community of meditators, many of whom, like him, synthesize their contemplative faith with their Mormon faith. 'In Latter-day Saint theology, all matter is spirit and all creation is actually composed of divine light,' McConkie said. 'Yogic and meditative practices help us bring forth that light and live our lives in a way that glorifies the divine.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Members of Latter-day Saints turn to yoga for its physical and spiritual benefits
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Wendy Cullum lay flat on her back completely relaxed in 'shavasana' or 'corpse pose,' a common closing position in a yoga class. She and several other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were finishing up a 90-minute session in the sanctuary of the only Hindu temple in Spanish Fork, Utah, a bucolic community about 55 miles (88 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City. This small Thursday evening yoga class at Shri Shri Radha Krishna Temple in the heart of Mormon country is an example of the embrace of yoga and meditation among members of the faith, widely known as the Mormon church. Yoga in Sanskrit means 'union with the divine." For Cullum, her practice helps deepen her connection to her Mormon faith and God, though yoga originated as an ancient spiritual practice in India rooted in Hindu philosophy. 'When I close my eyes and focus on him during shavasana, it helps me leave all my worries behind and trust in God more,' said Cullum, who has been practicing for five years. She's not alone. Many Latter-day Saints who do yoga and other contemplative practices — mindfulness, breath work, meditation and more — say they are able to seamlessly integrate their faith into the process. This is not a new phenomenon either. A 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center found 27% of members of the church believe in yoga not just as exercise, but as a spiritual practice, compared with 23% of the general public who share this belief. Reconciling a spiritual identity crisis Philip McLemore, a former U.S. Air Force and hospice chaplain, taught other members of his faith how to meditate for more than a decade. His yoga practice started earlier than that following a spinal injury. Yoga not only helped him heal physically, he said, but it also made him more compassionate. Unable to achieve this positive change with his faith alone, McLemore questioned his spiritual identity. 'I had to ask: Who am I?' McLemore said. 'Am I a Mormon guy, a Christian? Or am I this yogi guy?' He found his answer in Matthew 11:28-30: 'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.' McLemore emphasized the word 'yoke,' which shares the same Indo-European root word — yeug or yuj — as 'yoga.' It means to join or unite. He determined that Christ's teachings are consistent with the classic yogas in the Bhagvad Gita, the main Hindu sacred text, which speaks to the eternal nature of the soul. McLemore's struggle ended there and his two worlds merged. His practice now takes place in front of a small shrine in his study, with a figurine of Christ in a meditative pose flanked by those of Hindu gods Krishna bearing a flute and Shiva performing his cosmic dance. The body-mind connection Like McLemore, LeAnne Tolley's yoga practice began with an injury that left her unable to do her typical gym workouts. Tolley, a Latter-day Saint and a yoga teacher, uses yoga therapy to help her clients with eating disorders and other behavioral issues. Tolley said when she started practicing yoga, she met with resistance from some Christians outside her faith, even though she saw no conflict. She said yoga changed her life by helping her overcome 'exercise addiction' and understand that the mind and body are connected. 'Most Western spirituality sometimes places excessive focus on the spirit and leads people to believe that the body doesn't matter,' she said. 'My faith teaches that God has a physical body — an exalted, celestial, perfected body. What it means to become like God is to get to a point where my body is just as important as my spirit, that they are all perfectly aligned.' It's dismaying, she says, for her to hear some people tell her she cannot do yoga and be a Latter-day Saint. 'What I've learned from yoga only fortifies, enhances and deepens my personal faith,' she said. 'The pieces in yoga that don't fit in with my faith practice, I just leave them out. I just take those pieces that help me and make sense for me.' While many Latter-day Saints have adopted yoga for health and fitness, the church took the intentional step of recommending yoga as a way for its missionaries to stay physically fit, said Matthew Bowman, chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. He said some church members, particularly women, have talked about how yoga helped them get in touch with their own divine identity and their identity as women. It has also helped some unpack a contradiction within the church's theology, where there is sometimes shaming around the body while also insisting that bodies are divine, Bowman said. Spiritual practice in lieu of religion For Naomi Watkins, who says she left the Latter-day Saints after experiencing a disconnect between her body and mind about eight years ago, yoga offered a spiritual lifeline. 'Being a woman in Mormonism, I felt very cut off from my body because of the garments I had to wear and having seen how women were treated differently,' she said, adding that breathing exercises, or breath work, in yoga helped her make that vital body-mind connection and quiet the constant inner chatter. Above all, Watkins said, yoga gave her the freedom to take cues from her body and move in ways that felt right and good. Now, yoga is her spiritual practice. 'It's about reclaiming my own inner voice, my wisdom,' Watkins said. 'Our cells carry generations of practices and stories and knowledge. Yoga has helped me tap into those things for myself in a way my faith did not. I know how my body talks to me now. My body often knows things before my brain does.' Synthesizing yogic practices with Mormonism For some like Thomas McConkie, delving deeper into 'yogic meditative paths' led him back to his Mormon roots. He had left the faith at 13 and stayed away for two decades. 'I realized there were resonances in the depths of that practice that were calling me back home to my native tradition, to my ancestry,' he said. As he re-embraced the faith of his childhood, McConkie said he began to see a path unfold before him forged by contemplatives, such as the early Christian hermits who traversed the Egyptian desert in the 4th and 5th centuries. Eight years ago, McConkie founded Lower Lights in Salt Lake City, a community of meditators, many of whom, like him, synthesize their contemplative faith with their Mormon faith. 'In Latter-day Saint theology, all matter is spirit and all creation is actually composed of divine light," McConkie said. "Yogic and meditative practices help us bring forth that light and live our lives in a way that glorifies the divine.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Free Malaysia Today
23-05-2025
- Free Malaysia Today
Cops to seek remand for temple vandal who threatened committee member
Ampang Jaya police chief Azam Ismail said items seized from the suspect included a hammer, a bolt cutter, two parangs and a keris. (Facebook pic) PETALING JAYA : Police will seek a remand order for a man who allegedly vandalised several deity statues at a Hindu temple in Taman Sri Ampang and threatened to behead a temple committee member who confronted him. Ampang Jaya police chief Azam Ismail said the man was apprehended at the scene at about 8.40am today. 'A remand application will be submitted tomorrow at the Ampang Jaya magistrates' court,' he said in a statement. Azam said the suspect is a 33-year-old unemployed man without a criminal record. He, however, tested positive for methamphetamine and amphetamine. He said the suspect's actions were not related to extremism, and the man was believed to have been hallucinating at the time, claiming to have heard voices. Police seized a hammer, a bolt cutter, a bag, two parangs, a keris and a motorcycle from the man. The temple's secretary filed the police report after viewing CCTV footage that showed a man entering the temple at about 6am today and leaving shortly after. The secretary said the man returned at about 8.30am with several tools, parangs and a keris and proceeded to damage the statues of several deities. 'The complainant immediately rushed to the temple. Upon arrival, he was confronted and chased away by the suspect, who pointed a parang at him and threatened to behead him,' Azam said. 'The complainant then contacted the police for assistance.' The case is being investigated under Section 295 of the Penal Code for defiling a place of worship, and Section 506 of the same law for criminal intimidation. Azam said the investigation also involved Section 6(1) of the Corrosive and Explosive Substances and Offensive Weapons Act 1958. Earlier today, Urimai urged the authorities to take swift and firm action over alleged acts of sabotage at two Hindu temples in Selangor over the past week, including the incident at Taman Sri Ampang. Urimai's interim deputy chairman, David Marshel, said if such actions are not stopped, they could spark tension and threaten racial and religious harmony. He claimed that the investigation into the Taman Sri Ampang temple incident was halted after the suspect was found to be mentally unstable. He said the other incident occurred at the Sri Maha Ayiram Kannudayar Alayam temple in Kapar.
Free Malaysia Today
23-05-2025
- Free Malaysia Today
Ampang temple vandal sentenced to 5 years in prison
Sufpriyanndi Masyhuri was charged at the Ampang sessions and magistrates' courts with carrying weapons, defiling a place of worship and criminal intimidation. (Facebook pic) PETALING JAYA : An unemployed man who vandalised a Hindu temple in Kampung Tasek Ampang and threatened to behead a temple committee member was sentenced to five years in prison. Sufpriyanndi Masyhuri, 33, pleaded guilty to three charges at the Ampang sessions and magistrates' courts. At the sessions court, he was charged with entering the Dewi Sri Maha Kaliamman Temple at around 6am on May 19 armed with a hammer, steel cutter, two parangs and a keris. A temple committee member who was monitoring the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage from his home saw the accused vandalising a deity's trident. The committee member rushed to the scene, where Sufpriyanndi allegedly pointed a parang at him and threatened to behead him. The charge was framed under Section 6(1) of the Corrosive and Explosive Substances and Offensive Weapons Act 1958, which relates to the carrying of weapons. Judge Nurulizwan Ahmad Zubir sentenced him to five years in jail and ordered him to be given one stroke of the cane. In the magistrates' court, Sufpriyanndi also pleaded guilty to damaging the temple at the same time and location. He was accused of committing the act with the intention and knowledge that members of the Hindu community might regard the damage as an insult to their religion. The charge was framed under Section 295 of the Penal Code, which relates to defiling a place of worship with intent to insult religion. Magistrate Normaizan Rahim sentenced him to seven months' imprisonment for the offence. In a separate magistrates' court, magistrate Amalina Basirah Top sentenced Sufpriyanndi to five months in jail after he admitted to criminally intimidating M Mohana Thas, 34, by threatening to behead him. The charge was framed under Section 506 of the Penal Code for criminal intimidation. All sentences are to run concurrently.
Daily Mail
11-05-2025
- Daily Mail
It looks like India but is just 40 minutes from NYC... the mini kingdom where you take off your shoes to enter
A New Jersey Hindu temple transports visitors to India as it houses the second largest temple in the world, and it's conveniently located only 40 minutes outside of New York City. The BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham sits on 183 acres in Robbinsville and is the biggest Hindu temple in the United States. But visitors walking along the grounds could be fooled into thinking they took an international trip to India. 'It is genuine, built just like temples in India,' Darshan Patel told NJ Monthly. The temple took 12 years to build from 2011 to 2023 and it is designed according to ancient Hindu scriptures, the temple said. It features 10,000 statues and statuettes and has carvings of Indian musical instruments and dance forms. And like tradition, those inside the temple will have to remove their footwear. It also houses the largest elliptical dome of traditional stone architecture that's ever been made and the stone found throughout the grounds were sourced from Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, India, and China. When one enters the grounds, they're met with a 49-foot statue of Bhagwan Swaminarayan, an Indian yogi who founded a major branch of Hinduism. The statue has him in a yoga pose where he's in deep prayer to symbolize discipline and empathy The Brahma Kund, a stepwell, also contains water from more than 300 bodies of water around the world, including from 108 holy rivers in India and all 50 US states, the temple said. When one enters the grounds, they're met with a 49-foot statue of Bhagwan Swaminarayan, an Indian yogi who founded a major branch of Hinduism. The statue has him in a yoga pose where he's in deep prayer to symbolize discipline and empathy. The temple also has a café that is filled with greenery, ornate tiles, and full of natural light that makes the place feel serene and calm. Visitors can get a taste of vegetarian Indian and Western cuisines that helps promote the religion's call for non-violence. The temple will also be adding a Hindu Learning Center to help visitors understand the religion and learn about it. New Jersey is home to the largest Hindu population in the United States, followed by California. And the US has the seventh largest Hindu population outside of India. BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham gathers more than just Hindus looking to worship, but many visitors fascinated by the breathtaking architecture right off Route 130. The temple gets tens of thousands of visitors a day. They get so many visitors, the temple now has timed entry and visitors have to book their free ticket in advance. 'The campus is meant to bring all people together from all backgrounds. That's how the temple was built, how it operates,' Patel told NJ Monthly. 'We did expect this. 'The ancient idea is that, when you build a temple, it will last for at least a thousand years.' Debbie Stetzer heard about the temple from her Indian friend and brought her daughter, she told NJ Monthly. 'It's awesome, it's totally amazing,' she told the publication. When she sent a photo to her friend, she asked if she was on vacation as the place looked like anything but the Garden State. The campus does have a dress code, which includes no sleeveless or low-cut tops, shorts, skirts, or dresses above knee length; and no clothing featuring offensive language or imagery, its website read.
