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The Independent
26-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Members of Latter-day Saints turn to yoga for its physical and spiritual benefits
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.
The Independent
26-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
From radio waves to temple domes: The unexpected journey of a Krishna couple in Utah
Charu Das was in Los Angeles in 1980 when a for-sale ad for a small radio station in rural Utah County — about 50 miles south of Salt Lake City — caught his eye. Das and his wife, Vaibhavi Devi, have been longtime members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) also known as the Hare Krishna movement, a Hindu sect that worships Krishna as the supreme being. At $225,000, ownership of the radio station plus the parcel of land around it, seemed like a bargain to Das, whose dream at the time was to broadcast Krishna radio. The Spanish Fork property in Utah County was not far from the state's largest freshwater lake, tucked away amid rolling hills with the snow-capped Wasatch mountain range providing a majestic backdrop. Most county residents were — and still are — members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon Church. 'We came here not knowing what Krishna had in store for us,' Das said. Today, the little radio station is just a dot on their lush 15-acre (6-hectare) campus. At the property's center sits the Shri Shri Radha Krishna Temple, a 10,000-square-foot (930-square-meter) house of worship. Its architecture is unique to temples in northern India with ornate facades, domes, a large covered pavilion, overhanging windows and archways. Llamas and cows graze on the property's pastures. Peacocks crow as they strut around, suddenly fanning out their iridescent blue and green plumage. A lake provides water to cultivate flowers for worship and organic vegetables and fruits, much of which are used for a donation-based vegetarian buffet open to visitors. 'This place is like Vrindavan in Mormon country,' Das said, evoking the historical city in northern India, where Hindus believe Krishna spent much of his childhood. The city has thousands of temples dedicated to the worship of Krishna and his chief consort Radha — also one of the main deities at the temple in Spanish Fork. Das and his wife said they hadn't planned to build a temple. Initially, they added a log house where they held Sunday services and began breeding and selling llamas to support themselves. In the early 1990s, Vaibhavi Devi floated the idea of adding a temple, and they eventually built two: one on their property and the other in Salt Lake City. They were completed thanks in part to support and seed money from devotees, the local Hindu community and Latter-day Saints. The radio station took a backseat amid construction and management of two temples, he said. Devi, an artist, supervised the project, channeling her creativity throughout the process, her husband said. She hired an aerospace professional to design the smaller temple domes, and an Idaho company that fashioned potato storage structures to build the large, main temple dome. She also spent six months on scaffolding decorating the vaulted ceiling inside the main sanctuary, painting dancing demigods, lotus flower motifs and masterfully crafting foam to look like marble. The temple now conducts school tours as one way to support itself; about 4,000 students from area schools visit the temple each year, Das said. Monica Ringger Bambrough, a volunteer interfaith liaison for the Latter-day Saints church in the region, helps coordinate days of service for youth groups at the Krishna temple. 'Our kids don't get to see how others live out their faith,' she said, adding that the only two non-Mormon houses of worship in town are the Krishna temple and the Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall across the street. The Krishna temple's biggest annual event is the Hindu Festival of Colors marking the start of spring, which draws thousands to Spanish Fork. It features color throws, mantra music, devotional dances and yoga. Das often takes the stage as master of ceremonies and 'senior rapper.' He's been writing rap songs, including one that captures a profound verse in the Gita about devotion and spirituality. 'The Bhagavad Gita is 700 verses divided into 18 chapters, which takes about 45 minutes to read,' he said. 'But I have a three-minute rap version for you.' Connecting with an audience through modern music has inspired him to spend more time in the radio station, which originally brought him to Utah. He's experimenting with AI-generated music, including a country-western jingle advertising their vegetarian buffet. 'This is it,' Das said. 'This is how we're connecting with people. This is what Krishna brought us here for.' ___ 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.
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.
Associated Press
26-05-2025
- General
- Associated Press
From radio waves to temple domes: The unexpected journey of a Krishna couple in Utah
SPANISH FORK, Utah (AP) — Charu Das was in Los Angeles in 1980 when a for-sale ad for a small radio station in rural Utah County — about 50 miles south of Salt Lake City — caught his eye. Das and his wife, Vaibhavi Devi, have been longtime members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) also known as the Hare Krishna movement, a Hindu sect that worships Krishna as the supreme being. At $225,000, ownership of the radio station plus the parcel of land around it, seemed like a bargain to Das, whose dream at the time was to broadcast Krishna radio. The Spanish Fork property in Utah County was not far from the state's largest freshwater lake, tucked away amid rolling hills with the snow-capped Wasatch mountain range providing a majestic backdrop. Most county residents were — and still are — members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon Church. 'We came here not knowing what Krishna had in store for us,' Das said. Today, the little radio station is just a dot on their lush 15-acre (6-hectare) campus. At the property's center sits the Shri Shri Radha Krishna Temple, a 10,000-square-foot (930-square-meter) house of worship. Its architecture is unique to temples in northern India with ornate facades, domes, a large covered pavilion, overhanging windows and archways. Llamas and cows graze on the property's pastures. Peacocks crow as they strut around, suddenly fanning out their iridescent blue and green plumage. A lake provides water to cultivate flowers for worship and organic vegetables and fruits, much of which are used for a donation-based vegetarian buffet open to visitors. 'This place is like Vrindavan in Mormon country,' Das said, evoking the historical city in northern India, where Hindus believe Krishna spent much of his childhood. The city has thousands of temples dedicated to the worship of Krishna and his chief consort Radha — also one of the main deities at the temple in Spanish Fork. Das and his wife said they hadn't planned to build a temple. Initially, they added a log house where they held Sunday services and began breeding and selling llamas to support themselves. In the early 1990s, Vaibhavi Devi floated the idea of adding a temple, and they eventually built two: one on their property and the other in Salt Lake City. They were completed thanks in part to support and seed money from devotees, the local Hindu community and Latter-day Saints. The radio station took a backseat amid construction and management of two temples, he said. Devi, an artist, supervised the project, channeling her creativity throughout the process, her husband said. She hired an aerospace professional to design the smaller temple domes, and an Idaho company that fashioned potato storage structures to build the large, main temple dome. She also spent six months on scaffolding decorating the vaulted ceiling inside the main sanctuary, painting dancing demigods, lotus flower motifs and masterfully crafting foam to look like marble. The temple now conducts school tours as one way to support itself; about 4,000 students from area schools visit the temple each year, Das said. Monica Ringger Bambrough, a volunteer interfaith liaison for the Latter-day Saints church in the region, helps coordinate days of service for youth groups at the Krishna temple. 'Our kids don't get to see how others live out their faith,' she said, adding that the only two non-Mormon houses of worship in town are the Krishna temple and the Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall across the street. The Krishna temple's biggest annual event is the Hindu Festival of Colors marking the start of spring, which draws thousands to Spanish Fork. It features color throws, mantra music, devotional dances and yoga. Das often takes the stage as master of ceremonies and 'senior rapper.' He's been writing rap songs, including one that captures a profound verse in the Gita about devotion and spirituality. 'The Bhagavad Gita is 700 verses divided into 18 chapters, which takes about 45 minutes to read,' he said. 'But I have a three-minute rap version for you.' Connecting with an audience through modern music has inspired him to spend more time in the radio station, which originally brought him to Utah. He's experimenting with AI-generated music, including a country-western jingle advertising their vegetarian buffet. 'This is it,' Das said. 'This is how we're connecting with people. This is what Krishna brought us here for.' ___ 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.
