The Spiritual Altar

Yoga and Chanunpa

Feb 6, 2007 Linda Sue Grimes

Many skeptics believe spirituality is merely based on imagination. They fail to realize that spirituality at its deepest and most useful level is based on science.

Yoga Science Based

Paramahansa Yogananda tells us to make our meditation seats our scientific laboratories. He demonstrates time and again that the yoga techniques he teaches are based on science, not wishful thinking, and not imagination.

The late Wallace Black Elk was a spiritual leader of the Lakotas. In The Sacred Ways of the Lakota, he explains the nature of his religious practices. The remarkable parallels between Chanunpa, as Wallace refers to his spirituality, and yoga, the scientific techniques offered by Paramahansa Yogananda, demonstrate the universal bond that ties all authentic religions together.

Paramahansa Yogananda and Wallace Black Elk have explained in modern terms basic spiritual concepts that have not only enlightened many students intellectually but have also provided spiritual hope in a world that in its post-Darwinian state has been designated a spiritual waste land by many thinkers, artists, and even fundamentalist religionists.

Spiritual Similarities

These spiritual leaders have contributed to contemporary understanding of their own cultures and religious philosophies, and as we observe their explanation, we grow aware of their similarities.

Spiritual concepts are always made specific by use of metaphor, and as in understanding poetry, to understand religious concepts, we must understand the metaphor. According to Paramahansa Yogananda, all religions serve the same purpose—to lead one back to Divinity. The differences that seem to split religions from one another lie in the use of different metaphors that portray concepts and the different names for the Divine.

A common misunderstanding of Hinduism emerges from the many Hindu names for the Deity. But instead of actually signifying different “Gods,” the names merely signify different aspects of God. Hinduism is monotheistic, as Christianity, Islam, and all other authentic religions are.

Altar as Metaphor

The central metaphor of all religions is the altar, the place of worship. In yoga, the altar is the spine. This is the literal “altar.” In Lakota, the altar is the sacred pipe. Lame Deer, Lakota holy man, in Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions says, “The pipe—that's us. Its stem is our body, our spine.” The purpose of yoga practice is to magnetize the spine; Yogananda says, “In deep meditation, the first experience of Spirit is on the altar of the spine.”

Another similarity that yoga shares with chanunpa is the purification of the body. The sweat lodge of the Lakota serves to help the body rid itself of poisons, and the exercises of yoga also help purify the body. Both procedures have the same purpose, to get the body ready for more advanced spiritual practices.

Paramahansa Yogananda’s Teachings Complete

The yoga techniques of Paramahansa Yogananda offer a complete program for purifying body and mind, preparing them to enter the higher states of mediation. And while Wallace Black Elk does not offer us a complete, scientific program, he does offer us much information about his spiritual practices that we can easily compare to the yogic science.

When we find two seemingly disparate spiritual leaders expounding ideas that are similar, we become more convinced of the efficacy of both.

The copyright of the article The Spiritual Altar in Alternative Spirituality is owned by Linda Sue Grimes. Permission to republish The Spiritual Altar in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Paramahansa Yogananda