In the past century, people belonging to the Hindu-Buddhist cultural sphere have started projecting the characteristics of their own spiritual masters on the monotheist prophets. Thus, when Jesus says: %uFFFDThe Kingdom of God is among you%uFFFD, meaning %uFFFDI, Jesus, am the Kingdom of God%uFFFD, these good-natured Orientals take it to mean: %uFFFDThe Kingdom of God is inside of you, waiting to be discovered through meditation.%uFFFD They have started to say that the prophets were a kind of yogis who taught their followers a way to attain a divine state of consciousness.
In fact, prophecy is radically different from yoga: it means allowing an outside entity, which in the case of monotheism is called Yahweh/God/Allah, to blow certain consciousness contents into your mind. Consciousness is not turned inward, but is (or believes it is) communicating with another Being. Moreover, the mind is not being emptied of its contents and made to rest in itself, as it is in yoga; on the contrary, it is being filled with a message beyond one%uFFFDs control. The prophet receives a certain information: prophecy is like talking, though with an unusual partner via an unusual channel; but yoga is silence. Lastly, if it is correct that prophethood is a mental aberration and a delusion, then that makes it the very antithesis of yoga, which is an undisturbed and realistic awareness of pure consciousness.
Yoga is not an erratic and disturbing experience which befalls yo
