Yoga Jesus

Yesterday I recevied this comment from a person who had heard about our new book "What Catholics Really Believe" on the radio, checked out our website, and wrote us the following:

I...thought the book was just what I should get for a family member who has very little understanding of the faith.  However, the picture on the front is just too weird for me to consider buying it.  It reminds me of the pictures that the yoga people have of their "saints".  The picture of Christ that you chose has that same look.  I'm sure the book is great but the cover is a turn off.

I wrote back:

Thank you for your opinion.  You might consider that the yoga people adopted pictures of their leaders that purposely looked like Christ because he was so revered.

Of course I don't really know this. Other responses later came to mind:

a. "But you know that the picture on our book is Jesus. Right?"

b. "If Jesus looked like Uncle Fred whom I hate, would I also hate Jesus?"

c. "Do all men with long hair and a beard look the same?"

d. "Jesus and Yoga masters do have somethings in common... they're Eastern mystics who didn't have a razor or many friends who were barbers. 

Then, I wondered, what if this person is right and if all the Yoga masters looked like the cover of our book. That would be, ah, strange. So, I decided to do an image search on Yoga Masters, and came up with the images below. I suppose some people would see a resemblance. Which looks more like Jesus?

And what if our book cover looked so much like Yoga masters that Yoga people started buying it and reading it? Would that be bad? Would we get sued for impersonating Yoga Masters? I can see the headlines now: "CATHOLIC PUBLISHER SUED FOR DEPICTING YOGA MASTERS AS JESUS... OR THE OTHER WAY AROUND...THIS REPORTER ISN'T SURE."

Ah, but then I found it. Yoga Jesus... in marble no less. Yep, that's Jesus alright. Well, okay, it's just a statute for you iconoclasts out there. It's not REALLY him. The website that has this picture claims:

The final marble statue which is of Jesus just arrived last week from India. Our line of masters or gurus is 5 deep (Jesus, Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Swami Yukteswar and Paramhansa Yogananda) and Jesus holds pole position as you can see from Yogananda’s comment above. He is viewed by Yogananda devotees worldwide as a great Master of yoga.

Okay, so, I suppose this does look like Jesus. 

GUILTY!

Let's buy these books and save all these Yoga masters.