Michal Russo's Story | THE TRUE LIGHT PROJECT

“*Peacefully poised on the outside, but inside I was desperately seeking answers and truth.”*

I have been described as quite a few things in this life, and most of them contain adjectives I would never repeat in writing. I am grateful to God for what He has delivered me from, and I will open up about much of it in this article. I was born and raised by loving Christian parents and I am the daughter of a pastor. I was taught all the Christian teachings from birth, yet I managed to stray when my family relocated from our small hometown in Ohio and moved to South Beach in Miami, Florida, during my teenage years.

If you’re familiar with South Beach and its infamous nightlife scenes, perhaps you already know. It is not a good place for a teenage girl from a farm town to end up. However, the final tipping point that led me to what I call my great “crash and burn” was perhaps the most subtle of deceptions. It wasn’t late night partying, trying to keep up with the celebrity lifestyle, or drugs and alcohol, like many might presume. I became fully entrapped by something that came cloaked in light, something I had come to believe was “good.” It was my former career as a yoga teacher.

Through practicing and teaching yoga, I thought I was contributing to the overall positive well-being of both myself and others. I was in pursuit of calmness, peace, and tranquillity. This is the way to a healthy and peaceful life, I thought. So, I began to study it while I was still in high school (2004), and not just any form. I began in a studio in Coral Gables, Florida, that observed the Bikram College of India method. That involves doing classes in a heated room (temperatures for Bikram usually range from 90 to 105 degrees while participating in a fixed sequence of 26 postures).When I got to the studio, people commented to me that the class was going to be like “90 minutes of pure hell,” but they jokingly added, “Well, it’s better than spending an eternity there, and you will feel brand new after savasana.”

Savasana (“The Corpse Pose”) is a reference to the final pose in the Bikram sequence, also called Mritasana (“The Dead Man’s Pose.”) Years later, I realized the elated feeling of “rebirth” that we all experienced at the end of the class was a actually a counterfeit of the experience of being “born-again”: the supernatural salvation encounter that is only available through Jesus Christ. Back then, we felt like we were emerging as “new creations” after the intensity of a 90-minute yoga session, but followers of Jesus understand that the promise of becoming “new creations” is only possible through the Spirit of God entering the heart of a repentant person and resulting in a spiritual rebirth). I started believing my emancipation, my salvation, would come after Savasana, and even though I thought I was a Christian at the time, I never saw this as a deception or a substitution for the truth.

You see, I was raised in a family that taught me what “New Creation living” through the Lord Jesus Christ was, yet I rebelled. I got to the place where I wanted nothing to do with church and what I considered mere “religion.” I began to believe that I could achieve this same type of mindset through other means or ways, and I felt strongly that yoga was one of them.

Each class ended in Savasana. The entire experience of a slow tingling in my fingers and toes after meditation was completed was like a natural “high.” Our instructors would essentially “bring us back to life” out of the final resting pose. It was a counterfeit “rebirth” at the end of each class. I became totally dependent on this feeling, and even chased it daily, sometimes multiple times a day.

I also had some negative experiences. While at Bikram, I was also ‘barked at’ for attempting to drink water in between poses, and I was told my shorts and mat were the wrong color. I was accused of draining positive energy from the rest of that class and was told not to return and practice with them again. Looking back, I realize, that painful rejection was really a blessing in disguise.

Venturing into Other Styles

After two years of Bikram, I ventured into different styles of yoga. Over the next decade I passionately embraced the practices of Iyengar, Ashtanga, Power, and Yin Yoga. I eventually decided my favorite approach was Hatha Vinyasa, a style that combines movement with breath as a form of meditation across poses.

Then, after over a decade of avidly practicing yoga in the United States, I decided to go to “the next level”— embarking on a trip overseas to get my yoga teacher training at the Yogashala Institute out of Marbella, Spain, in 2016. I wanted more than just another teacher to guide me through this process of perfecting my practice and achieving my “higher Self”; I wanted a guru. I ended up with a teacher named Javier Castro who was personally mentored by Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and I got my 200hr RYTT teaching certificate in Hatha Vinyasa with an immersion in Anusara Hatha from him. Anusara means to be “in the flow, flowing with grace, the soul in flow with the universe, following your heart.” All of that sounds really wonderful and desirable, doesn’t it? But now I know, there is only one way to get to this grace.

“For the law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, who some revere as the spiritual head of the Siddha Yoga path – I studied under one of her students at the Yogashala Institute out of Marbella, Spain – yet, of course, I was never taught that true salvation is only available only through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah.

Even at that point, remarkably, I still considered myself a Christian. I saw no problem with this new worldview being syncretic with my Christian faith. I quickly obtained my Yoga Alliance membership, and started offering classes as soon as I got back to the United States. I did this by teaching at private studios and on a military base (Fort Sill, Oklahoma) to soldiers and their families. Again, I thought I was helping people: helping them relieve pain, stress, tension, and recover from PTSD. I didn’t realize, or want to realize, the spiritual aspect I was imparting to them. Even though I kept it pretty watered down, I was still leading the classes through the chanting of OM and other mantras, asanas, meditations, and mudras. I maintained that these things were helpful and harmless, even though we often directly called out to the god Shiva and other Hindu gods with worshipful utterances like “Auspicious Goodness.”.

The Shocking Revelation

I thought that when I put a statue of Buddha in my home, it was harmless. After all, we had them in the studio and whenever we were asked about them, we would just say, “They “represent peace.” Of course, we should have recognized it for what it was: worshipful reverence toward the founder of a false, atheistic belief system.

When I eventually built a small altar in my basement with my yogic books, chakra stones, guides and incense, I convinced myself that it wasn’t wrong again. When I wore “yoga pants,” I never thought twice, even though I knew fully that the word “yoga” means to yoke and unite with Brahman. So essentially, by calling them “yoga pants” I was actually calling them “yoked-to-a-false-deity” pants. When I bowed down on my “yoga” mat, I never considered myself bowing down to other gods or submitting myself to a supernatural influence, or yoking to anything at all… I was just breathing and stretching… right?

This wasn’t an easy assignment, answering the call by God to share my story of crashing and burning through yoga. However, it led me to a total realignment of body, soul, and spirit by the grace of God. In 2020, with the pandemic closing yoga studios worldwide and people questioning many facets of existence, I finally re-pursued my Christian faith. The block on yoga came almost immediately. It was like a physical and spiritual stop sign that no longer allowed me to continue practicing yoga, let alone teach it.

Like any ritual that you practice so often it becomes automatic, yoga had become my whole world, from career, to yogi friends, to my actual identity, it involved my entire body and soul. Without realizing it, I had allowed it to capture my spirit, too. I was addicted to the feeling. I longed for those times when I felt like I was flowing, like I was aligned: the mindset I convinced myself could only be achieved during yoga.

The Turning Point

*Hatha Yoga Teacher Training at Yogashala Institute in Spain*

I knew I needed a complete restoration, from the inside out, and that it had to involve more than just my body and soul, because my spirit had finally been awakened to what it had been yoking to, and it was not Christ. I was in a headstand, one of my favorite poses, when the physical block came upon me. I can only explain it as an overwhelming hallucination that caused me to black out and literally fall out of the headstand. I used to do this pose several times a day and nothing like that had ever happened.

I came back to consciousness in a messy fallen manner on the floor of my living room and what felt like a crown of thorns was upon my head. It was the worst migraine I have ever experienced to this day, and it lasted for three full days. I took that as a very severe and real sign that the Lord no longer wanted me to even think about doing yoga anymore. My physical body crashed, and my head and eyes were burning as if they were on fire. This was my personal “crash and burn” experience. I finally knew that I wanted to be clear and intentional about my faith in Christ, and His sweet mercy and grace alone.

Thank God that His mercies are truly new every morning, and that He gave me the many second chances I needed to finally surrender fully to Him, without compromise, and without yoking to other paths. After that experience, I became very passionate about sharing the deceptive spiritual aspects of yoga that cannot be separated or un-yoked from the practice, like I was once told. I knew I wanted to help others by sharing my experience so that they could also find restoration and realignment in faith, by grace. I have since spoken on television shows, podcasts, online media outlets, and written two books on the subject. And this is why I am sharing my story here now, through the writing of this article, to awaken others who may have chosen to reject or ignore these fundamental and dangerous aspects of yoga.

Being Awakened

I think it’s important to discuss why I was seeking alignment, so that I can share how I was completely deceived by this false light in yoga. In the New Age world that I was not just living in, but teaching in, we often referred to our complete being as “body, mind, and soul.” It was not until I took a deeper dive in my faith in Christ that I realized these words were redundant and not how He intended us to operate. They were missing the most important component: Him. Perhaps this was part of the reason that no matter how many days I practiced yoga, or how many hours I spent in worldly meditation or being mindful, I was still incredibly misaligned.

Body, Soul, and Spirit

The Bible says our beings are perfectly made of body, soul and spirit. Paul prayed for the church at Thessalonica with this declaration:

May your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:23 NKJV)

In this scripture, Paul delivers a powerful perspective of what our beings look like. Our bodies are materially evident, and their care and management are more or less instinctual. We eat when we are hungry. We cease action when the body alarms us with pain. We sleep when we are tired, and so on. The soul and the spirit, however, are immaterial and therefore, require a more conscious and intentional effort to maintain them. The Greek word used in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 for the soul is psuche and it implies our mind, our will, and our emotions. This is where our personality traits, desires, and our personal will dwells.

*When I surrendered to Jesus, I received the gift of eternal life—incomparable!!!*

When babies are born, they have the most pure and innocent essence about them, don’t they? They are completely pure in body and soul. Not long after birth, their little personalities begin to develop and evolve. It is ever so obvious when their quirks and coos (which delight the parents and all those around them) start to blossom into their own unique identities at young ages. Alas, the world around them is highly influential. They learn how to talk and express emotion based on the words, attitudes, and actions of others. They react to situations by mimicking how they see others behave. Thus, it is vitally best to have a safe, stable, and nurturing environment when raising little ones. We care for the development of their little bodies, and we want them to have every opportunity to start life off right, and as blissfully happy souls. If only we, as adults, kept such careful care of our own environments once we evolve enough in body and soul to be on our own. I will be the first to admit that I rebelled against this type of environment, and it threw me astray for decades, mostly because I was spiritually dead.

The Greek word for spirit is pneuma and it implies the most vital source of our beings, the part that connects us to God. Our spirit is where and how we communicate with Him. It is the deepest aspect of our being and what gives us the ability to commune with God the Father. So, while we are developed in body and soul, we often still completely lack the one and only aspect of our creation that gives us the identity of being “children of God.”

Without this part of us active and alive in Him (Jesus Christ, the Son), we have no hope for redemption from sin, and no ability to seek divine guidance and supernatural help from the Holy Spirit (our Helper). For God created us in His very image. He is three in one: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He created us with these three distinct things: body, soul, and spirit. When they are not active and awake in Him, we fall naturally out of our intended alignment. This is what I had so dangerously done by yoking to other gods (who did not exist), as well as evil spirits, through my mantras, chants, and even bodily worship (poses) in yoga.

So you see, if the word “mind” is not being used to describe our literal brain matter, but rather what is encompassed in our souls (i.e. our personality traits, emotions, personal desires, and will), then saying the words “body” (material), “mind” (immaterial) and “soul” (immaterial) is like saying the word “soul” twice and leaving out the most divinely deep aspect of our creations that connects us to God: our spirits.

As born-again believers we become spiritually awake, and we receive yet another gift that merges with our spirit, and that is the Holy Spirit. He is a promised and cherished gift that keeps giving, and He comes to dwell within us, co-mingling and guiding our human spirit:

The prophecy from the Old Testament comes to pass in the person who surrenders to the Lordship of Jesus:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

Then the New Testament promises are also fulfilled in believers:

The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God. (Romans 8:16 LITV).

But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:17 ASV)

Once we are born again through Jesus Christ we are no longer “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Our beings become full of New-Creation life through Him! The three primary functions of New Creation living are communion with God, revelation from God, and conscience. Due to our fallen state, the first two are non-functional and the third is barely functional. But then, when Jesus comes into our hearts, His resurrection life awakens the first two functions and He “cleanses” our conscience from dead works “to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14). Finally, we become “complete in Him” (Colossians 2:10).

Choose Who You Serve

*Spreading the good news of the Gospel on TV and the internet— the revelation of the true path to becoming a “new creation”*

Sometimes, it can be hard to tell whether we’re living and doing things in our soul or in our spirit. This is a key difference from how my former self used to strive to live in “body, mind, and soul.” I was not even seeking spirit, or His Spirit. I was living a life where I was choosing to serve “my higher self.” I was not even seeking His will, His divine purpose, or His plan for me. Inadvertently, I had also opened all my spiritual gates to other gods and the demonic spirits that impersonated those gods, who began to wreak havoc across all aspects of my life. I refused to recognize it at the time, because I was convinced that it all simply wasn’t wrong. I was deceived to believe that my wrong behavior in body and soul could coexist with the right faith I had once clung to in Christ. I later found out that was an impossible attempt at spiritual syncretism, but not until after the damage was done.

As yoga teachers we would often default to diluting any religion from our practice by calling whatever god or spirit we were appealing to at the time our “Higher Power.” At that stage of my ‘new age’ journey, my “highest power” was something I called my “higher self,” and that led to some catastrophic problems. Not only did I create those problematic situations (often with good intentions); ultimately, they caused me to crash and burn. What I had got myself into, I had very little strength or knowledge to get out of.

Perhaps you can relate? Have you ever stumbled into hurtful situations where you keep asking yourself questions like:

“How did I end up here?”

“How could they have done this to me?”

“How could I have let this happen?”

Then with shock, you realize you “ended up there” because you made the decision to be there. It was the result of your own will. Whether it happened because of stubbornness or confusion or lack of direction, you were the only one to blame. These were the “walls” I kept hitting, and I finally got fed up.

I was operating solely in the realm of my own creation, instead of acknowledging all that was around me as God’s creation, and myself as a child of God. From my perspective, the world around me was my creation and a result of my decisions and actions. However, it eventually looked like a dismal existence with limited beliefs, false hopes, desperate dreams, and a finite life, not to mention my own pitiful “self-worship.” How much easier it is to rejoice in the knowledge that He has already prepared everything good to come to me and has even given me the gift of eternal life! I rejoice that He loved me and accepted me as broken as I was, and that all I needed to do was trust Him as my Savior, seek Him prayerfully, then hear His instructions and obey.

He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored us in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:5-6 NAS)