Christianity

Christ exhibited not only mysticism but a practice of non-violence that may derive from a yogic influence. There are stories that Christ came to India to study during his lost years, or that he came to India after the crucifixion and died in Kashmir at a very old age. There is an additional story that St. Thomas, one of the twelve disciples, and in some Gnostic literature, the brother of Jesus, died in India (though this is highly speculative).

Yet for certain we know that Hindus admitted Christian refugees into India as early as the fourth century AD, giving them a land to practice their religion without persecution. Hindu and Buddhist ideas spread to some degree into Greece and Rome. Many of the early mystical traditions of Christianity, and some which were outside of it, reflect a knowledge of karma and rebirth and the seeking of mystical experiences.

The Desert Fathers were ascetics much like those of India. However the development of Christianity as a social institution through the Roman Empire opposed and restricted these more yogic like elements in the early church and most were forgotten, like its rejection of the doctrine of rebirth as heresy. Catholic Christianity alone of the main Western religions developed monastic orders like the Hindu and Buddhist, which had mystical traditions as well (though subordinated to the authority of the church).

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