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Yoga: The tradition of Yoga

The roots of Yoga can be traced back roughly 5,000 years to the Indus Valley civilization, where seals depicting people performing asanas (yoga postures) were used in trade along the river.

The word Yoga comes from the Sanskrit word "Yuj" meaning to yoke, join or unite. It is the union of all aspects of an individual: body, mind and soul. Hence, Yoga reunites all opposites - mind and body, stillness and movement, masculine and feminine, sun and moon - in order to bring reconciliation between them.

Yoga is one of the six branches in Indian philosophy and is referred to throughout the Vedas – the ancient scriptures of India. There is a legend that says that the knowledge of Yoga was first offered by Lord Shiva to his wife Parvati and from there passed on to the world.
According to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the ultimate aim of Yoga is to reach "Kaivalya" (freedom). This is the experience of one's innermost being or "soul" (the Purusa). When this level of awareness is achieved, one becomes free of the chains of cause and effect (Karma) which bound us to continual reincarnation. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is a 2200 year old classical piece of Yoga Philosophy. Hear, Patanjali describe 8 disciplines of yoga which must be practiced and refined in order to perceive the true self- the ultimate goal of Yoga:

Yama - Universal ethics: Non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing.p>

Niyama - Principles of self conduct: purity, contentment, study of self, surrender.

Asana - practice of the postures.

Pranayama - Breath control.

Pratyahara - withdrawal and control of the senses.

Dharana - concentration.

Dhyana - meditation.

Samadhi - higher consciousness.

Yoga And Soul

Physical reality is only a fraction of all that is! In your search for happiness, you have been running away from the `Self', which is the real source of joy. Many a time, you find yourself stressed and ailing because you don't know your inner being, the Self.

This inner being , the Self, is our awareness. It is energy. It is the energy of Divine Love.

All evolution and the manifestation of material energy are guided by the supreme energy of Divine Love. Normally, you do not know how powerful and thoughtful this unknown energy is. The silent working of awareness is so automatic, minute, dynamic, and precious that we take it for granted. After Self-realisation, this energy appears to us as silent throbbing vibrations flowing through our being, and you automatically come to know all there is to know and thus be ‘Self Aware’!

But we have been unable to achieve Self-realisation because we cannot fix our attention on something that lacks form (abstract being). Instead, our attention wanders outside on forms.

Spiritual yogic practices and systems deal with regulations and exercises, which help you (i.e. the sleeping soul) to wake up, discriminate between the real and the unreal, gradually leading your mind to firmly stabilise and merge in the soul…thus "internalising the soul’s attention"…on itself…in lieu of expending energy on outer forms. Once fully awakened, the Energy (soul) realises Itself, and is freed automatically from the pangs of birth and death.

Yoga: The Beginning Stage of Yoga

When you first begin to practice yoga, the mind, like a child runs in different directions. For a while you may be able to stabilise your mind but the thoughts invariably get scattered.

It is at this stage that you have to exercise conscious control and practice the art of 'pratyahaar'. There are some practitioners who can control and bring the mind quickly to focus without much effort due to an inner state of calmness.

Once the mind is stabilised, it helps to fix one's attention and brings much peace. Even if the attention span is short, it at least helps control the mind and arrest its restlessness and constant thought-flux.

Yoga: The Advanced Stage of Yoga

"True happiness can be achieved only through a state of nothingness."

The supreme aim of all yogic exercises is to elevate the soul to higher levels of consciousness by strengthening the mental faculties.

Once the mind is strengthened and concentrated, it is easy to make it delve on itself and dissociate from ephemeral and perishable objects of the world and the senses.

At this stage, external objects and sensory inputs do not make any impressions or leave any residues in the lake of the mind. The waters of this lake become calm and placid.

The mind, thus, is totally focused on itself, one-pointed and impervious to external sensations.

This stage can be easily understood by imagining the case of salt water in a tumbler. The salt is fully dissolved in water and there are no undissolved particles left. But the solution is not uniform in its composition. Still, there is no proper mixing as one homogenous solution, as the water has not been stirred.

Yoga: Special Spiritual Benefits from Yoga

Practising yoga regularly imparts great benefits:

Basic spiritual benefits
Improved Concentration
Regulated Breath
Clarity in Mind

Advanced spiritual benefits
Thought Control (Clear and one-pointed thought)
Mind Control (Firm Will power)
Psychic control (like telepathy, clairvoyance etc.)

Ultimate spiritual benefit - The realisation that you and every other being in the universe are one! So you = me and me = you .

Healing of the body, psyche and soul is one of the basic directions in the yogic activity and serves the whole psychobiological and spiritual restoration. Purifying, healing and rejuvenating yogic exercises can restore health, life force, joy and also lengthen the life span. Laya Yoga practices serve liberation, salvation of the soul and its reconciliation with God.

Discover your breath - A major and important benefit you may notice with yoga practice is that you are more in touch with your breathing.

Yoga poses are practiced in harmony with the breath. One of the residues of this constant concentration on breath is that students tend to pay more attention to their breath outside of class. Most students' report they are surprised to learn that they find themselves holding their breath frequently during the day in response to stress. By learning to notice their breath holding they can begin to break the habit. When one breathes easily throughout the day, less tension will accumulate in the body.

Free your thoughts - One of the most important things you can learn from a yoga class is that your thoughts have the ability to affect your overall contentment and health. During the deep relaxation pose ( savasana ), one systematically relaxes every part of the body, even suggesting that the brain itself is 'relaxed'. During conscious relaxation, thoughts are experienced more as energy, which is associated with the brain than as the sum total of who we are.
We have thoughts, but those thoughts no longer take over our bodies and minds at large - triggering tension, anxiety or other responses. Yoga teaches us that consciousness and thoughts are not the same thing.

During relaxation we are able to let the thoughts flow through us without dancing away with them to the past or the future. We remain conscious, allowing the thoughts to come through us, but we learn not to interact with them. We can say to ourselves, "Oh, there's another thought of dinner, or of person 'X' or of fear about tomorrow's meeting." Then we can let go of that thought and return to the relaxation at hand. This is a meditative practice, which gradually over time allows us to 'dis-identify' with our thoughts.

When thoughts are experienced just as thoughts, not as reality itself, then the path to freedom which yoga promises begins to unfold naturally. And that path is as sweet as a perfectly ripe mango.

Yoga: Therapeutic Yoga

The word "therapy" comes from the Greek word therapeuein , meaning to heal, to take care of. Yoga can be understood as a comprehensive approach to healing, for it goes to the root of all disease, which is our false relationship to life itself. We fall ill when our body-mind is out of balance, when the life force false or circulate freely in us. Ultimately, there can be no complete healing until we have restored our primal trust in life, which alone removes all those obstructions within us that tend to manifest as ill health.

Most of our diseases are symptoms of an underlying disease: our sense of being cut off from the sustaining power of life. We feel separate, isolated, alienated and also ill at ease. As we become aware of this feeling, which we share with billions of others, we experience the need for wholeness. We begin to understand that we are not really sealed off from life but are in fact interconnected with everything and everyone else. At times, this intellectual understanding may be confirmed and enriched by an actual experience of unity and wholeness.

The word 'Yoga' comes from the Sanskrit root 'Yuk' - meaning 'to join, to unite'. Yoga seeks to restore the condition of wholeness in which, even if we should experience a spell of misfortune and illness, we nevertheless feel restored to life and healed in our relationship to the larger Reality Yoga is radical spiritual therapy.

For millennia, yoga has had a close connection with Ayurveda , which is India's traditional medical and healing system. According to Ayurveda , which literally means "science of life", body and mind form an interactive system. This is also the viewpoint of yoga. Both schools of thought also insist that a healthy, wholesome life must be happy and morally sound. Moreover, the authorities of Ayurveda and yoga both recommend the cultivation of self-knowledge and serenity, which ensure our well-being.

Yoga: Major Types of Asanas

There are many different asana s (postures) in yoga, which you can practise at any time of the day with excellent benefits. However, best results can be obtained only by doing yoga under expert guidance. Here's a listing of the commonly practised asanas:

What Is Yoga?

"The word ‘Yoga’ comes from a Sanskrit root ‘Yuj’ which means to join. In its spiritual sense it is that process by which the identity of the Jivatma and Paramatma is realised by the Yogins. The human soul is brought into conscious communion with God. Yoga is restraining the mental modifications. Yoga is that inhibition of the functions of the mind which leads to abidance of the spirit in his real nature. The inhibition of these functions of the mind is by Abhyasa and Vairagya” (Yoga Sutras).

Yoga is the Science that teaches the method of joining the human spirit with God. Yoga is the Divine Science which disentangles the Jiva from the phenomenal world of sense-objects and links him with the Ananta Ananda (Infinite Bliss), Parama Shanti (Supreme Peace), joy of an Akhanda character and Power that are inherent attributes of the Absolute. Yoga gives Mukti through Asamprajnata Samadhi by destroying all the Sankalpas of all antecedent mental functions. No Samadhi is possible without awakening the Kundalini. When the Yogi attains the highest stage, all his Karmas are burnt and he gets liberation from Samsara-Chakra. "

Excerpt from the book Kundalini Yoga by Sri Swami Sivananda.

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