For many westerners, yoga begins as ‘yoga exercise’, but it’s more accurate to consider it as a health practise for our body, and our emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing. It can be a very gentle practise of yoga poses or ramped up with more intensity in today’s hot yoga form. The many choices available means there’s a yoga form somewhere to match anyone at any age.
While most of us consider yoga as but one of the gifts of India, realizing how it developed and acknowledging its antiquity tends to deepen our appreciation. The ‘father of yoga’ is a title bestowed upon Patanjali. This amazing individual developed yoga based on a set of practices from the Upanishads, the mystical writings of India that are thousands of years old. Philosophical concepts from the Veda, the most ancient writings of Hindu literature, were incorporated into Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. This set of 196 doctrines form the principles of yoga that encourage self-control, ethical standards, growth of the soul and the moral and physical disciplines required for right living. Imagine those principles outlined by Patanjali sometime between 500 B.C. and 200 B.C. and consider the benefit of the yoga system’s revival within the frantic pace of North America today!
There are no surviving texts about Patanjali’s life. Indian history variously believes that the work of Patanjali is from one gifted individual, while others believe there were at least three well-known individuals contributing to the yoga system accredited to Patanjali. Some refer to one who compiled the Yoga Sutras that became the classical text on Raja Yoga. This man supplied rules for the comprehension of speech and its proper meaning to ensure integrity of the Vedas. Another was a well-known teacher of philosophy. Observances for inner discipline, responsibility and how we treat our self were all part of this system of right living. Practices were outlined for clearing negative physical and mental states. Cultivation of contentment and peacefulness was promoted. Patanjali was obviously a very evolved being who contributed much to the evolution of humanity. While we today consider Western yoga as exercise to stretch the body, Patanajli and other yogis used postures or asana to prepare the body for meditation. This is still common in Zen meditation and various other meditation forms.
You can now see that yoga is much more than holding a posture. It’s good, however, to begin at any level because the benefit is evident even as a body exercise. There are many yoga forms to experience. Raja or Ashtanga yoga has branched into other yoga types that may have one main focus while incorporating aspects of many. Hatha yoga, for instance, is known for its breathing techniques as a primary focus, while kundalini yoga focuses on both movement and breath. The holding of postures or asanas, are not used in early kundalini classes, contrasting some yoga forms that hold postures for a few minutes with beginner classes and longer for advanced classes. There are also forms simply termed ‘Gently Yoga’. A yoga DVD may be an intro to yoga forms, but the benefit of participating in a class cannot be matched.
With breathwork and quiet or meditative time added, yoga may easily flow into a spiritual practice. Our breath is linked to our energy bodies, and a relaxed mental state can expand into a broader comprehension of many things as our mind de-clutters. Pranayama is the control of the breath, with prana being the life force. This aspect of yoga purifies and clears distractions from our mind.
The difference you feel by the time you leave a yoga class is very noticeable, providing the best encouragement to continue with the practice of this life-affirming system. You can see how both body care and our awareness or consciousness is improved once the regular habit of yoga is cultivate in its broader term.
