What is Yoga? (you may be surprised at the answer)

First of all I am just shocked that no one is posting on the yoga forum here at curezone as yoga is one of the easiest and most beneficial ways to improve your health drastically and quickly. In my opinion, EVERYONE here with any health problems should at least be doing a little bit of yoga every day. Hopefully we can get this forum going a little bit.

So what is yoga exactly? Most people in the United States and Europe think that yoga refers to performing certain exercises where you go into various positions (this is what I thought up until about 5 years ago). This is actually just a little teeny tiny sub-section of yoga. Yoga is actually a much, much bigger concept and relates to all aspects of life. Some people define yoga as the union of the 'ego self' with the Devine Self (or God, Universal Consciousness, whatever name you want to give it). The concept of yoga comes from Hinduism. Contrary to popular belief there is really no such religion as Hinduism, this is a name that has been given to an IDEA known as Santana Dharma that was being practiced many thousands of years ago in ancient India. Santana Dharma, roughly translated means eternal truth. So really yoga is a way to realize our true nature and merge ourselves with our divine selves. The ancient scriptures (known as the vedas) in the Hindu tradition (or Vedic tradition) explain that yoga incorporates all aspects of life including, meditation, astrology, education, marriage, work, health, and every other aspect of life. The main emphasis is on meditation but all of the other aspects of life must also be balanced in order for proper meditation to take place. Ancient Indian medicine is called ayurveda, which means the veda (or the wisdom/science) that relates to keeping the physical body and energetic body healthy and balanced.

The yoga that we practice today (where we hold the various positions, called asana), known as hatha yoga, is one small part of Santana Dharma. There is no recorded record that hatha yoga was practiced in ancient times although it is very likely that it was. Many people that practice yoga today study the Yoga Sutra written by Patanjali, but there is almost nothing in the Yoga Sutra that refers to the practice of hatha yoga as we practice it today. There are maybe one or two reference in the Yoga Sutra regarding asana. And the only thing Patanjali says about Yoga Asana is that it should be a steady and comfortable position (which can really mean anything). He makes absolutely no mention of any specific asana and the Yoga Sutra mainly focuses on meditation and dharma.

The oldest written records of hatha yoga as we practice it today is less than a thousand years old (although it was sure to have been practiced in much more ancient times and passed down through oral tradition). The main emphasis of traditional Hatha Yoga was to balance (and explore) the energies of the body and it focused on holding steady positions for a long period of time. Recently, yoga has exploded into thousands of different styles, some of them hold more to the traditional style, and some of them have transformed it into something much different. Most of the yoga classes that you will find in Western countries practice yoga in a flow style, such as Vinyasa Yoga and Asthanga Yoga. These flow styles of yoga are quite different than the traditional Hatha Yoga practiced in more ancient times. The word Hatha is a combination of two words, Ha and Tha, meaning Sun and Moon. The idea of Hatha yoga is to balance our sun and moon or male and female energies. Hatha yoga always focused on holding positions for longer periods of time.

Recently, in the West, many concepts that come from yoga (besides Hatha Yoga) have become very popular. Almost all of these 'new age' meditation techniques and concepts, such as the law of attraction, etc. are all just little tiny pieces of Santana Dharma (the eternal truth). I am not saying this to degrade these techniques and concepts in any way, but what I am saying is that they are all just small pieces of the puzzle and don't represent the entire picture.

So I would like to open this up for discussion. Who is practicing yoga? What styles of yoga are you practicing? What health and emotional benefits have you noticed from practicing yoga or meditation?

Hope we can get more people into yoga here. Tweet