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Yoga Basics: Your guide to the Practice of Yoga

Birini asked:


I mean is there anything to visualize or think about during yoga and pranayama where we do yogic body postures ?

Alien asked:


Yoga for Toning Your Body



Yoga in these days is becoming popular and is practiced by people mainly for its health benefits. The term yoga is derived from the Sanskrit word “union,” which means ‘to join.’

It aims for the great union of the body, mind, and spirit through a system of postures, breathing exercises, meditation. It refers to far more than these. In reality, it includes a wide range of disciplines designed to eventually bring the practitioners closer to god.

The yoga classes are usually longer than any other exercise classes because practicing yoga generally needs two to three hours. During a yoga session, your yoga instructor will guide you a series of yoga poses, where you will find many for the yoga positions with simple names such as ‘the plank,’ ‘the cat,’ or ‘the warrior.’

Yoga, when compared to other classes, is based on perfection and many yoga practitioners expend large amounts of their time in getting the positions perfect. Many instructors make use of definite terminology in their sessions.

You may feel overwhelmed in the beginning with terms such as asana, pranayama or pratyahara. So, do not allow these put you off, as it is not essential to learn and master all yoga terminology.

Benefits of Yoga

The benefits of yoga are countless. The most important benefit of yoga is physical and mental therapy. Hence yoga is considered therapeutic or beneficial. Yoga helps to increase one’s body flexibility. It also helps to increase the muscle and tendon suppleness, as a result decreasing your risk of injuries.

It can also helps to combat against certain illnesses, and there are some reliable researches proving that it aids in controlling certain illnesses such as headaches, arthritis, stress, anxiety, blood pressure, asthma, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, epilepsy, diabetes and many more.

Practicing yoga doesn’t increase the aerobic fitness of your body, apart from ‘ashtanga yoga’, so it is better to combine yoga sessions with aerobic type of exercises such as brisk walking or jogging. The ultimate aim is to manage the breathing and reduce stress through meditation.

Types of Yoga

Yoga is all about poses, breathing exercises and meditation. There are many types of yoga that are available to practice regularly in order to maintain a healthy body and though no type particularly is harder.

So, it is wise to ensure how experienced your yoga class is prior to join. Generally, beginner’s classes are more available.

Here are some of the types of yoga:

Hatha Yoga

‘Hatha’ is a type of yoga that is an overall term for the physical part of yoga. Hatha yoga is suggested for the yoga beginners. Hatha covers most types of yoga and a class that is known as Hatha Yoga, is usually a balanced and moderately concentrated.

Yoga posture and breathing exercises will be practiced. It’s best to gain knowledge of yoga fundamentals before moving to other type.

Iyengar Yoga

This is one of the Hatha yoga styles, which needs to practice with the body alignment and focusing on the way to understand the body and its work. There is very little focus on breathing exercises and meditation for starting levels. The primary importance is on proper alignment, mainly for the spine and core of the body.

This Hatha yoga style makes use of some supports such as yoga blankets, yoga blocks, and yoga straps in order to bring your body into a proper alignment. Practitioners will hold the yoga poses for longer periods of time than other types of yoga.

Astanga Yoga

Ashtanga is an interesting one among all Hatha yoga styles, which is a series of yoga poses that always practiced in the same order. Astanga yoga is a physically demanding workout. Astanga yoga practitioners practice these postures in a continual flow linking their movements from breath to breath.

Practicing this type of yoga will develop the body strength, stamina and flexibility. It is also called as power yoga. Those who want to practice this type of yoga can fit it easier if they are physically fit.

Anmol Mehta asked:


Yoga is a powerful tool to help you blossom and reach your full human potential. The seeds are all within you, yoga is the water, the sunlight, the nutrients and the love they need in order to make your life vibrant, beautiful and full of sweet fragrance. It is not a religion, it is really a science with which to develop your body, mind and spirit.

The ultimate goal of Yoga, which literally means, Union, is to reunite you with the Universal Source. You may call this Universal Source by any name you wish, God, Brahman, Allah, Christ Consciousness, Buddha Nature etc, Yoga is a pathway to bring you to the realization that you and this Universal Source are inseparably One.

There are many branches of Yoga, such as Bhakti Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Laya Yoga, Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, Kundalini Yoga to name a few. These all have the same one goal, unification with the Universal Source, but each follow a different path to get there. Depending on your personality one or the other path may suit you better.

Here is a description of some of the major branches of Yoga:

* Bhakti Yoga: Emphasizes love as the pathway to liberation and Union.

* Jnana Yoga: Emphasizes the intellectual and philosophical approach to penetrate the illusion of dualistic reality.

* Karma Yoga: Emphasizes right action and selfless service as the path to moksha (liberation).

* Kundalini Yoga: Emphasizes the activation of Kundalini Shakti for enlightenment.

* Raja Yoga: Considered the Scientific approach, this branch emphasizes Sage Patanjali’s 8 step path to Self-Realization.

In this article I will expand on Raja Yoga as that is perhaps the most prevalent and popular Yoga system in use today.

As indicated above Raja Yoga employs Sage Patanjali’s 8 step path to achieve Union with the Supreme. This 8 step system (ashtanga) compromises of the following parts. Yamas, Niyamas, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and finally Samadhi. This 8 step path is designed to bring about physical, emotion and mental harmony; and in the advanced practices of Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi lead to the cessation of thoughts allowing the mind to realize that Reality is indeed Singular, Whole and indivisible.

Here is a description of the 8 limbs of Raja Yoga:

1. Yamas: Yamas are abstensions. They are truth, nonviolence, control of sexual energy, nonstealing and noncovetousness.

2. Niyams: Niyams are observances. They are austerities, purity, contentment, study and egolessness.

3. Asanas: Steady postures and poses.

4. Pranayama: Breathing exercises and control of the vital energy.

5. Pratyahara: Withdrawal of the Senses.

6. Dharana: Concentration of the mind.

7. Dhyana: Meditation.

8. Samadhi: Union with the Supreme Consciousness.

The regular practice of Raja Yoga promotes health, happiness and insight. Although the ultimate goal of Yoga is Union with the Supreme, many material benefits are also obtained by its practice.

Today, many ailments are treated via the use of Yoga asanas and pranayamas, and the stress reducing benefits of Yoga meditation are becoming more and more valuable to us given our hectic and frantic lifestyles. Furthermore, the principles of humility, truth and other high values that Yoga promotes are helping to offset some of the excessive materialism and greed that is eroding the peace and spirit of our society today.

The most important aspect of Yoga is that it is based on Self-Realization. In other words, you are given the tools required, and using them you bring about the necessary transformations in yourself to reach your true potential in life.

It is now often said, that the next great teachers will arise from the West. This is because the West has an empirical approach to things, as opposed to superstition and blind faith. If something works it is embraced and utilized, if something does not prove to work, it is discarded as junk. This is probably the reason why Yoga has grown in such popularity here in the West, because it works. So dive in and reap the benefits.