Lakshmi, 45, teacher, a breast cancer survivor and a five
years yoga student, says, “After my cancer surgery, I
thought I might never lift my arm again. But today, thanks
to yoga, standing on my head, leaning my body weight on that
arm I thought I would never be able to use again. Surgery
and medicine can rob you of your mental acuity but yoga helps
compensate for the loss.
Like Lakshmi, thousands of people all over the planet are
fast realising the benefits of yoga. From the mystic coterie
of the Yogis, today, this Indian practice of “better
living and peaceful thinking” has traversed to all most
every nook and corner of the world.
What is Yoga?
 Developed
in India, yoga is a spiritual practice that has been evolving
for the last 5,000 years or so. The evolution of yoga could
be a result of the reaction of the ancient yogis to Vedic
religion, which emphasized rituals. The yogis wanted a direct
spiritual experience instead of symbolic ritual. So they developed
yoga.
Yoga means "union" in Sanskrit. Underlying all forms of Yoga
is the understanding that the human being is more than the
physical body and that, through a course of discipline, it
is possible to discover what this "more" is. Hindu Yoga speaks
of a transcendental Self (ātman, purusha), which is
eternal and inherently blissful, as our true identity. According
to the yogis, true happiness, liberation and enlightenment
come from the union physical body with the Atma, the
transcendent Self. The various yoga practices are a methodology
for reaching that goal.
Why do Yoga?
To put it in a few words: yoga makes you feel better.
Practicing the postures, breathing exercises and meditation
make you healthier in body, mind and spirit. Yoga lets you
tune in, chill out, shape up -- all at the same time.
The scoffing mind in you may ask, is yoga more than the
power of positive breathing? You bet it is. Research shows
that yoga helps control anxiety, arthritis, asthma, back pain,
blood pressure, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic fatigue, depression,
diabetes, epilepsy, headaches, heart disease, multiple sclerosis,
stress and other conditions and diseases.
And that's just the surface stuff. In fact, most of the
benefits mentioned above are secondary to yoga's original
purpose. Yoga is more holistic in its results. It aims at
integration of the body, breath and mind. In Hatha yoga, for
example, postures and breathing exercises help purify the
mind, body and spirit so the yogi can attain union. Pranayama
breathing exercises help clear the nadis, or channels,
that carry prana the universal life force, allowing
prana to flow freely. Yoga relaxes you and by relaxing,
it heals you.
At Cedras Sinai Medical Centre in LA, cardiac doctors suggest
their patients to enrol in the hospital's Preventive and Rehabilitative
Cardiac Center, which offers yoga, among other therapies.
Dr. Noel Bairey Merz, the center's director, says, that patients
opting for yoga have shown tremendous benefits like lower
cholesterol levels, and blood pressure, increased cardiovascular
circulation, and as reversal of artery blockage in some cases.
| Advantages
of Yoga |
•
Reduces stress and tension
• Improves muscle tone,
flexibility, strength and stamina
• Boosts self esteem
• Improves concentration
and creativity
• Lowers fat
• Stimulates the immune
system
• Creates sense of well
being and calm. |
Discover the true self in you
 Between
work, home and all of the demands and stresses in between,
it's easy to lose touch with who we really are, that core
essence with which we were born. Rushing around all day it
sometimes feels like the "I" inside is simply the result of
the things we do all day -- or the effects those things have
on our minds, bodies and spirits.
In truth, however, we are not the conditions we experience
or things we do. We are not our jobs or the thousands of tasks
that make up our jobs. Yoga helps to strip away the sensations,
daily tensions, stress, desires, achievements and failures
of daily life and find our true soul.
Thus we are able to develop a greater awareness of our physical
and psychological states. As a result, we're in a position
to better manage our reactions to the thoughts, feelings and
responses we have to the various situations we deal with every
day. We no longer identify with our conditions. Instead of
saying, "I am stressed," we begin to say, "I feel stress."
It's a subtle but powerful difference. Yoga gives us control
of ourselves. It calms the frenzy, clears the clutter and
allows us to get back in touch with ourselves. Yoga is union
with self.
|
