The human animal has always tried to control nature and tried to control his environment. Somewhere in India’s long history the control of nature turned inwards and became about the control of the body and the mind. This inner journey became what we know of as Yoga.
Yoga is to unite the body with the mind, and to take body and mind together to bring it in par with its original state of complete consciousness (Purusha). it is your connection with something that is eternal. It is that part of you that is untouched by anything.
A practice like Yoga was known in the Indus Valley Civilization around 2.500 BC. By the 5th century BC yoga was becoming well known and begun to appear in Vedic scripture. These techniques of mental control were becoming known to all religions and philosophies practiced at that time, including Buddhism and Jainism.
By the 2nd century BC yoga had evolved into an independent philosophy and practice and was codified into a scripture known as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. (Sutra means a seed, which has to be put into the mind and which will then transform into a plant.)
The Tetriya Upanishad has a fascinating theory of the five sheaths, the Pancha Koshas, that make up the human being. Prana – the life force or cosmic energy – moves between all of the five layers and always keeps them connected:
- Annamaya Kosha – which is our physical body
- Pranamaya Kosha – which is our astral body
- Manomaya Kosha – which is our mental body
- Vigyanamaya Kosha – which is our higher overmind
- Anandamaya Kosha – which is the blissful sheath
(See also illustration: http://galacticconnection.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/five-koshas-diagram.jpg)
(1) Yama – you and the world
- Ahimsa (Non-Violence),
- Satya (Truthfulness),
- Asteya (Non-Stealing),
- Brahmacharya (Abstinence),
- Aparigraha (Non-Covetousness)
(2) Niyama – rules for living in the world
- Shaucha (Purification),
- Santosha (Contentment),
- Tapas (Austerity & Detachment),
- Svadhyaya (Study & Mantras),
- Ishvarapranidhana (Surrender & Worship)
Niyama means rule or discipline. Niyama are rules and disciplines of living physically, how you behave in conduct with yourself and with the world around you.
(3) Asana – stabilizing body and mind.
Asana is your connection with your own physical body. The whole purpose of Asana is to prepare the body for Pranayama
(4) Pranayama – controlling vital energy
Pranayama ensures that Prana (life force or cosmic energy) can circulate completely throughout your body and can access different parts of your body when you breathe.
(5) Pratyahara – withdrawing the senses
Pratyahara is restraint. Pratyahara actually means to withdraw the senses, but it doesn’t mean detachment or to go into a mountain. It means to not identify unnecessarily, neither to be too attached to something, nor to be too detached from anything either. It’s best decribed as “balance”.
Then you come to Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi, which are called the Antarangas. They are the internal limbs of yoga, because if you practice the first five limbs then they are the outcome.
(3) Asana – stabilizing body and mind.
Asana is your connection with your own physical body. The whole purpose of Asana is to prepare the body for Pranayama
(4) Pranayama – controlling vital energy
Pranayama ensures that Prana (life force or cosmic energy) can circulate completely throughout your body and can access different parts of your body when you breathe.
(5) Pratyahara – withdrawing the senses
Pratyahara is restraint. Pratyahara actually means to withdraw the senses, but it doesn’t mean detachment or to go into a mountain. It means to not identify unnecessarily, neither to be too attached to something, nor to be too detached from anything either. It’s best decribed as “balance”.
Then you come to Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi, which are called the Antarangas. They are the internal limbs of yoga, because if you practice the first five limbs then they are the outcome.
(6) Dharana – your ability to focus
(7) Dhyana – your ability to meditate on something
(8) Samadhi – your ability to access union with your true self, with that consciousness. Samadhi is that unifying consciousness, your true self.
In summary: Yoga is bringing the Ashthanga together, in order to bring the Koshas together, in order to achieve Samadhi. Yoga is both, the practice and it is the goal.
By the early part of the first millennium, yoga had become integrated into mainstream Buddhism, Jainism, and what later became known as Hinduism with the writing of the Bhagavad Geeta. The Geeta describes four Yogas that anyone could practice in life:
- Gyan Yoga (or Jñāna yoga) is the way of union due to pure knowledge, the way of wisdom, of being able to see what is real and what is unreal.
- Bhakti Yoga is the way of devotion, the way of love.
- Karma Yoga is the way of the hands, of action, but not any action: Action dedicated to the divine.
- Raja Yoga involves breathing practices. (The physical exercises of Hatha Yoga - what people in the west typically regard as Yoga - are only a small part of the Raja Yoga.)
In the 12th century a monastic group called the Naths codified the practice of Yoga into a training manual and methodology for monks called Hatha Yoga. Hatha Yoga is often misinterpreted as physical yoga, whereby Hatha actually means "willpower". Mind is considered to be king - hence the word Raja Yoga ("King Yoga") - and the willpower controls the mind. Over 84 Asanas were developed to tune the yogi into a higher state of physical and mental consciousness.
There were two schools emerging: One tradition said Yoga is about withdrawing and rejecting the material world (Prakriti), reaching purification through complete isolation, by not connecting with the world. The other tradition of Yoga (Gorakh tradition) is communicating with and talking to the world.
When the British colonized India from the 18h century onwards, yogis where seen as eccentric, dangerous mad man, who lived at the edge of society and could do all kinds of magic and contortions. Indian Maharajas and the British rulers regularly organized demonstrations of Yogis and magicians and India became known as the exotic land of mystical and magical powers.
By the end of the 19th century the word yoga had started to become well known in Europe and America through the work of the Theosophists (Blavatsky & Olcott) and the arrival of Swami Vivekananda. In 1893 Vivekananda spoke at the World Parliament of Religion in Chicago and taught Americans the ideas behind Raja Yoga. Swami Vivekananda's little book "Raja Yoga" became a bible to all spiritual seekers and mystics in that period.
In 1952, the world famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the indian Yogi B.K.S. Iyengar (yoga student of the legendary Krishnamacharya) became good friends and Menuhin arranged for Iyengar to demonstrate Hatha Yoga in London, Zurich, Paris and New York’s Carnegie Hall. Audiences were amazed at Iyengar’s Yoga and by 1966 he had published his first book called “Light on Yoga”, which became the bible of the new Yoga movement spreading around the world in the following years.
Yoga is something which goes beyond a culture or a nation. Yoga is a universal practice that brings you into balance and harmony with your life, no matter what religion or ethnicity you belong to. It is a state of complete forgetfulness of the body and mind, where the cosmic energy and the individual energy meet together - a state of being One with the Cosmos.
(Inspiration and extracts from documentary "Yoga : Aligning to the Source" produced by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs)
There were two schools emerging: One tradition said Yoga is about withdrawing and rejecting the material world (Prakriti), reaching purification through complete isolation, by not connecting with the world. The other tradition of Yoga (Gorakh tradition) is communicating with and talking to the world.
When the British colonized India from the 18h century onwards, yogis where seen as eccentric, dangerous mad man, who lived at the edge of society and could do all kinds of magic and contortions. Indian Maharajas and the British rulers regularly organized demonstrations of Yogis and magicians and India became known as the exotic land of mystical and magical powers.
By the end of the 19th century the word yoga had started to become well known in Europe and America through the work of the Theosophists (Blavatsky & Olcott) and the arrival of Swami Vivekananda. In 1893 Vivekananda spoke at the World Parliament of Religion in Chicago and taught Americans the ideas behind Raja Yoga. Swami Vivekananda's little book "Raja Yoga" became a bible to all spiritual seekers and mystics in that period.
In 1952, the world famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the indian Yogi B.K.S. Iyengar (yoga student of the legendary Krishnamacharya) became good friends and Menuhin arranged for Iyengar to demonstrate Hatha Yoga in London, Zurich, Paris and New York’s Carnegie Hall. Audiences were amazed at Iyengar’s Yoga and by 1966 he had published his first book called “Light on Yoga”, which became the bible of the new Yoga movement spreading around the world in the following years.
Yoga is something which goes beyond a culture or a nation. Yoga is a universal practice that brings you into balance and harmony with your life, no matter what religion or ethnicity you belong to. It is a state of complete forgetfulness of the body and mind, where the cosmic energy and the individual energy meet together - a state of being One with the Cosmos.
(Inspiration and extracts from documentary "Yoga : Aligning to the Source" produced by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs)
No comments:
Post a Comment