The Spiritual Source of Yoga.

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Yoga: From Hippies to Hip by Marcia Montenegro

 

Excerpts:

 

Although one may become more fit and flexible from doing yoga, that

is not the goal of yoga, which is part of a complex spiritual

system. Pranayama (breathing techniques) and the asanas (specific

positions) are designed to enhance and induce meditative states in

which one can transcend mental fluctuations and bypass rational

thinking. Hatha yoga teaches how to control the body and the senses

so that the yogin (yoga student) can control the mind (Raja Yoga).

Gradually, the body and mind are filled by the Atman (Pure or

Supreme Universal Self) and "through the death of the body, as it

were, is the resurrection of the Higher Self accomplished," (J. F.

C. Fuller, Yoga for All [bombay, India: D. B. Taraporevala Sons &

Co. Private Ltd., 1993], 51).

 

http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/features/newage/cancer14_yoga.asp

 

(For the full article please go to the above site)

 

Famed yoga teacher B. K. S. Iyengar, who was instrumental in

bringing yoga to the West, says that yoga "is a science which

liberates one’s mind from the bondage to the body and leads it

towards the soul. When the mind reaches and merges with the soul,

the soul is freed and remains thereafter in peace and beatitude,"

(B. K. S. Iyengar, The Tree of Yoga, [boston: Shambhala, 1988],

5).

 

Patanjali, the Indian sage considered to be the founder of yoga,

though no one knows much about his life, authored the famous Yoga

Sutras, the teachings of yogic philosophy. One site speaks of

Patanjali’s yoga: "It deals with the training of the mind to achieve

oneness with the Universe. Incidental to this objective are the

acquisition of siddhis or powers. The aim of Patanjali Yoga is to

set man free from the cage of matter. Mind is the highest form of

matter and man freed from this dragnet of Chitta or Ahankara (mind

or ego) becomes a pure being."

(http://hrih.hypermart.net/patanjali/)

 

On another site about Patanjali, it states that "Yoga means Union

and the purpose is to teach the practitioner of Yoga, called the

Yogi, how to achieve Union or Spiritual Absorption into the Supreme

Absolute or God. Yoga teaches us that our true self is the soul and

that our self identity is an illusion to be overcome,"

(http://reluctant-messenger.com/yoga-Sutras.htm).

Hatha yoga and other forms of yoga are considered to be the stepping-

stones for spiritual union with the Absolute.

 

Prana means "breath," but it is more than the physical breath. The

breathing techniques are not primarily for physical purposes. As

yoga scholar George Feuerstein puts it, "prana is like a knife which

he [the student of yoga] carefully employs to operate on his own

mind, to cut out the malicious thoughts and feelings in order to

pierce through to higher levels of consciousness," (George

Feuerstein and Jeanine Miller, The Essence of Yoga, [Rochester, VT:

First Inner Traditions, 1998], 111).

 

Prana is "the cosmic breath" and "man has moved away from this

original rhythm of the universe," but Pranayama "endeavors to

restore the primal rhythm and cosmic harmony as manifested in man,

the microcosm," (Feuerstein, 26).

 

Iyengar advises that "if you can control the breath, you can control

the mind," but he also cautions that Pranayama must be practiced

cautiously because "it can make you or mar you. If your heartbeat is

uneven, fear sets in and death may be near at hand," (Iyengar,

 

128). Inhalation allows contact with the "cosmic breath" while

exhalation expels toxins and is "the expulsion of ego," the goal

being to "reach a single mind" so that you are ready for meditation

(Iyengar, 130).

 

Description of chakras from a yoga site states: "For thousands of

years, the yogis have identified through their exceptional spiritual

practice seven complex, fundamental systems of emission-reception,

which connect our microcosm with the outer macrocosm’s seven

fundamental levels of vibration. These centers of force are usually

known as chakras." (http://sivasakti.com/articles/the-seven-chakras-

muladhara.html).

 

Iyengar writes that "Patanjali says that when an asana is correctly

performed, the dualities between body and mind, mind and soul, have

to vanish…When the asanas are performed in this way, the body cells,

which have their own memories and intelligence, are kept healthy,"

(Iyengar, 55-56).

 

Yoga sources, teachers, and experts universally recognize the

spiritual nature of yoga:

"It is not so much a physical practice but a spiritual practice

based on Shakti, the fundamental vibrating energy of every human

being."

http://sivasakti.com/articles/intro-asanas.html

 

"Hatha yoga refers to positive (sun) and to negative (moon) currents

in the system. These currents are to be balanced and mastered so

that vital force, prana, can be regulated, the mind cleared and

superconscious states experienced."

http://holistic-online.com/Yoga/yoga_types_hatha_yoga.htm

 

"Yoga is the process of becoming free from limited definitions of

the field of consciousness. Then the abiding of the seer (I), in my

own true nature"; - Yoga Sutras of Patanjali I. 2,3.

http://hrih.hypermart.net/patanjali/

 

"There are seven chakras, or energy centers, in the body that become

blocked by longheld tension and low self-esteem. But practicing

poses that correspond to each chakra can release these blocks and

clear the path to higher consciousness."

>From the Yoga Journal site at http://www.yogajournal.com/newtoyoga/seventh1.cfm

 

The Atman, or "real" Self that is eternal, "can only be experienced

when all the sensory activity ceases to impact the mind and when the

mind itself is freed from the movement of thoughts and sense objects

and the torment of desires, which are the prime cause of all human

activity and suffering. The experience comes ‘When the mind and the

five senses are stilled and when the intellect is stilled ....They

say that Yoga is complete stillness in which one enters that state

of Oneness.’

" http://hinduwebsite.com/Atman.htm

 

Marcia Montenegro. All rights reserved