When life is foggy, path is unclear and mind is dull, remember your breath. It has the power to give you the peace. It has the power to resolve the unsolved equations of life.
Usually, when people hear the term Yoga, many of them associate it with various physical exercises where they need to twist, turn and stretch their body in complex ways that are known as Asanas, but this is only one type of Yoga, called “Hatha-Yoga”. In reality, Yoga is an umbrella term for various physical and mental exercises that lead to the overall well-being of a person.By origin, Yoga has mainly five forms:1. Raja Yoga - The realization of divinity through intense meditation2. Karma Yoga – The realization of divine bliss through your own daily activities and duties3. Hatha Yoga – The realization of divine well-being through various physical exercises4. Jyana Yoga – The realization of inexplicable bliss in the pursuit of knowledge5. Bhakti Yoga – The realization of ecstasy through love and devotion for your Personal GodThe purpose of all Yogas is to set your consciousness lose into the vast domain of the unknown, where your brain circuits simulate various fascinating mental states that are usually unimaginable and unattainable in your everyday consciousness. But the whole yoga thing has nothing to do with God or something of that sort. It is all about various states of the human mind.
Apathy is the bushel basket under which the ego hides its fear of being powerless. It is easier to become apathetic when there are no words or actions sufficient to comfort a wounded body, a grieving heart, or ashattered community. And so we look away and avoid awkward conversations under the guise that we don’t want to upset others. Yet, the most powerful posture for a healer to take is that of the witness. To stand andwitness a person or community devastated by suffering, and to let them know that while they suffer they have a hand to hold, offers the most potent medicine of all—compassion.
Spirituality is not a religion or a trend—it is a lifestyle. It is a lifestyle of awareness that combines the understanding of faith, body, mind, and soul, allowing us to live modern-day enlightened lives in small and big ways.
Sanskrit is a beautiful contextual language. It is called “Dev Bhasha” the language of the soul. Here, meanings of the words must come from the heart, from direct experience – dictionary meanings or static meanings have not much value. Meanings of the words vary depending on mind-set, time, location and culture. The words are made to expand the possibilities of the mind.
Self-hatred is the inevitable byproduct of the culture of narcissism in which we all have been reared. We learn from day one how special and wonderful we are. Or conversely, and perhaps more pervasively, we do not learn this at all and instead are subjected to glorified views of others through the media whom we idealize and envy. At the root of it all are inappropriate expectations about life, about ourselves, and an overvaluation of self that breeds profound isolation.
In our society, we often tend to ignore what our bodies are telling us and instead are encouraged to medicate the symptoms with sleeping pills, stool softeners, a few beers, and a burrito. The problem with this approach is that whatever your body is trying to tell you gets lost beneath your attempts to cover it up.
Despite an ever increasing diversity when it comes to yoga brands, there are only four major paths in yoga and they have the same end goal; enlightenment. The end goal can be likened to the top of a pyramid. Even though people may start climbing the pyramid from different sides, at the end they will reach the same goal and thusly achieve unity.
For reasons unknown, the philosophical aspect of the yoga movement has had to make way for the yoga fit revolution; today’s image of a yogi is a slender and scantily clad young female doing postures on the cover of a bestselling magazine, whereas the older image was of an Indian man with long beard sitting in a cave wearing a loin cloth.