The Basics of Yoga

Yoga has a long tradition, and many believe that it Originated in India. Most of the written litearture about yoga, atleast have been from India. Patanjali's yoga sutras, Gheranda Samhitha, Hatha Yoga Pradipika are some of the precious texts that have been written by great minds.

Patanjali says yoga is "Chitta Vritti Nirodhah" or the one that destroys the variations of the mind. I believe that this is the moct apt and classical definition of Yoga. I know that these days Yoga has been transformed into many forms and explained in very peculiar ways.

However, Yoga is a great tool to attain the "ultimate goal" of everlasting peace and happiness. This is possible only when one is in harmony with oneself and the universe.

Yoga helps to achieve this with a three fold strategy. It firsts works on the body, mking it fit and strong to be able to practice advanced breathing and meditation techniques. This is the "asana" or the Postures aspect of yoga.

Once the body is strong one has to make it do what one's mind wants and not let the mind wander on what the body needs. Pranayama and Meditation help one to achieve stability of the mind. Pranyama is the greatest tool that yoga has given us, it i so simple , yet so powerful. How we breathe, influences our body and mind directly.

Pranyama is a topic on which one can write a 100 books on. I will try to do my best to explain it in the coming days.

Namsthe,
Madhu

07th August 2007

Its been almost an year since I came here to US. Today, I had mixed feelings .. was happy that was able to meditate for 30 mins or so .... something that was very normal when in India.. it has become so hard to focus here. I have so many distractions and have become more attached to things and people. My ability to be able to sit in one spine erect posture and meditate for sometime today surely gave me some hope that I can one day "achieve" the goal of yoga. However had not so happy feelings about a lot of things .. some that I cant write now .... but I should be able to at some point in time. One thing that really makes me feel bad about myself is in recent times, I have lost my temper more easily than I have ever done before. This has been primarily with some of my close friends and this hurts me even more..... ....

Namasthe
Madhu