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What is Yoga?

The classical techniques of Yoga date back more than 5,000 years. In ancient times, the desire for greater personal freedom, health and long life, and heightened self-understanding gave birth to this system of physical and mental exercise which has since spread throughout the world. The word Yoga means “to join or yoke together,” and it brings the body and mind together into one harmonious experience.

The whole system of Yoga is built on three main structures: exercise, breathing, and meditation. The exercises of Yoga are designed to put pressure on the glandular systems of the body, thereby increasing its efficiency and total health. The body is looked upon as the primary instrument that enables us to work and evolve in the world, and so a Yoga student treats it with great care and respect. Breathing techniques are based on the concept that breath is the source of life in the body. The Yoga student gently increases breath control to improve the health and function of both body and mind. These two systems of exercise and breathing then prepare the body and mind for meditation, and the student finds an easy approach to a quiet mind that allows silence and healing from everyday stress. Regular daily practice of all three parts of this structure of Yoga produce a clear, bright mind and a strong, capable body.

History of Yoga

No one knows exactly when Yoga began, but it certainly predates written history. Stone carvings depicting figures in Yoga positions have been found in archeological sites in the Indus Valley dating back 5,000 years or more. There is a common misconception that Yoga is rooted in Hinduism; on the contrary, Hinduism’s religious structures evolved much later and incorporated some of the practices of Yoga. (Other religions throughout the world have also incorporated practices and ideas related to Yoga.)

The tradition of Yoga has always been passed on individually from teacher to student through oral teaching and practical demonstration. The formal techniques that are now known as Yoga are, therefore, based on the collective experiences of many individuals over many thousands of years. The particular manner in which the techniques are taught and practiced today depends on the approach passed down in the line of teachers supporting the individual practitioner.

One of the earliest texts having to do with Yoga was compiled by a scholar named Patanjali, who set down the most prevalent Yoga theories and practices of his time in a book he called Yoga Sutras (“Yoga Aphorisms”) as early as the 1st or 2nd century B.C. or as late as the 5th century A.D. (exact dates are unknown). The system that he wrote about is known as “Ashtanga Yoga,” or the eight limbs of Yoga, and this is what is generally referred to today as Classical Yoga. Most current adherents practice some variation of Patanjali’s system.

The eight steps of Classical Yoga are 1) yama, meaning “restraint” — refraining from violence, lying, stealing, casual sex, and hoarding; 2) niyama, meaning “observance” — purity, contentment, tolerance, study, and remembrance; 3) asana, physical exercises; 4) pranayama, breathing techniques; 5) pratyahara, preparation for meditation, described as “withdrawal of the mind from the senses”; 6) dharana, concentration, being able to hold the mind on one object for a specified time; 7) dhyana, meditation, the ability to focus on one thing (or nothing) indefinitely; samadhi, absorption, or realization of the essential nature of the self. Modern Western Yoga classes generally focus on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th steps.

Yoga probably arrived in the United States in the late 1800s, but it did not become widely known until the 1960s, as part of the youth culture’s growing interest in anything Eastern. As more became known about the beneficial effects of Yoga, it gained acceptance and respect as a valuable method for helping in the management of stress and improving health and well-being. Many physicians now recommend Yoga practice to patients at risk forheart disease, as well as those with back pain, arthritis, depression, and other chronic conditions.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Part of a series on Hindu philosophy

Yoga derives from prehistoric roots, and develops out of Ancient Indian asceticism (tapas).

Yoga as a Hindu philosophy (“darshana”) is first expounded in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. This earliest school of Yoga retrospectively came to be known by the retronym Raja Yoga to distinguish it from later schools.

[edit]Indus Valley civilization (ca. 3300–1700 BC)

A seal from the Indus Valley Civilization, showing a figure in meditation posture.

Several steatite seals discovered at Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3300–1700 BC) sites depict figures in a yoga- or meditation-like posture, “a form of ritual discipline, suggesting a precursor of yoga”, according to Indus archeologist Gregory Possehl.^[1] He points out sixteen specific “yogi glyptics”^[2] in the corpus of Mature Harappan artifacts that suggest Harappan devotion to “ritual discipline and concentration”, and that the yoga pose “may have been used by deities and humans alike.”^[3] Some type of connection between the Indus Valley seals and later yoga and meditation practices is supported by many other scholars.^[4]

Karel Werner writes that “Archeological discoveries allow us therefore to speculate with some justification that a wide range of Yoga activities was already known to the people of pre-Aryan India.”^[5] A seal recently (2008) uncovered in the Cholistan desert was described by Dr. Farzand Masih, Punjab University Archaeology Department Chairman, as depicting a “yogi”.^[6] Thomas McEvilley writes that “The six mysterious Indus Valley seal images…all without exception show figures in a position known in hatha yoga as mulabhandasana or possibly the closely related utkatasana or baddha konasana….”^[7]

The most widely known of these images was named the “Pashupati seal“^[8] by its discoverer, John Marshall, who believed that it represented a “proto-Shiva” figure.^[9] Many modern authorities discount the idea that this “Pashupati” (Lord of Animals, Sanskrit paśupati)^[10] represents a Shiva or Rudra figure.^[11][12]Gavin Flood characterizes the Shiva or Rudra view as “speculative”, and goes on to say that it is not clear from the ‘Pashupati’ seal that the figure is seated in a yoga posture, or that the shape is intended to represent a human figure.^[9][13] yujate anena iti yogaha yoga is the union of body, mind and soul.

[edit]Upanishadic (ca. 800-100 BC)

While the most ancient mystic practices are vaguely hinted at in the Vedas, the ascetic practices (tapas) are referenced in the Brāhmaṇas (900 BCE and 500 BCE),^[14] early commentaries on the Vedas.

In the Upanishads, an early reference to meditation is made in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad,^[14] one of the earliest Upanishads (approx. 900 BCE). The main textual sources for the evolving concept of Yoga are the middle Upanishads, (ca. 400 BCE), the Mahabharata (5th c. BCE) including the Bhagavad Gita (ca. 200 BCE), and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (200 BCE-300 CE).

In the Maitrayaniya Upanishad (ca. 200-300 BCE) yoga surfaces as:

Shadanga-Yoga – The uniting discipline of the six limbs (shad-anga), as expounded in the Maitrayaniya-Upanishad: (1) breath control (pranayama), (2) sensory inhibition (pratyahara), (3) meditation (dhyana), (4) concentration (dharana), (5) examination (tarka), and (6) ecstasy (samadhi).

– ^[1]

An early reference to meditation is made in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the earliest Upanishad (approx. 900 BCE).^[15] Yoga is discussed quite frequently in the Upanishads, many of which predate Patanjali’s Sutras.^[16] The actual term “yoga” first occurs in the Katha Upanishad.^[17] A Rig Vedic cosmogonic myth declares an ascetic with “folded legs, soles turned upwards” as per his name.^[18]

[edit]Modern growth of yoga in the West

Currently, it is estimated that there are about 30 million people in America, and 1 million people in the United Kingdom practicing hatha yoga.

Yoga (in the West) is an exercise-related and posture-related technique that involves gentle stretching, breath control and meditation… various different forms of yoga, including Hatha (most common in the UK), Ashtanga and Iyengar exist. Yoga has been combined with various other exercise techniques to produce “fusion” classes, for example Yogalates, Body Balancing and Body Conditioning^[19].