Introduction: On 21st of June, this year, we celebrated the second International Yoga Day globally. I take this opportunity to learn and share a bit more on Yoga with you all. Yoga is a physical, mental and spiritual rejuvenation that originated in India. In Sanskrit language, Yoga means “to add”, “to join”, or “to unite”.
History: Yoga is believed to have been developed over centuries by Hindu sages since 1000 B.C. The chronology of the earliest texts documenting the yoga practices is debatable, but generally credited to Upanishads. The Yoga Sutras of Sage Patanjali though dates from the first millennium CE, but mainly gained popularity in the 20th Century. Many well-known gurus from India have taken Yoga to the west, following the success of Swami Vivekananda in the early 20th century. Yoga gained popularity due to the health benefits being recognized. This was the first time that yoga was being seen as a practice with physical benefits, something which can help improve fitness. Since then, researchers have done various studies and inferred that yoga comes with tons of health benefits, such as, reduced blood pressure, control of anxiety, elimination of depression, improved cardiac function, blood circulation and strengthened muscles.
Classification: Let us explore a bit about different schools of yoga now. There are mainly four streams of yoga – Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga, and Raja Yoga.
- Bhakti Yogais a path where you surrender through love and devotion. In this path you see God as the supreme expression of love and chanting of His name, singing devotional songs, performing pujas and rituals are the way of expressing your love towards him. In India, it’s considered the most popular and easiest form of yoga.
- Jnana Yogais a system where knowledge helps you to understand things around you. This knowledge helps to attain higher level of understanding, which in turn leads to the realization of the Supreme. As ignorant souls, we fail to realize our own identity, but knowledge helps us understand ourselves, provide realization of mind body and our connection with the supreme soul.
- Karma yogais “moving from action to knowledge”. This form of yoga enables you to take action in the right direction, which in turn helps you serve the society. When you perform your duties selflessly, without any expectation of gain or success, you can feel the transformation of your soul. You have to be detached from the expectation of results of your action. This is the most practical way of approaching life. This stream of yoga enables you to become selfless, render service to society and offer the fruits of service to the Supreme soul.
- Raja yogais the scientific knowledge of gaining control over your physical and mental body. This is also known as Hatha yoga. You can attain perfection of mind and body though systematic physical training. The systematic following of Hatha yoga leads to attain Raja yoga, which is control of your senses. In the modern world, Hatha yoga has gained lot of popularity compared to other forms.
- Hatha yogaemphasizes on disciplining your body and mind through yoga poses (Asanas), breathing techniques (Pranayama), yogic purification (Shatkarmas). You can achieve balance and harmony of your body, and achieve physical wellbeing and spiritual growth; ultimately leading to balance between mind, body and soul.
Conclusion: Yoga is not just performing asanas, but holistic preparation of your body to remove the blocks and pollution and attaining perfect sync of pranic and mental energy, which ultimately leads to awakening of your higher consciousness.
Make some time for yourself in your busy, mad rush of routine chores and that will heal your body, mind and soul. If you already are practicing some form of yoga, we wish that you advance in your goals. If you are yet to get started, we wish you get started and attain a holistic wellness. Now a days, most of the learning happens over the internet. You can view loads of videos on YouTube and other sites and learn some basic asanas and exercises to strengthen your body. But, it is always recommended to have a teacher demonstrate various exercises and asanas to you before you get started.
Hope you enjoyed learning more about history and forms of yoga. We will come up with more on this subject in the coming days.
