Yoga, too oriental...?

I hope you know what yoga is! Some years back yoga had gained considerable popularity in Europe and America as an alternative healing technique. As it happens, Indian curiousities gain popularity in India only after they get some recognition in America/Europe :). So, as yoga gurus and schools came up in the west, in India too we saw many opening up!! But now its popularity seems to be fading. This is partially because of the weird changes the self proclaimed gurus do in the name if Sahaj-Yoga lowering the benefits and partialy because many people misinterpret yoga as a collection of stretching exercises!


What is Yoga?

The roughest definition will be - Yoga is the age old Indian science or should I say exercises/techniques for keeping your mind and body one piece!! "Age old" dates back to some date nobody knows about (I mean not in written history)! It is surmised that ancient sages, while living in far off jungles (to seek the truth, as is popularly quoted!) devised techniques to ward off diseases and to keep there mind and body fit and efficient. What they used to do is now called Hath-Yoga (Hath means obstinence or "by force"), ie, force their bodies out of disease, illness and laziness to the perfect condition.

Its a little off the track but I recently heard a silly argument at some board : Origin of Yoga resembles the story behind the origin of kungfu, so people think that somehow yoga actually originated in china by buddhist monks and was later imported to india but remember that Yoga has come into existence centuries before the origin of Buddha or Buddhism! The posture you generally see God-Buddha sitting in is the very popular Padmasana from Yoga itself as Buddha himself, when he was young learned all the relevant contemporary subs and yoga was one of them (now don't tell me you don't know that Buddha was an Indian Prince)!

The basic philosophy behind Hath-Yoga is that to be healthy you must maintain a perfect balance between your physical self and mental self and by performing some physical/mental exercises, you can do so. Also there is something called Kundalini (sort of an energy, indian couterpart of ki/chi of china although they imported it from India with buddhism) and to attain the greatest possible control of yourself that a human is capable of, to find your true nature and to find you true potential you must unleash that power. Its considered so important that out of the eight divisions of yogic practices/divisions (yama, asana, pranayama, pratyahar, dharana, dhyana & samadhi) four (prayanama and last three) are devoted to that only.


Sahaj Yoga

As time went by, due to its outstanding benefits, Hath-yoga gained some popularity outside the sages' domain also. But although if done correctly and for some time, it was supposed to awaken supernatural powers inherent in all of us (through awakening of kundalini) still the problem with it was that it was too tough for a normal person, required some time and effort to master, so some gurus set themselves to do some modifications in it and came out with a version called Sahaj-Yoga. Sahaj refers to something that doesn't require much efforts and is more in sync with what a commoner is capable of or interested in. This is what we see now. As the original manuscripts describing the Hath-Yoga are not available now (what we see as hath-yog came much much later and is in no way comparable to the original one), everyone seems to be making his/her own version of sahaj-yoga routines hopelessly degenerating the original one. And thats the reason you see yoga as a collection of some stretching exercises.

One major modification in Sahaj-yoga is only partial inclusion of Prayanama. Original Pranayama contains something called Nadi-Shodgan Prayanama which mainly relates techniques for awakening the kundalini. It was considered so important that many of the people practiced that alone and still some consider it as a separate branch of yoga. Most of the sahaj-yoga practiced today includes that only partially. Thats why now pranayama seems to be reduced to "breathing-techniques"!!


Classification.

Although yoga consists of eight major fields, but sahaj-yoga may be broadly classified into two major fields, namely exercises for physical fitness and techniques for mental peace and concentration. Physical exercises, as I said before, now mainly consist of stretching exercises and for strenthening key body parts like lower back, ankles, neck etc. Mental exercises mainly consist of various prayanamas. Pranayamas include (in most sahaj-yoga's versions only, otherwise its a vast field) various breathing techniques with directions as to how/when inhale, hold and exhale.


Benefits.

If you are looking for developing muscles, then forget it, yoga focuses on natural and balanced developement of mind and body and while doing bodybuilding exercises, our aim is to gain abnormal bulk which is quite unnatural if it is not in your daily routine! If you want to get rid of normal problems rooting form the sedantry lifestyle today, then there is nothing in the world to match yoga. It'll relieve you from a very broad class of problems like back problems, joints pain, neck pain, spondylitis, digestion problems, headache, insomnia etc. Within a month of practicing it you'll become more fit, will develope a good posture, will walk straight and will become much more healthy. Just don't forget to include some prayanama in your routine.


Your suggestions.

I wanted to include some important exercises here but due to some delay in getting the relevant pics I couldn't do so. Once I get the pics, I'll upload them with instructions. Also, I'm not quite sure as to what I should add in this section beside that. If you've got some queries, suggestions, comments do let me know as they'll help me greatly in developing this section further (my guestbook is checked almost daily so its preferred, I check my mail once a fortnight or so).