Yoga has three parts in it: Postures (Asanas), Breathing (Swasa), and Meditation (Dhyanam).
To understand roles of the three parts, we need to understand philosophy and beliefs behind it. One may say, I don't want to understand all that as I'm going to replace the philosophy with my own beliefs, which you cannot. Because, they are born out of the philosophy, especially those three together. You will notice, by practicing them together, you practice the philosophy.
The Belief
In Hinduism the emphasis is unequivocally on Duality (dwanda). God is one, but the phenomenal world is characterized by duality. The diversity of creation is characterized by pairs of opposites, day and night, earth and heaven, soul and body, light and darkness, heat and cold, good and evil, god and goddesses, man and woman, male and female, stable and unstable, gods and demons, death and rebirth, the sun and the moon etc. Human beings are forever caught in this duality, driven by desires and attachments, which create in them feelings of attraction and aversion. The ideal portrayed is that every human being should rise above these dualities and become equal to them. This is called samatvam, equanimity, which is the condition of a stabilized mind experienced by the yogis and ascetics at the end of a long spiritual journey. Attraction and aversion towards objects or creation, whether it is sexual or otherwise, is responsible for our bondage and until we become equal to all, we cannot enter transcendental states.
On a side note here, notice Shiva who is worshipped and whose idol you find in many of the yoga places is Ardha nareeswarudu, means he is half man (god) and half woman (goddess), both opposites together in one.
The goal of yoga (combination of Postures, Breathing mechanism and Meditation) is to raise above the Duality and become one with God (Brahman). This duality is also referred as Veil, which you can find in LDS religion as well.
When you are getting into yoga more and more, you experience (I experienced) the following:
First, you start gaining control over your body. Your mind starts to sensing deeper muscles and joints through postures and stretches. Second, through combining the breathing exercises, you start establishing control over (union between) your mind and body, and start preparing for meditation through holding your breaths for a short period of time after every inhalation (when you do that, you can experience small block outs or still mode in your mind and body, from top to bottom). Third, through bringing the meditation into the combination, you start separating yourself from your physical body. You start having a view point of onlooker. It shift from self-identification to self-atman (soul or spirit). You would notice many people practicing yoga referring themselves (physical) in third person.
Why do you experience this? To understand that, you need to understand the philosophy that gave birth to the combination of the three (Postures, Breathing and Meditation) in the Yoga.
The Philosophy
Our emotions, bondages and complexity in our lives are a result of the duality (the veil) which is intrinsic part of the creation that we are part of. Four different directions people use to attain the highest goal of raising above the duality (creation, the veil) and reach the God in whom there is oneness. The direction is determined by the complex of Attitudes, Interests and Temperament of the individual. The unique feature of Hinduism is that there are multiple paths to the same goal.
4 kind of persons
This involves Postures (E.g., the lotus position), Mastering the Breath (a typical inhaling and exhaling exercise as well as a kind of hibernation that helps reducing the amount of CO2 exhaled in some specific cycles) and Meditation (mastering the concentration to loosing the awareness of yourself and of time and duration).
"Rightly used, it is the high road to perfection; abused, and it can create a hell past human imagining (p. 3). More men and women have been driven insane through a premature awakening of forces latent in these centers than most students realize." - Concentration and Meditation: A Manual of Mind Development.
Our bodies and physiology are very complex. To see how these specific postures help preparing our bodies towards this goal, please read this:
To understand roles of the three parts, we need to understand philosophy and beliefs behind it. One may say, I don't want to understand all that as I'm going to replace the philosophy with my own beliefs, which you cannot. Because, they are born out of the philosophy, especially those three together. You will notice, by practicing them together, you practice the philosophy.
The Belief
In Hinduism the emphasis is unequivocally on Duality (dwanda). God is one, but the phenomenal world is characterized by duality. The diversity of creation is characterized by pairs of opposites, day and night, earth and heaven, soul and body, light and darkness, heat and cold, good and evil, god and goddesses, man and woman, male and female, stable and unstable, gods and demons, death and rebirth, the sun and the moon etc. Human beings are forever caught in this duality, driven by desires and attachments, which create in them feelings of attraction and aversion. The ideal portrayed is that every human being should rise above these dualities and become equal to them. This is called samatvam, equanimity, which is the condition of a stabilized mind experienced by the yogis and ascetics at the end of a long spiritual journey. Attraction and aversion towards objects or creation, whether it is sexual or otherwise, is responsible for our bondage and until we become equal to all, we cannot enter transcendental states.
On a side note here, notice Shiva who is worshipped and whose idol you find in many of the yoga places is Ardha nareeswarudu, means he is half man (god) and half woman (goddess), both opposites together in one.
The goal of yoga (combination of Postures, Breathing mechanism and Meditation) is to raise above the Duality and become one with God (Brahman). This duality is also referred as Veil, which you can find in LDS religion as well.
When you are getting into yoga more and more, you experience (I experienced) the following:
First, you start gaining control over your body. Your mind starts to sensing deeper muscles and joints through postures and stretches. Second, through combining the breathing exercises, you start establishing control over (union between) your mind and body, and start preparing for meditation through holding your breaths for a short period of time after every inhalation (when you do that, you can experience small block outs or still mode in your mind and body, from top to bottom). Third, through bringing the meditation into the combination, you start separating yourself from your physical body. You start having a view point of onlooker. It shift from self-identification to self-atman (soul or spirit). You would notice many people practicing yoga referring themselves (physical) in third person.
Why do you experience this? To understand that, you need to understand the philosophy that gave birth to the combination of the three (Postures, Breathing and Meditation) in the Yoga.
The Philosophy
Our emotions, bondages and complexity in our lives are a result of the duality (the veil) which is intrinsic part of the creation that we are part of. Four different directions people use to attain the highest goal of raising above the duality (creation, the veil) and reach the God in whom there is oneness. The direction is determined by the complex of Attitudes, Interests and Temperament of the individual. The unique feature of Hinduism is that there are multiple paths to the same goal.
4 kind of persons
- reflective (thinking)
- emotional (valuing or feeling)
- essentially active (sensation)
- empirical or experimental (intuitive)
All 4 ways have the common preliminary of cultivating the habits and practices of nonInjury, Truthfulness, Honesty, Cleanliness, Contentment, Self-Discipline, and a Compelling Desire to reach the goal.
4 Basic Forms of Yoga
- Jnana Yoga
- Bhakti Yoga
- Karma Yoga
- Raja Yoga
Jnana Yoga -
Appeals to the Thinker, the Philosopher, and the Analyst.
3 Main parts
- Education (scriptures)
- Reflection: involves breathing, life into the concept of Atman into a momentous reality. Active awareness. Notice the language of referring themselves as a third person. "My" distinguishes. What I think stands apart. Starts separating your body from your self. For example: instead of saying a car hit me, it would be said, a car him my right rear.
- Meditation: shifting self-identification to self-Atman. (it is used to relive the life-cycle of different animals). With meditation one has the detached viewpoint of an onlooker--one still feels pain, but the fear is gone.
Notice how the principles of Karma creeps in. Relieving from responsibilities and bondages through separating body from soul. What body is doing, I don't need to worry too much about it. This reflection through meditation and postures start influencing our thoughts and views.
Bhakti Yoga -
God is conceived as otherness; separateness (total rejection of the view that the God you love is your Self).
Adoration is in passionate inwardness and is personal in character.
God's personality is indispensable--the worship of God through human incarnation.
Emphasis on Hinduism's myths.
Example invocation:
Myth, not logic, moves people. 3 special features of this approach:
- japam - repeating the name of God as a warming presence, and repetition becomes unconscious.
- ringing the changes on love--different nuances of love in different relationships. All aspects are part of the love for God.
- the worship of God as one's chosen ideal as one of God's human incarnations: Christ, Rama, Krishna, or Buddha.
Karma Yoga -
The way through work for active persons. You can find God in the everyday world.
- Karma yoga is usually practiced with either Jnana or Bhakti yoga.
- The idea is that every action performed upon the external world has its imprint on the mind, either positive or negative, based on the action.
- All tasks of daily life become a way of devotion. You view each task as a ritual.
- Work is done without attachments. One forsakes all claims for success or failure. What's done is done.
- Karma yogi will do each thing as it comes as if it were the only thing he has to do. (This is where Caste system comes out of).
Raja Yoga -
The royal road to re-integration by psychological experiment.
- A starting point for Raja yoga is the recognition that our true selves are vastly very wonderful and that we have a true passion for finding this Self.
- The experiments consist of practicing certain prescribed mental exercises and seeing the effect on our mental condition.
- Hindu model of a man is a layered being. Perhaps, it's more metaphorical than literally accurate--even so it's a map of the territory of great use.
- The positive effects are getting beyond the pitter-patter of daily existence (Samsara), but great risks are involved also. Consciousness can degenerate into neurosis or psychosis.
"Rightly used, it is the high road to perfection; abused, and it can create a hell past human imagining (p. 3). More men and women have been driven insane through a premature awakening of forces latent in these centers than most students realize." - Concentration and Meditation: A Manual of Mind Development.
Our bodies and physiology are very complex. To see how these specific postures help preparing our bodies towards this goal, please read this:
Regarding the yoga asanas or physical postures Swami Vivekananda writes in his book Raja Yoga: “A series of exercises, physical and mental, is to be gone through every day until certain higher states are reached. Nerve currents will have to be dispatched and given a new channel. New sorts of vibrations will begin: the whole constitution will be remodeled, as it were.”
Jesus says in Matthew 12:43-45
“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
That is why, even though I'm still planning on writing a response to Holy Yoga if God wills it, I called the book heresy as it is deceiving to teach that just adding the name Jesus, yet practicing the combination would help us strengthening our relationship with God. From reading Introduction and the first chapter, she uses the concepts of the body and unity of the Church in a very wrongful way. She must not have proper understanding the concepts well and confused by her practices or driven by some forces that I believe do exist.
Once you get in this path, there is a lot down out there in the depths.
NOTE: If you are doing just the postures (without the combination of breathing techniques and meditation) to the extent of stretching and not driven to attain higher goals in them, I believe it is fine. We to stretches and let our kids do those in our supervision.
In Yoga: The Method of Re-Intergation Alain Danielou, a French scholar on yoga, writes that the real import of yoga is as “a process of control of the gross body which aims at freeing the subtle body.” The subtle body is regarded as extremely complex and consisting of 72,000 invisible psychic channels called nadis corresponding to the physical or gross body. The subtle body and the physical body are connected at seven primary points or chakras ranging from the top of the head to the base of the spine.
The chakras are believed to control the consciousness of an individual. Manipulating the spine through various yoga postures is believed to increase the energy flow from the subtle body altering the consciousness of the individual. Kundalini yoga and hatha yoga directly manipulate the chakras through their various postures and breathing exercises.
In a mind over body relationship mantra yoga also seeks to alter consciousness of an individual by the repetition of mantras, which Guru Dev, the guru of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, considered the “favorite names of the gods”. Mantras are repeated silently or audibly up to several hours and produce altered states of consciousness.
The combination of Yoga postures, breathing techniques and meditation is very dangerous. It naturally drives you to open yourself to all kinds of things, philosophies and thoughts.Jesus says in Matthew 12:43-45
“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
That is why, even though I'm still planning on writing a response to Holy Yoga if God wills it, I called the book heresy as it is deceiving to teach that just adding the name Jesus, yet practicing the combination would help us strengthening our relationship with God. From reading Introduction and the first chapter, she uses the concepts of the body and unity of the Church in a very wrongful way. She must not have proper understanding the concepts well and confused by her practices or driven by some forces that I believe do exist.
Once you get in this path, there is a lot down out there in the depths.
NOTE: If you are doing just the postures (without the combination of breathing techniques and meditation) to the extent of stretching and not driven to attain higher goals in them, I believe it is fine. We to stretches and let our kids do those in our supervision.
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