Why Yoga?
Yoga is an incredible tool that anyone can do.
Yoga teaches skills and techniques that can be drawn on and incorporated into everyday life. Yoga can enhance every aspect of our entire being. Techniques can be performed in various positions and being flexible is not a requirement for joining a yoga class.
Yoga has been practiced for so many years by so many different practitioners all with their own goals and objectives. Yoga has stood the test of time. Yoga has the ability to subtly remove old habits and allows new ones to form without practitioners really trying.
Yoga has been practiced for at least three thousand years. The word yoga means union. It is derived from the Sanskrit word Yuj which means to join.
Sanskrit is the ancient Indian language that was spoken during the Vedic times.
The Vedic civilisation lived along the banks of the Saraswati River (now dry) between 4500BC and 1800 BC.
Some of the first written evidence discovered about Yoga is from this Vedic time period. It is still followed and studied today.
The Vedic civilisation regarded yoga as a science. The science of yoga could provide all of the techniques to help practitioners find unity between the individual consciousness and the universal consciousness. This state is regarded as enlightenment, liberation or freedom. For the ancient practitioners achieving this state was the ultimate goal.
It was reaching this state that provided them with the freedom or liberation that they hoped to achieve. However, this state could only be reached if both body and mind were experiencing optimum levels of health, free from disease, injuries and toxins. The mind needed to be clear, focussed and free from the ego. Yoga practices could help them reach these optimum levels of health.
Although today yoga can be regarded as a physical form of exercise, it is of course so much more. Many people are first drawn to yoga because of the physical elements, however yoga filters through into every area of life and eventually lifestyles evolve, so that both yoga students and teachers adopt more positive and healthy choices.
As yoga brings so many benefits it is not surprising that more and more people are making yoga a part of their daily routine.
This blog article was written by Sue Fuller creator of the Yoga 2 Hear range of audio yoga classes and yoga teacher training courses.
