When we say “Yoga” many people have a perception of “slow and boring” or “overly spiritual” for their taste. Over the last 7 years I have tried various excercise forms as well as spiritual (not religious) and meditation practices and now I feel compelled to share my experience of Yoga to bust the various Myths and the all around impact Yoga can have on your life.
Body and Fitness
For years I have gone to the Gym with mixed results – even today I have life membership of one. First, ofcourse like many of us, I struggled with being regular. Then for a year or so I was regular because I had a good personal trainer (thank you Amin) pact was strengthening of my overall body and overall feel good factor of exercising. But there was a feeling of something not being complete. There was a feeling that I was working on key parts / muscles and yet somehow feeling of overall fitness was not coming. Whenever I went on trekking or rafting or some outdoor activity, I would discover new muscles in my body as they would ache – guess these secondary and tertiary muscles were not worked in the gym setting.
Then I did yoga for 2 years. Over the 2 years there were many changes I saw in my body. One was that I realized that my body had become inflexible in certain areas – bending and touching my toes without bending my knees appeared a lot tougher than benching 145 Lbs.
My yoga teacher (Neetu Singh from http://www.total-yoga.org/) told me it was all in the mind. At first I did not understand that – and was not able to make strides in flexibility until I started to relax my mind and then I had dramatic improvements. Guess our mind and body are strongly connected in both direction. A healthy and flexible body leads to a calmer mind.
Health
Since about year 2000 my cholesterol level was above the normal range (around 260) when the recommended scales are:
Less than 200 – Optimal Goal
200 to 239 – Borderline High
240 or higher High
For years I did exercising at the gym, controlled my diet reasonably well and also took some cholesterol reducing drug and all I could achieve was to prevent it from cholesterol getting any higher. What I really wanted was to bring it at optimal level.
Then one year after I started yoga, I was pleasantly surprised that my Cholesterol level had reached around 180 – this was surprising to me. Later on I realized that the holistic nature of yoga had helped me a lot more than the combination of gym, diet, and drugs.
With the various Pranayams and Bandhas I was working on my overall body and not just the muscles. Pranayam was helping me balance all the hormones and energy and bandhas were helping me work the internal organs for a total impact.
Also it is important to note that when you get involved with Yoga, you get encouragement to change your overall lifestyle, beyond the yoga practice. You will understand the importance of right postures while sitting at home, importance of walking more and so on.
Mind Connection
Many spiritual practices ask us to increase our awareness but don’t necessarily address the fundamental role the body plays in our awareness. Body is the basic means of our soul to interact with the physical world. So how does one ignore the most important interface when it comes to any spiritual practice. What I learnt is that there are many spiritual practices like Yoga and Vipassana actually base our spiritual growth by using body as a tool – and in my experience that works awesomely well.
Yoga works on balancing your mind and increasing your awareness through a holistic approach of focusing on your breathe through pranayams. Even the physical exercises and stretches increase our mental tenacity and concentration.
Summary
Beyond having a significant impact on your physical fitness, health, and mental strength, Yoga is truly of way of being that is holistic.
This artieriecle was about my experiences and opinion for expert information on Yoga to visit: http://www.total-yoga.org/blog/ and join http://www.facebook.com/totalyoga.
Yoga is a deceptively complex activity that trains your body, muscles, and mind at the same time.” – Steve Cox
Wonderfully written Anil, lucidity has always been your gift!
Remember the true nature of Yoga:Yoga means to unite or join the acespts of ourselves which were never really divided in the first place. It also means to yoke or to engage ourselves in a self-training program. Yoga means working with each of the levels or acespts of our being individually, and then unifying all of those into their original whole, or Yoga. Yoga is a Sanskrit word coming from the root yuj and relates to both the processes or practices referred to as Yoga and also the goal itself, which is also called Yoga. As the goal, the word Yoga is virtually one and the same with the word Samadhi, the deep, transcendent realization of the highest truth or reality.The typical public perception of Yoga has shifted significantly in recent years. To the ancients, Yoga is a complete system, of which the postures are a small, though quite useful part. The word Yoga referred to the whole, not merely one part, which is the postures, or Asanas. The entire purpose of Yoga is spiritual in nature, according to the ancient sages. In modern times, the relative position of the postures has been elevated, so as to lead people to believe that the word Yoga refers to physical postures or Asanas, and that the goal of these is physical fitness. The whole and the part have been reversed, terribly misleading and confusing people about the true nature of authentic Yoga. To be a miner of diamonds,take care of your picks and shovels.To be a miner of your spiritual Self,take care of your body, breath, and mind.But don’t confuse the tools and the goals.The goal of Yoga is Yoga, period.
Good points Saroja :).