The Practice of Yoga
Stretch your understanding
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In the West, yoga is understood as a method to achieve physical and mental well-being. But yoga offers so much more. It promises us freedom from all suffering, a state of eternal bliss.
Yoga is a spiritual practice, a way to achieve higher consciousness and connect with the divine. The word yoga comes the Sanskrit word yug, which means to yoke, bind or join. It’s a type of spiritual union.
The method to achieve this union is to first control the mind. The objects of the senses agitate the mind. The unceasing mental chatter we’re all familiar with is like a static interference which obscures our vision of the divine.
When the vibrations of the mind are still, our vision is clear and we can perceive our true self. We direct our awareness away from the external objects of the senses and turn inward to discover the essence of our being, the divine spark within.
There are four main paths of yoga; Karma yoga (yoga of action), Bhakti yoga (yoga of devotion), Jnana yoga (yoga of knowledge), and Raja yoga (yoga of mind control). It’s only Raja Yoga which practices asana, or posture, and asana is only one step in an eight-step system called astanga yoga.
