Yoga - spiritual vs exercises??

[urban tea]

I have a question about Yoga. I hear about Yoga teaching you how to know your soul and the spiritual aspects.

I also hear about Yoga excercises for your physical health.

I'm interested in the first... so...are there schools that focus on different aspects of Yoga or... what's the deal?

Thanks

[Braden]

There are all sorts of Yoga, much more than what people in the west think of as yoga - stretching and such. Try to do a websearch, you'll find alot of info. Search for bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, tantric yoga, shaktic yoga, raja yoga...

[Serpent]

Bhakti (for example) is actually a very specific branch of yoga. In the same way that you can find chin na in many kung fu styles (it should be in all of them) you can find bhakti in many yoga styles.

Start off by researching a good hatha yoga school and see how much they emphasise pranayama and yoga nidra as well as asana. Once you have found a school that emphasises all these aspects then you can narrow your search for something well suited to yourself.

Often the more specifically physical branches are asthanga and iyengar. Hatha is usually more rounded. However, this is a huge generalisation, so hunt about.

[David Jamieson]

Also, keep in mind that your spirit IS you as well as your physicality. Yoga=Unity, literally. it brings wholeness through its practice.

Your spirit, or soul if you will, provided you describe these innate energies as such to fit your paradigm, is as physical as your body, it effects you, it affects you, your decisions, your actions, your view. All these can be changed, progressed, made better or deteriorated.

Yoga, like training to achieve Kung Fu ascribes to this.

peace

[GeneChing]

Actually Yoga embraces many disciplines. The root word is the same as root as "yoke", sort of your burden of practice. Most people only think of Asana (the poses) when it comes to yoga, but there are many other aspects. Ashtangha means 8 limbs which outlines the 8 practices of yoga from Pantanjali (it has since been adopted as a name of so-called power yoga)
Yama (Restraints or Abstinence)
Niyama (Observances or Disciplines or Devotion)
Asanas (Yogic postures)
Pranayama (Breath Control)
Pratyahara (Retraction of the Senses)
Dharana (Fixation of Attention)
Dhyana (Devotion, Fusive Apprehension)
Samadhi (Fully Integrated Consciousness)
But beyond that there are many other schools such as Karma Yoga (essentially doing good deeds) or Guru Yoga (following a master.)

[GeneChing]

India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, aims to rebrand and promote yoga in India (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/indias-new-prime-minister-narendra-modi-wants-to-rebrand-and-promote-yoga-in-india/2014/12/02/7c5291de-7006-11e4-a2c2-478179fd0489_story.html?tid=sm_fb)

http://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/11/25/Foreign/Images/4575288021416937932.jpg?uuid=z0oOZnTLEeSIk5e_DALMX w
Indian students of Delhi Public School perform yoga in Hyderabad on Oct. 20. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appointed a yoga minister in a major revamp of his government in a bid to promote the ancient practice. (NOAH SEELAM/AFP/Getty Images)

By Annie Gowen December 2 at 3:17 PM

NEW DELHI — Shripad Yesso Naik, India’s new yoga minister, dreams of a day when sun salutations and downward-facing dog pose will be as popular in their homeland as they are around the world.

Yes, India now has a minister of yoga — and he and his government want their cultural bliss back.

Indian yogic tradition appears in Hindu texts written thousands of years ago. But the discipline bears scant resemblance to the popular exercise regime that has become a multibillion-dollar industry in the West, home of $90 Lululemon stretch pants and Mommy and Me fitness classes.

In recent weeks, Indian officials have begun efforts to reclaim yoga for the home team, making plans for a broad expansion of the wellness practice into all facets of civic life — including more than 600,000 schools, and thousands of hospitals and police training centers. They are spearheading efforts to promote and protect India’s most famous export, even quietly weighing a “geographical indication” for yoga, a trade protection normally given to region-specific goods such as Champagne from France or oranges from Florida.

“There is little doubt about yoga being an Indian art form,” Naik said. “We’re trying to establish to the world that it’s ours.”

http://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/11/25/Foreign/Images/4587358121416937933.jpg?uuid=0CNJ2HTLEeSIk5e_DALMX w
Newly appointed Indian Yoga Minister Shripad Yesso Naik poses at his residence in New Delhi on Nov. 10. (PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images)

India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, is pushing the effort. The 64-year-old premier rises at 5 a.m. daily for yoga stretches and deep breathing, and he credits this regimen with his ability to sleep just a few hours each night.

“I am equally energetic from morning till night,” Modi told fans during a Google Hangout. “I guess the secret behind it is yoga and [breathing exercises]. Whenever I feel tired, I just practice deep breathing and that refreshes me again.”

Modi’s devotion to the practice is so heartfelt that during his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly as prime minister in September, he discussed peace, global development — and International Yoga Day.

This disappointed some of his followers, who had hoped that he would use the grand occasion to say something more significant; also, there already was a World Yoga Day. But more than 130 countries have signed on to Modi’s proposal, which the U.N. General Assembly is set to consider Dec. 10.

Although yoga has been a part of India’s heritage for centuries and Westerners flock to the country’s ashrams for enlightenment, it was only in the past two decades or so that yoga became trendy in India, with studios opening and Bollywood celebrities making fitness videos.

Some of the credit goes to Baba Ramdev, the saffron-robed guru who popularized yoga and what he says are its health effects — he claims it can reverse ****sexuality and cure cancer and swine flu — on a morning TV program watched by millions. Baba Ramdev also is a close ally of Modi’s.

“The saints and gurus practiced in the Himalayas but never took it to the general public,” Naik said. “Only Baba Ramdev knew how to take it to the people. Now it’s our turn to promote it more vigorously.”

India’s new embrace comes during an ongoing public debate over the genesis of yoga and whether the *******ized and secular versions practiced in the West — nude yoga, rave yoga, kickboxing yoga — are even yoga at all. The discussion was fueled by The Washington Post’s On Faith blog in 2010, when a board member of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) exhorted Hindus to “take back yoga and reclaim the intellectual property of their spiritual heritage.” Mega-guru Deepak Chopra fired back, saying that “yoga belongs to the whole world.”

Sheetal Shah, a senior director of HAF, which spearheaded the “Take Back Yoga” campaign, said: “Nobody owns yoga. Our idea was not to claim ownership; it was just to acknowledge that the philosophy behind yoga is based in Hinduism.”

The Indian government has not been pleased when Western practitioners of holistic medicine have tried to patent or copyright the traditional practices. First, there was the great turmeric war of 1997, after the University of Mississippi Medical Center patented the healing properties of turmeric, a spice used in every Indian kitchen and known for medicinal qualities. The Indian government filed a complaint, and the patent was revoked. Then Bikram Choudhury, the Indian-born founder of hot yoga who practices in Los Angeles, tried to copyright his yoga series.

He was not successful, but Indians learned a lesson. For more than a decade, they’ve been building a vast compendium of age-old medicines and practices, the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, which is now available to patent offices worldwide. They are documenting 1,500 yoga poses, some by videotape, which will be added online next year to help prevent the “misappropriation” of yoga by commercial enterprises, said Archana Sharma, the project’s leader.

Meanwhile, Modi, has started a “Make in India” campaign to boost manufacturing and attract foreign investors to opportunities in the country, including its $8 billion wellness industry. Modi said the country had missed the opportunity to market its industry of yoga and herbal medicine globally.

In recent days, a new energy enlivened the normally quiet halls of New Delhi’s Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga, the government’s premier yoga academy, which is helping implement the regimen’s expansion throughout India’s public sphere.

Students and office workers gathered for lunchtime sessions at the institute, which is named after an Indian prime minister who once told Dan Rather on “60 Minutes” that he drank his own urine for medicinal purposes. The practice rooms were decidedly sparse — not a candle or top-brand yoga mat in sight — and near a library holding volumes of ancient Vedic texts.

In one room, several students in their 20s who are studying to be instructors went through a series of asanas, or poses, and breathing exercises.

They said they were happy that India had begun to promote yoga.

“The West has manipulated yoga for their own benefits. It’s more like exercise. But traditional yoga is much more than that; it’s ultimately about achieving enlightenment for the soul,” said Tarosh Rao, 25. “It is making us aware of something that is ours, part of our heritage.”

Jalees Andrabi contributed to this report.

Annie Gowen is The Post’s India bureau chief and has reported for the Post throughout South Asia and the Middle East.
'kickboxing yoga' that always makes me chuckle...:rolleyes: