What is Yoga All About?

Stop what you are doing. Stand up, take a deep breath and have a really good stretch. Standing on tiptoes, make yourself as tall as possible with your hands reaching up to the sky and your fingers spread out. Breathe out slowly, and slowly resume your normal standing posture. Now doesn't that feel good? Can you feel the blood tingling in your hands and feet? Do the muscles in your arms and legs feel relaxed and yet energised? Does your mind, be it only for a fleeting moment, seem to have taken a breather from its daily round of thoughts and worries? If your answer is yes, then you are feeling the benefits of yoga already.

What is yoga? Yoga is a system of physical and mental exercises designed to instill a sense of tranquility and well being in the practitioner. It's origins are lost in the mists of time, though estimates suggest that it has been practised in India for over five thousand years, and is believed to have been inspired by the contemplation of animals, particularly cats, as they stretched.

Yoga is a technique of self-awareness that integrates the mind and the body. By uniting the two, yoga helps to control negative and destructive thought patterns and assist the mind to work with, rather than agaisnt, the body.

The asanas make the body supple and benefit the neuromuscular system, each posture combining mental acuity with breathing techniques and a specific body movement. Pranayama builds up the body's energy.

Regular practice of the asanas and breathing exercises will induce a  more positive frame of mind, not just during the exercises but throughout daily life. You will find that you are less prone to mood swings, and that you feel less at the mercy of external forces as you have developed an increased degree of inner strength.

If you believe that you are stiff and unsupple, the exercises will be tough. If, instead, you convince yourself that there is a super-supple person inside you just itching to get out, you will begin to feel a real difference. It is important to approach yoga with an open mind, and to shed feelings of pride and desire.

Yoga is a means of seeing things as they really are rather than as they seem. 

SOURCE : 'Yoga and Meditation', Geddes & Grosset 2001