Philosophy of Yoga
As one mainstream way to exercise, yoga, has been used as a universal pathway to one’s own realm to self awareness that often times is over looked for so many people take up yoga as a practical without any actual understanding of it. Yoga is a system of routine exercises that originated in India as a way to functionally keep the body and the mind in the control of the person. With control we are capable of overcoming anything that crosses our paths. If we do not study ourselves we become confined figures of a world that dictates when we are subject to change. The benefits that yoga brings could be the answer to life’s most difficult tasks.
Most text books do not offer much background information when it comes to the origins of yoga. Just as George Feuerstein agrees that history provides context and meaning, and Yoga is no exception to this rule. Dated back as far as 5,000 years ago if not more yoga was believed to have been originated. Recently studies show that yoga may have developed during a later time period, around 500 B.C. In India there were composers and singers of old sacred texts, called Rig Veda that are recorded to have been the first to mention yoga. As Executive Director Timothy Burgin says that yoga was slowly refined and developed by the Brahmans and Rishis (mystic seers) who documented their practices and beliefs in the Upanishads, a huge work containing over 200 scriptures. The[se] Upanishads took the idea of ritual sacrifice from the Vedas and internalized it, teaching the sacrifice of the ego through self-knowledge, action and wisdom. Since, the new coming of yoga teachings from heavily followed practitioners such as Swami’s Hatha Yoga or Patanjali’s Yoga-Sutras and Eight Limbs Path, the Rishis’ has been a major contributor to their works. Through these teachings of a combination of breathe control and physical exercises you are taught to have social restraints and develop a habit of discipline for yourself in its purest form. These movements in yoga stimulate the mind to abandon the conditioned identity that the world portrays to distinguish not negative but the sole purpose to its meanings. Once this process is successful the idea of self meaning follows. Schiffmann agrees, “Moving into stillness in order to experience your true nature is the primary theme of yoga simply because everything about you- every thought, feeling, and emotion as well as every aspect of your behavior- is predicated on the way you feel about yourself. Fine tuning one’s self through the practices of yoga, eliminates the burdens and heartache from pressure of the outside world.
Author: Ambrielle Sander
Works Cited
Burgin, Timothy. “History of Yoga.” YogaBasics. YogaBasic, n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2016 Feuerstein, Georg. The Yoga Tradition: It’s History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice. 3rd ed. Phoenix: Hohm Press, 2008. Print. Schiffmann, Erich. The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness. New York: Pocket Books,
1996. Print.