Growing With a Yoga Flow (eBook)

Notes to Deepen Your Practice

Rola Tassabehji (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
140 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-5481-4 (ISBN)

Infos

Growing With a Yoga Flow, Notes to Deepen Your Practice, traces the story of yoga, from its origins to its potential, through a personal lens. In this compact easy to read collection of essays, Rola shares insights from her training as an advanced yoga teacher and yoga therapist, her travels meeting and interviewing yoga influencers, but above all from her personal journey as a woman from the Middle East who navigated her way in an uncertain world, finding an anchor in the teachings of yoga.

ROLA TASSABEHJI is a journalist and content marketing specialist with background in global brand management in mulitnationals like Unilever and YPO, the leading network of executives worldwide. After training as a certified advanced yoga instructor and yoga therapist, she pivoted her business career to yoga and the wellness sector, getting published in leading yoga magazines, including UK's Om Yoga and Yoga Magazine. She continues to freelance as a business writer and marketing specialist while on her yoga journey, organizing retreats and teaching around the world. Rola is originally Lebanese and currently based in Algarve, Portugal.

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Growing With a Yoga Flow is a collection of essays that traces the origin of yoga and its potential for personal and social transformation, based on one woman's personal story. Is there one authentic true yoga that we should follow? Has the West ruined yoga? Is singing mantra allowed for non-Indians? How did yoga become so popular with women when its origins appear to be male dominated? Can yoga heal people from trauma of war, violence and displacement? How to choose a yoga retreat and style of yoga? Isn't yoga harmful in old age?These are some of the questions that Rola asked herself as she was training to become a yoga instructor and yoga therapist. In this compact book, she shares her notes on possible answers, with the hope of helping new and more experienced practitioners deepen their practice beyond form and movement. The author draws on her Arab roots, corporate background as well as her experience as a 50 plus committed yoga practitioner to unfold a deeper yoga practice, accessible to all.

Textauszug

Chapter One:
What Is Yoga?

“This calm steadiness of the senses is called yoga. Then one should become watchful, because yoga comes and go.”

– Katha Upanishad

A ChatGPT “what is yoga?” search provides surprisingly useful answers. The most straightforward and common definition is that of union (from the Sanskrit word yuj), including the union of the individual self with the universal or divine consciousness. Other definitions mentioned include a physical and mental discipline connecting the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of the self, or a path for self-realization and alleviating suffering. A lesser-known, but personal favorite, definition that I stumbled on early in my yoga journey, is “a spiritual development practice to train the body and mind to self observe and become aware of their own nature.”2

For those looking to gain deeper insight to make sense of the various interpretations, exploring the original context of yoga might be helpful. The past is said to often hold insights into the present and the future, and this is particularly true of yoga, which prides itself on its tradition and long lineage. This chapter offers highlights of some of the milestones of the evolution of modern yoga as a fitness-focused practice with many benefits, including relaxation and flexibility, which will be explored more in the next chapter.

The dates are always tricky to pin down, but the general evolution of the practice offers a story of continuity of some of its key principles and its strong spiritual dimension. So, here we go.

Ancient Texts

While there is no definitive date, the consensus is that yoga’s origin can be traced to northern India more than 5,000 years ago. It is believed that The Rig Veda, the earliest among the Vedas, or four ancient sacred texts of Hindu tradition, is where the word yoga was first mentioned.3 Later reference to yoga was made by the Upanishads, consisting of more than 200 scriptures and written between 800 and 600 B.C; and the Mahabharata, considered the world’s largest poem and compiled over hundreds of years, sometime between 200 B.C. and A.D. 200, when Hinduism became popular for the masses.4

Yoga philosophy therefore has its ancient roots in Hindu scriptures—although not all Hindus practice yoga and yoga is not considered a religion. The next section explores some of the yoga related concepts that first appeared in two of the most important texts of Hinduism, The Upanishads and The Bhagavad Gita, which is part of the Mahabharata epic, as well as the following evolution to yoga as we know it today.

Pre-Classical Yoga: The Upanishads

Many concepts of the Upanishads have left a profound influence on the development of yoga. One key theme is the realization that the “ultimate, formless, and inconceivable brahman (God) is the same as atman, our internal soul. Brahman represents the entire universe, and the atman is a little piece of that divine oneness that we contain inside us.”5

Another concept is that of rebirth and karma, or the future consequences of one’s current intentions, thoughts, behaviors, and actions. It is believed that the accumulation of karma binds us to the cycle of death and rebirth. To escape the endless cycle requires one to attain enlightenment or self-realization through yoga practices such as meditation.

In addition, the texts of the Upanishads contain some of the earliest mantras, or repetitive sounds used to “penetrate the depths of the unconscious mind.”6 The sound om, often used in yoga classes today, is one of the most basic of mantras. The Upanishads also recognize the importance of the breath, as the “lord of the body.”7 By regulating breath in the body, it is possible to control the mind and body.

Pre-Classical Yoga: The Bhagavad Gita

Yoga, as taught in the Upanishads, was primarily mediation based. Hundreds of years later, with the arrival of the Bhagavad Gita, translated as Song of the Lord (part of the sixth book of the Mahabharata), more on yoga’s ancient meditation-focus unfolds. In Bhagavad Gita, the word yoga, used both as noun and verb, is regarded as a means to achieve spiritual transformation.8

The story, which has come to represent a metaphor for understanding oneself and duty to the world, consists of dialogue between Prince Arjuna and Krishna, his charioteer. Arjuna is a warrior about to join his brothers in a war between two branches of a royal family. He wants to withdraw from the battle, but Krishna teaches him that he must do his duty. Krishna points out that knowledge, work, and devotion are all paths to salvation.

Unlike Buddhism, which encourages its followers to withdraw from the world, the Bhagavad Gita encourages people to involve themselves in the world with a detached ego. Through the dialogue, Arjuna learns that he is not limited to his physical form and that human consciousness flows through the entire universe. With these realizations, Arjuna is freed of doubt and delusion and can realize his higher self and find fulfillment.

In the Bhagavad Gita, several different types of yoga as paths to spiritual liberation are outlined. These four types are Bhakti, or devotion; Jnana, or knowledge; Karma, or action; and Dhyana, or concentration (often referred to as Raja Yoga). However, no path is regarded as superior, and yoga is considered an individual journey that requires lifelong dedication. Patantali’s Yoga Sutra, as we will see in the following section, also emphasises the importance of consistent practice, which remains a key pillar of any committed yoga practitioner.

Classical Yoga: Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

While these ancient texts provide the philosophical framework of yoga (with the Bhagavad Gita in particular laying out the different paths of yoga), it was only with the arrival of the The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, around the second century BC, that an outline (or what we might refer to as manual today) of the theory and practice appeared.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, marking the start of the classical yoga period, is often referred to as the Bible of yoga. In my various interactions with yoga instructors in India and in the West, the text is often cited as the ultimate authority of the practice. Composed of 195 sutras (from the word thread, very similar to sura in Arabic), the translated text is difficult to read. One of the best interpretations that I found to help me decipher the meaning and significance of this famous text is TK Desikachar’s book Reflections on Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

In one of the widely quoted sutras referring to the importance of finding harmony with nature and ourselves, Patanjali says, “Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence. When the mind has settled, we are established in our essential nature, which is unbounded consciousness. Our essential nature is usually overshadowed by the activity of the mind.”

Most yoga practitioners also often refer to Patanjali in connection with the now famous eight limbs of yoga, which are:

• Yama – Five principles of ethics (things not to do)
• Niyama – Five principles of conduct (observances, things to do)
• Asana – Physical practice of yoga (which most modern yoga is associated with)
• Pranayama – Breath regulation (or breath control, more on this in chapter three)
• Pratyahara – Sensory withdrawal (bringing attention inwards)
• Dharana – Concentration (sustained attention, connected to mindfulness)
• Dhyana – Meditation (a higher level of dharana, more on this in chapter four)
• Samadhi – Self-realization (spiritual enlightenment)

As many yoga scholars point out, what becomes apparent going through these limbs (or eight-fold path) is that not much emphasis is placed on the practice of asana or physical posture. Yoga asana was essentially a comfortable seated position to prepare the body for meditation and higher forms of consciousness. Even though it has become fashionable to use Patanjali’s name in modern yoga studios, the original aim was self-realization, not physical fitness.

As I dug deeper in my yoga studies and research, I realized that while the sutras are considered the authority of modern yoga and Patanjali has become legendary in yoga circles, the text is one among many writings and influences on modern yoga. Rather than considering Patanjali as the founder of yoga, a more accurate description I found in the literature was as a compiler of yogic terms and practices. According to a study from the American Institute of Vedic Studies, yogic terms and practices such as yama and niyama,...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.4.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-5481-4 / 9798350954814