This is one of the best concise descriptions of what yoga really is I’ve read in a long, long time. I’ve been practicing yoga seriously for 15 years, and have been in continuous yoga teacher training with some of the best teachers in the world for 12 years, and this sweet synopsis sums it up beautifully and meaningfully. It is all the more charming in that English is not the first language of the writer.
This is it, folks:
Yogis were primarily scientists to experiment within the laboratories of their bodies utilizing the tools like breath, 5 sensory & 5 motor faculties and posture. Observing the results of certain practices done over and over again, they consolidated the experience into sutras, mantras and shastras.
The Yogis of today…are you scientists? Do you observe keenly….do you notice how the breath, the heart beat, the temperature(within as well as over the body) and the taste( in the mouth) changes with each asan, each pranayama and each kriya you perfrom?
What steps do you take to filter the energy if it is not filtered or do you just practice Yogafrom one movement, breath, mantra to another in a robotic fashion? Are you in touch with the real practice?
Every Yoga Asan is therapy….there is nothing sepcial about Yoga Therapy as all asan are to make the body healthy and fit for the subtle energy to move into the central channel taking the madhya patha (central channel~ sushumna)
What is your pratice primarily made up of? Do you contemplate after every asan, pranayama or kriya…how does your thought process change, how are your emotions affected? How has this movment, this breath touched or triggered or churned the panch koshas?
How that vibration that you induced with your pracitce created ripples and where does these ripples reach…how has it increased the energy field, how has it raised your awareness? How deeper has it touched you?
Yoga is not merely learning the sanskrit names, stading on head, chanting mantras or reciting sutras? It is inner transformation…that happens only with awareness…moment to moment awareness! It requires patience to observe these changes, accept these changes, digest these changes and grow from these changes. it requires courage to accept the new person that you have become or are becoming in the process of introversion!
Where are you in your practice?

Thank you, thank you, thank you, YES!!!!!!! I have yet to find a true yoga teacher where I live, because everyone is busy “doing” the postures, and not “being” yogic in their movement and awareness. *sigh* Thank you for posting this – it is good to know that I’m not all alone out here yelling, “The Emperor has no clothes!”
beautifully said…(and thanks for subscribing to MY blog-hope you enjoy it)
love light and JOY
Reblogged this on Not In India 2012 and commented:
I found this by chance through a subscriber to my blog and love the description of “what Yoga really is” here and wanted to share it with you.
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Thanks for sharing!