YOGA AND SPIRITUALITY

I had an urge to write this article seeing how yoga is being degraded to simple flexibility training and how yoga’s popularity is being used to sell practically anything from Absolute vodka to underwear.

Yoga and Spirituality are inseparable. Yoga is an ancient teaching that helps the persistent practitioner to achieve the spiritual enlightenment. By no means it consists of a set of exercise routine only.

Yoga is comprehensive system, a way of thinking, a way of living our everyday lives. Physical postures or Asama and breathing exercises or Prankster that are so popular on the West are just steps 3 and 4 of Rana yoga, which is one of the yogic paths’ to spiritual development.

There are 7 steps in Rana Yoga leading the practitioner to self-realization. These steps are described in the book of the sage Patagonian “The Yoga Sutras”. You can download it for free on this page.

Yoga played an important role in my life providing insights and answering the numerous questions that I had hard time to find answers to.

The Eastern occultism entered my life when I was 20 years old. I was lucky enough to find the book of Mabel Collins “Light on the path and through the gates of gold” in the country where the books on spirituality and religion were not published. Read the details on the Yoga page. You can also download the “Light on the path” for free.

Yoga personally helped me in a variety of ways – from improving my intuition to losing weight.

How to combine the simple Western Yoga practice with Yoga as a spiritual development tool?

It is not as hard as you might think. Here are some steps, simplified:

Do not lie, cheat, take advantage of other people or harm others in any way in your everyday life.

Stop habits that are damaging for you; stop harming and sabotaging yourself in any way.

Change your habitual negative thinking into positive the positive one. See some tips in the Techniques to Help You Think Positively article.

Stop judging people, you are no better than they are. As you go further in your practice you will realize deeply the concept of Oneness of all life so this will become easier for you.

Limit the stimulants intake such as coffee, alcohol, etc and at some point try to eliminate them completely. They deplete the body of vital energy and exhaust the body. Eat vegetarian diet that provides body with energy, include whole grains in your diet, drink lots of water daily. Do fasting once a week at least 3-6 months during the year.

See the the article entitled Fasting and Weight Loss. Even though it is entitled Fasting and Weight Loss it contains general information on how to fast.

Practice Yogic Ananias regularly.

Practice Yogic breathing exercises (Prankster) regularly.

I am in the process of finishing my yoga video and manual. It will be available here for download shortly. It includes Asama and Prankster.

Meditate twice a day for 20 minutes – in the morning and in the afternoon. You can do twice a day 20 minutes mantra meditation which is a silent repetition of a word or phrase to clear your mind. Use mantra OM for example, which is the Universal sound of creation.

If you think you don’t have time to meditate do the Mindfulness meditation – be present every second of your life.

These are first 5 steps. These steps are enough to bring vibrant health, clarity of mind, happiness and peace into your life. The devoted spiritual seeker then can go further.

If you haven’t done this yet, visit the Yoga page page for more details on Yoga.