In this chapter

?      Debunking myths about yoga

?      Deciphering the word yoga

?      Exploring the eight main branches of yoga

?      Understanding the five basic approaches to yoga

?      Defining popular styles of Hatha Yoga

?      Taking control of your life with Yoga

Two or three decades ago, some people still occasionally confused Yoga with yogurt. Today, Yoga is a household word. The fact that just about everyone has heard the word Yoga, however, doesn?t mean that everyone knows exactly what it means.  Many misconceptions still exist, even among those who practice Yoga.  In this chapter, we clear up the confusion and explain what Yoga really is and how it relates to your health and happiness. We also help you see that Yoga, with its many different branches and approaches, really does offer something for everyone.

Whatever your age, weight, flexibility, or beliefs may be, you can practice and benefit from Yoga.  Although it originated in India, Yoga is for all of humanity.

Understanding the True Character of Yoga

Whenever you?re told Yoga is just this or just that, your nonsense alert should kick into action.  Yoga is too comprehensive to reduce to any one thing.  Yoga is like a skyscraper with many floors and numerous rooms at each level.  Here?s what Yoga is not:

• Yoga is not just gymnastics.
• Yoga is not just fitness training.
• Yoga is not just a way to control your weight.
• Yoga is not just a technique for stress reduction.
• Yoga is not just meditation.
• Yoga is not just the ?huffing and puffing? of proper breath control.
• Yoga is not just a way to improve and maintain your health.
• Yoga is not just a spiritual tradition from India.

To put it simply, Yoga is all these things?the catch is that it?s also a great deal more.  (You would expect as much from a tradition that?s been around for 5,000 years.)  Yoga includes physical exercises that look like gymnastics?some of which have even been incorporated into Western gymnastics.  These exercises help you become or stay fit and trim, control your weight, and reduce your stress level.  Yoga also offers a whole range of meditation practices, including breathing techniques that exercise your lungs and calm your nervous system or change your brain and the rest of your body with delicious energy.

Moreover, you can use Yoga as an efficient system of health care, one that has proven its usefulness both in restoring and maintaining health.  Yoga continues to gain acceptance within the medical establishment.  More and more physicians are recommending Yoga to their patients not only for stress but also as a safe and sane method of exercise, as well as physical therapy (notably, for the back and knees).

But Yoga is more than even a system of preventative or restorative health care.  Yoga looks at health from a broad, holistic perspective that?s only now been rediscovered by avant-garde medicine.  This perspective appreciates the enormous influence of the mind?your psychological attitudes?on physical health.

Finding meaning: The Word Yoga

The word Yoga comes from the ancient Sanskrit language spoken by the traditional religious elite of India, the Brahmins.  Yoga means ?union? or ?integration? and ?discipline,? so the system of Yoga is called a unitive or integrating discipline. Yoga seeks unity at various levels.  First, Yoga seeks to unite your body and mind. All too often, people separate their minds from their bodies.  Some people are chronically ?out of the body?.  They can?t feel their feet or the ground beneath them, as if they hover like ghosts just above their bodies.  They?re unable to cope with the ordinary pressures of daily life and collapse under stress.  Often, they?re confused and don?t understand their own emotions.  They?re afraid of life and easily hurt. 

Many people suffer from slighter forms of this syndrome, which can make facing life squarely and mindfully a difficult task.  Because they are not fully ?in? the body, they tend to also be somewhat disconnected from the world around them.  This causes them to daydream and avoid, rather than face, life?s challenges.  Through Yoga, they can reconnect their mind and emotions to the body, enabling them to live life more fully and with enjoyment.

A second problem that Yoga tackles is the split between the rational mind and the emotions.  All too often, people bottle up their emotions and don?t express their real feelings, choosing instead to rationalize these feelings away.  If done chronically, this avoidance can become a serious health hazard.  Sometimes people aren?t even aware that they?re suppressing their feelings?especially anger.  Then anger or frustration consumes them from the inside out.

Here?s how Yoga can help you with your personal growth:

• Yoga can put you in touch with your real feelings and balance your emotional life.
• Yoga can help you become less fragmented
• Yoga can help you become less fragmented inwardly and more whole and real.  In other words, it can help you understand and accept yourself and feel comfortable with who you are.  You won?t have to ?fake it? or reduce your life to constant role-playing.
• Yoga can greatly improve your ?hook-up? to other people. That is, you become more able to empathize and communicate with others.

Yoga is a powerful means of psychological integration.  It makes you aware that you?re part of a larger whole, not merely an island unto yourself.  Humans can?t thrive in isolation.  Even the most independent individual is greatly indebted to others.  Once your mind and body are happily reunited, this union with others comes about naturally.  The moral principles of Yoga are all embracing, encouraging you to seek kinship with everyone and everything.  We say more about this in Chapter 18.

Finding Yourself: Are you a yogi (or yogini)?

Someone who?s dedicated to the discipline of balancing mind and body through Yoga is traditionally called a yogi (if male) or a yogini (if female).  In this book, we use both terms at random.  Alternatively, we also use the English term Yoga Practitioner.

A yogi or yogini who has really mastered Yoga is called a Yoga master or an adept.

If such an adept also teaches (and not all of them do), he or she is traditionally called a guru. The Sanskrit word guru means means literally ?weighty one.? According to traditional esoteric sources, the syllable gu signifies spiritual darkness and ru signifies the act of removing. Thus, a guru is a teacher who leads the student from darkness to light.

Very few Westerners have achieved complete mastery of Yoga, Mainly because Yoga is still a relatively young movement in the West. However, at the level at which Yoga is generally taught outside its Indian homeland, many competent Yoga teachers or instructors can lend a helping hand to beginners.  In this book, we hope to do just that for you.

Considering Your Options: The Eight

Main Branches of Yoga

When you take a bird?s eye view of the Yoga tradition, you see a dozen major strands of development, each with its own subdivisions. Picture Yoga as a giant tree with eight branches?each branch has its own unique character, but each is also part of the same tree.   With so many different paths, you?re sure to find one that?s right for your personality, lifestyle and goals.  In this book we focus on Hatha Yoga, the most popular branch of Yoga, but we avoid the common mistake of reducing it to mere physical fitness training.  Thus, we also talk about meditation and the spiritual aspects of Yoga.

Here are the eight principal branches of Yoga, arranged alphabetically:

?         Bhakti Yoga: the Yoga of devotion

?         Guru Yoga: the Yoga of dedication to a Yoga master

?         Hatha Yoga: the Yoga of physical discipline

?         Jnana Yoga: the Yoga of wisdom

?         Karma Yoga: the Yoga of self-transcending action

?         Mantra Yoga: the Yoga of potent sound

?         Raja Yoga: the Royal Yoga

?         Tantra Yoga (including Kundalini Yoga): the Yoga of continuity

These eight branches are described in the following paragraphs.

Hatha Yoga: The Yoga of physical discipline

All branches of Yoga seek to achieve the same final goal, enlightenment (see Chapter 20), but Hatha Yoga (pronounced haht-ha) approaches this goal through the body rather than through the mind or through the emotions.  Hatha Yoga practitioners believe that unless the body is properly purified and prepared, the higher stages of concentration, meditation, and ecstasy are virtually impossible to achieve?such an attempt would be like trying to climb Mt. Everest without the necessary gear.   Much of this book focuses on this branch of Yoga.

The body is a precious possession. Yoga asks you to take proper care of it, so that you can enjoy not only health but also longevity and, ultimately, enlightenment.

From?Yoga for Dummies?