Dealing With the Human Mind
Created By Dinaz Darukhanawala On 12 May, 2009
List all Experiences:
Added By Dinaz Darukhanawala On May 12, 2009, 12:00 am
Country: India
I have been a yoga practitioner for the past eight years. When I first started yoga, I thought of it mainly as exercise, which left me feeling stretched out and relaxed. It was only when I started my teacher’s training at the Yoga Institute, Santacruz (E) that I began to understand that there is a lot more to this science.
Yoga practices are a wonderful tool to help us gain control over the body, mind, breath and emotions. Sage Patanjali gathered all the existing knowledge of yoga 2500 years ago into 196 sutras. He defined Yoga as skillfully stopping the fluctuations of the mind personality complex. He has described how the human mind functions and even after all these decades, with so much technological growth, it holds true! Out of the 196 sutras (small sentences) only five or six deal with asanas and pranayama. But today unfortunately, this is all we know yoga to be.
Most of us are completely identified and attached to our body, thoughts and emotions. Osho says very insightfully that any real journey can only start from where you are. Asanas help us train and correct the body and become natural, relaxed and healthy again.
ASANA: An asana is defined as a posture which gives steadiness and comfort. Steadiness will come when your attention is fixed either on the breath or sensations in the part of the body being worked upon or on the body movement, depending on the asana. An asana can be perfected by learning to hold the posture in relaxation.
When we first start our practice we find that most asanas are not comfortable, in fact a lot of them are downright painful! Over the years we have abused our bodies in various manners - bad posture, over eating, not eating enough, lack of exercise, too much exercise, too much or too little sleep, etc. If our body is natural and healthy, an asana will be comfortable. Asanas train the body to correct itself. With time and regular practice it is actually possible to feel most relaxed when the spine is erect.
PRANAYAMA: (Prana- bio energy; Ayam- control.)
Breathing is the only physiological process that can be voluntary or involuntary. When conscious control of the breath is abandoned, a primitive part of the mind starts to breathe for us. Here feelings, emotions and thoughts become involved and these wreak havoc with the rhythms of our breath. Pranayama helps us to bring awareness to our breath in order to experience what happens when we breathe in a certain way. Dr Jaydev from the Yoga Institute, Santacruz E, once said that the purpose of pranayama is to experience God. The calm, positive and happy state of mind we experience after pranayama is definitely heavenly! :)
Yoga practices are a wonderful tool to help us gain control over the body, mind, breath and emotions. Sage Patanjali gathered all the existing knowledge of yoga 2500 years ago into 196 sutras. He defined Yoga as skillfully stopping the fluctuations of the mind personality complex. He has described how the human mind functions and even after all these decades, with so much technological growth, it holds true! Out of the 196 sutras (small sentences) only five or six deal with asanas and pranayama. But today unfortunately, this is all we know yoga to be.
Most of us are completely identified and attached to our body, thoughts and emotions. Osho says very insightfully that any real journey can only start from where you are. Asanas help us train and correct the body and become natural, relaxed and healthy again.
ASANA: An asana is defined as a posture which gives steadiness and comfort. Steadiness will come when your attention is fixed either on the breath or sensations in the part of the body being worked upon or on the body movement, depending on the asana. An asana can be perfected by learning to hold the posture in relaxation.
When we first start our practice we find that most asanas are not comfortable, in fact a lot of them are downright painful! Over the years we have abused our bodies in various manners - bad posture, over eating, not eating enough, lack of exercise, too much exercise, too much or too little sleep, etc. If our body is natural and healthy, an asana will be comfortable. Asanas train the body to correct itself. With time and regular practice it is actually possible to feel most relaxed when the spine is erect.
PRANAYAMA: (Prana- bio energy; Ayam- control.)
Breathing is the only physiological process that can be voluntary or involuntary. When conscious control of the breath is abandoned, a primitive part of the mind starts to breathe for us. Here feelings, emotions and thoughts become involved and these wreak havoc with the rhythms of our breath. Pranayama helps us to bring awareness to our breath in order to experience what happens when we breathe in a certain way. Dr Jaydev from the Yoga Institute, Santacruz E, once said that the purpose of pranayama is to experience God. The calm, positive and happy state of mind we experience after pranayama is definitely heavenly! :)