Aim of Yoga and Its misconceptions

Today many people come to learn yoga mainly for one of the following reasons:
1.  To reduce tension that they had from family worries or business commitments or such mundane activities.
2.  To cure some long-lasting diseases, diabetes, asthma and so on.
3.  To improve the concentration of the students for securing good marks and to improve their character.

Many people get satisfied with learning aasanas and think that they learnt yoga. But the ultimate aim of yoga is to attain self-realization, that is, to realize who I am.  Consciousness being standstill, that is, thoughtless mind is samati, perfection, salvation, nirvana, mukti, moksha and realization of self.  If you gradually reduce number of thoughts in your mind and at one stage reach thoughtless mind, then you become one with braman and realise all the secrets of nature, including who you are.  Healthy mind, healthy body, good concentration, profound thinking, long life and peaceful mind are the byproducts of yoga, not the aim.  A sick person cannot be a yogi.  That is why aasanas were taught to strengthen a yogi physically and mentally on his spiritual journey. 

Yoga and the Four Cycles of Mind

Human mind normally functions in any one of the four cycles:
1)  Beta Wave  -  14 to 40 cycles
     It is the emotional state of mind.  The more your cycles are the more you lose your awareness and the more you are emotional.  For example, if you are angry or worried or afraid or lustful, your mind cycle may be between 25 to 35 depending upon its density.  In between 20 and 40 cycles, your reason and thinking power scarcely works.  You commit errors, have bad habits and build all your weakness without being out of your own control.
2)  Alpha Wave  - 8 to 13 cycles
     Normally a person who does not do meditation starts sleeping when he reaches this state of mind.  He is not well aware of what he thinks and hence dreams are out of his understanding and remembrance.  But when a person gets initiation in yoga (kundalini dheetsha) he reaches 13 cycle and gradually moves upto 8 cycles depending upon his intensive concentration.  Here the yogi is aware, not sleepy and he is enabled to understand  his own weakness and strength, the secrets of nature, etc.,
3)  Theta Wave  -  4 to 7 cycles
      A person, not doing yoga falls in deep sleep but a yogi, doing Thuriya meditation reaches this stage and still more aware of the secrets and laws of nature.  Many inventions take place at this state of mind.  The brain cells are active more in number and the yogi becomes more powerful in a way that whatever he thinks, that happens soon.
4)  Delta Wave  -  1 to 3 cycles
     This is generally called as unconscious state and ho-ma stage for normal human beings, but a yogi who reaches this stage through Thuriyatheedha meditation moves very close to atman (braman or god) or the unified force as science calls it.  He mingles with it and identifies himself with the universe.  The ultimate truth that 'I am all, I am in all' is realised at this stage.  All vedas and holy books were revealed only at this stage.

Did you ever ask this question - Who am I?

     We affix our passport size photo in ID card or other documents to enable others to identify us.  We mean that this particular body or figure is 'I'.  But the body is not 'I', it is just a house wherein I live, or a vehicle by which I travel around the world.
     When we say, "I am sick, I am bleeding, I am handsome or beautiful, I am young or old" actually we are body conscious.  We think that we are body.  What we do in our everyday life is nothing but cleaning the part of the body (brushing), cleaning the body (bathing), decorating the body (using perfumes and powder), feeding the body (eating and drinking), charging the body (sleeping) and sweating for the body (working for the needs of body).  Most of the people, not all, are body conscious and always go after sensual pleasures bending morals to their need.
     When water is boiled, it becomes water vapor and disappears from our view, but it does not die.  Water is a group of atoms, when they are heated, atoms in the group get separated and function by keeping one another at a distance.  But when they again join together they become clouds and later rain.  Our body is also just a group of atoms, like any other thing in the world.  If they get separated, they will also disappear from our view.       If somebody asks, "who are you?", we say, "I am Peter or so and so".  The name is not you.  Even if the name is changed, you are not changed - you have the same limbs and other organs.  Your character is not changed.  If we call a cow as pig, the cow will not become pig or do things like pig.  So name is just to identify an object or a person's body.  So name is not you.
     A thought in your mind: " I must meet him tomorrow."  Did you think that?, or did your mind think that?  'You thought' is correct.  'Your mind thought' is also correct.  Then, you = your mind.  If you are your mind, you cannot be seen by anybody, because your mind cannot be seen by anybody.  Your mind can go to any distant place in a fraction of second, then it means that you can go to any place with a fraction of second.  In this way, continue your thinking and find our many secrets about you.
    So to know about your mind more is to know about you more.

What is Kundalini Yoga?

Meditation is a part of Yoga - the seventh stage as introduced by Patanjali Maharishi.  Concentrating your mind on any particular thing or person without deviation from it is what we say meditation.  For example, you may think only of the candle light for 10 minutes without disturbance of other thoughts, or you may even see your father or mother in your mind without any other thoughts.  This is meditation.  In Kundalini Yoga, your mind is trained to concentrate on life-force from which our mind emerges.  Life-force is a group of trillions of invisible fundamental energy particles rotating in your body.  Because of its rotation, bio-magnetism is produced in your body.  It is this bio-magnetism that forms the basis for the function of internal and external organs in our body.  The conversion or transformation of this bio-magnetism is called our mind.  So mind comes from bi o-magnetism that comes from life-force.  In Kundalini Yoga, we concentrate our mind on life-force from which our mind emerges.
     'Kundam' means heat or fire and 'ali' means neither a male or female.  Our life-force cannot be distinguished as male or female that is why it is called as ali.  It is centered in our body just one inch above our anus, that is, in the center of our body ( behind the edge of spinal cord at the bottom).  Kundalini initiation means that lifting up this sakthi or force from the Mooladharam (center of our body) to the Agna (the place between two eyebrows where pituitary gland is found).  This is also called as Dheeksha.  In those days, it took fourteen years to a yoga practicer to achieve this by producing heat (kundam) with the help of mantras or breathing exercises and again it was difficult because he has to observe bramacharya life(to be without marriage and sexual desire).  But today, even being in family life, without going to forest, without taking 14 years, just in 5 minutes, with the help of already experienced yoga master, the initiation is given.  As soon as the initiation is given the practicer feels the force of life-force (kundalini sakthi) between his eyebrows and his mind turns from beta wave (14 to 40 cycles) to alpha wave (8 to 13 cycles).  The more you concentrate the more your mind becomes peaceful and the tension flies off.
See other related articles for further details.

Eight Parts of Yoga

Yoga is divided into eight parts by Patanjali Munivar in his Astanga Yoga.
1.  Iyama:
     Iyama refers to 5 disciplines, that is, what we should not do:
     a)  Ahimsa - Not to kill or harm any living being physically or mentally.
     b)  Satyam - Not to speak lies
     c)  Astheyam - Not to steal
     d)  Abarikrayam - Not to beg or gamble
     e)  Bramachariya - Not to commit adultery or rape physically or mentally

2.  Niyama:
     Niyama refers to 5 disciplines, that is, what we should do:
     a)  Thabas -  To incline to spiritual matters.
     b)  Swathyayam - To chant mantras that will control mind
     c)  Santhosam    -  To get self-satisfaction with what we have.
     d)  Sowsam       -   To keep purity in thoughts, words and deeds.
     e)  Eswara Prani-   To maintain harmony with natural laws and avoid sufferings.

3.  Asanas:
     Asanas which refer to various postures are 4 types: 1.  Exercises in standing position,  2.  in sitting
     position, 3. in lying your whole body upwards  4.  in lying your whole body downwards.  By 2010,
     nearly 900 aasanas have been identified based one patanjali's Yoga Sutras and Hindu Epics (The
     Ramayana, and the Mahabharatha)
4.  Pranayama:
     Pranayama does not refer to breathing exercises but the control of Pranan that is the root cause for the
     function of body, mind and all activities in the universe. This is achieved by certain systematic breathing
     exercises.
5.  Prathyagara:
     It refers to diverting the mind from external affairs, especially from producing emotional sensual thoughts.
     Meditation actually begins here.
6.  Tharana:
     It refers to the activity of focusing the mind on a particular object or life-force in the body.
7.  Thiyanam:
     It refers to the activity of concentrating mind on a particular thing without any deviation.
8.  Samati:
     It is the end of Yoga.  It refers to attaining the stage of Nirvana.  Once this level is achieved, then the
     mind becomes equal to the state of god, that is, thoughtless mind.  Swami Vivekananda clarifies further that meditating on a particular object without deviation for 12 seconds is called one Prathyagara.
12 prathyagara is equal to 1 Tharana,
12 Tharana is equal to 1 thiyana,
12 Thiyana is equal to Samati.

To know more about each part in detail, view other specific articles published (or will be published soon)

Philosophy of Life- Part 1

1. The key for wisdom: Go back or front, grow big or small as long as you can in terms of time and place and own wisdom.

2. Detached attachment, just as the water on the lotus leaf, is the key to release ‘the aspiring soul for salvation’ from worldly memories.

3. The absence of body-consciousness results in the presence of super-consciousness and vice versa.

4. Purity and wisdom are the invaluable property of the renounced.

5. Desire makes man weak physically, mentally, spiritually and financially.

6. This world is the open prison where Consciousness indulges in merry-making unknowingly imprisoned by the invisible gates of Innocence, Ignorance and Illusion.

7. Existence is illusion; Nothing exists.

8. When we say, “I grow, I am sick, I am handsome or beautiful, I am lean or fat or tall…” we mean that I = body. We are body-conscious. But the body is not me. It is a house where I am living; it is a vehicle by which I travel around the world. The house I live or the vehicle I ride cannot be called as me. Vacating the house cannot be called as death. The things I possess and I must be different.

9. A diamond is covered with dust being buried at the bottom of a dustbin. Its light is hidden, not lost. Our duty is to clean and find the actual bright light and noble value. Our atman (aathma) is that diamond. Body is gifted to us to clean the impurities covering atman through purity of thoughts, words and deeds. Nothing is to develop, or improve or get. The liberation of consciousness from impurities is what we need.

10. Our body never takes birth and never dies. A group of fundamental energy particles (atoms) jointly function together and we call it water. When they are separated from the group, they become water vapor and then disappear from our eyes (but still function individually and invisibly). Similarly is our body. Union and separation cannot be called as birth and death.

http://expertscolumn.com/content/towards-understanding-human-body-and-nature

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What is Yoga?

Many people generally think that yoga means bending your body into a difficult posture and doing aasanas and breathing exercises. Yoga actually came from the term 'yoke' that means 'to unite'. The ultimate aim of yoga is to enable an ordinary man ( or a practicer) to get united with God, also called as 'Brahman' through process of self-elevation (sublimation and self-purification).

 The aim of Yoga is not converting a family man into sanyasi (a renounced one), but maintaing harmony in 3 ways:

1. maintaining harmony between body and life-force through physical exercises called aasanas, assuring healthy body;

2. maintaining harmony between man and society through moral life and eradication of evil natures in man, assuring social peace;

3. maintaining harmony between man and Nature through realization of the laws of Nature, especially the law of cause and effect, assuring life without suffering.

 Attaining everlasting consciousness, identifying oneself with universal spirit, self realisation and finally reaching thoughtless mind, called as Nirvana / Samati / Moktsha /salvation / Mukthi / Veeduperu/Enlightenment is the inherent spirit of Yoga.

 So Aasanas, breathing exercises and meditations are just preparatory stages in Yoga, they are not merely yoga as many people think.

Patanjali Munivar, (the above figure) is supposed to be the father of Yoga since he introduced Yoga systematically in the 2nd century B.C.

About this Blog

This blog is meant for those who have undertaken inner journey to find themselves.  What is meditation?  How many kinds of meditations are there?  How to do different meditations?  What are the benefits of meditations?  Who is God? When will you find your Master?  What is a sin? What is Enlightenment?  Everything that is spiritual will be answered here.  What you will get here is not money and entertainment but peace and enlightenment. Self realisation leads to the realization of everything, including Truth, God, Soul, Consciousness and Love.  Join hands with us, flower and find the fragrance of yourself.