Yoga is considered as a union, which in fundamental terms could be defied as joining of two certain unlike or dissimilar things . In its true context yoga is the union of the consciousness (“Atma”) with the divine consciousness (“Parmatma”) . According to Maharishi Patanjali the pioneer of yogic philosophy , yoga means “chiitas vritti nirodha “ which means cessation of all the mental processes and the mind enters enter a state of “shunya” which means every material and spiritual form emerges from nothingness and merges into nothingness. Yoga teaches us punctuality, acclimatisation to certain extreme conditions, control, focus, internal as well as external purification, strength as well as stability which promotes refinement of an individual in every aspect possible and eventual detachment and termination to every possible desire and eventually entering a state of accomplishment and enlightenment with the sense of achievement in all aspects and the ultimatum is salvation or samadhi.
Yoga is said to be a conversation between Lord Shiva and his consort Parvati , where gave the sermon of yoga Vidya to her. Lord Shiva is known as the first yogi or guru known as Adiyogi . It has also been mentioned in the Hindu Scriptures that Shiva distributed this knowledge of Yoga among the legendary saptarishis along the banks of the lake “Kantisarovar” in the great Himalayan Valley. And then it was because of there seven profound sages that the knowledge of yoga was promulgated and one of the prime saptarishi “Agastya” travelled across the Indian subcontinent spread the knowledge across the whole of India , most of this dates back to 5000 years ago . Yoga became extremely popular during the 19th century because of the efforts of spiritual leaders like Swami Vivekananda and Parmahansa Yogananda. The form of yoga which is quite popular in the west is “Hathayoga” which primarily focuses on body postures(Asanas) and breathing techniques (pranayama) and certain mudra bandha. But in India mostly yoga was a spiritual practice. There are also certain misconceptions associated with yoga that it is only a way of physical exercise or it is only meant for people who are into asceticism. It isn’t only meant for younger younger and only males , it can be performed by any person of any age group or of any gender. It is not only a spiritual or a religious activity, it can be performed by any person belonging to any race, caste, creed or religion.
We’ll now discuss some fundamental dictums of prominent yogic scriptures like the Patanjali yoga Sutras by Maharishi Patanjali and Hathayogapradipika by Swatmarama Suri .
Let’s begin with the Patanjali yoga sutra . So the sutras of Patanjali have 8 limbs that’s why it is also known as the Ashtanga yoga (Ashta means eight) , and they are as follows:
1. Yama: These are certain abstinences a person must follow during his yogic practices, they are primarily moral values or disciplines, code and conduct of society.
2. Niyama: optimistic duties a person must abide for his own betterment.
3. Asana: body postures, imparts physical strength
4. Pranayama(Kumbhaka): Breathing techniques
5. Pratyahara: controlling of the senses
6. Dharna: focus on a particular point or object
7. Dhyaan: extreme form of dharna is dhyaan which is synonymous to meditative engagement
8. Samadhi: Enlightenment or salvation
Apart from this the patterns of mental processes which causes hindrances in the yogic practices are certainly benign as well as hazardous. They are:
- right perception : it arises from direct observation by the senses
- error: also known as misperception which is based on false knowledge without any evidences
- conceptualisation: it is basically verbal or linguistic knowledge via communication not in in direct association with real things
- sleep: deep sleep is in for that knowledge that nothing exists
- remembering : retrieval of experience
The other form of yoga is Hathayoga which emphasises predominantly on asanas and physical postures , there are many Hathayogic text which are the “Siddha Siddhanth Padhati”, “Gherand Samhita”, “Hatharathnavali”, “Goraksha Samhita” , “Hathapradipika”. The main focus of the Hathayoga sadhana is to attain equanimity in all aspects of life prioritising the physical form , because according to the founders of hathayoga who are significantly considered as the Nath cult , it is difficult to tame the mental fluctuations, but by considering the physical self as regulated the non physical self could be bought under consideration.
The main components of the hathayoga consists of:
Asana
Pranayama
Mudra
Naadanusandan
There are also six cleansing processes mentioned in the hathayoga mainly they are as follows:
- Dhauti
-vastu
-neti
-nauli
-tratak
-kapalbhati
But in the hatharathnavali there are 8 cleansing processes mentioned known as the ashtakarmas instead of the usual shatkarma
