WHAT IS YOGA

WHAT IS YOGA? Master Trainer Sree popped this question to me!!!

I tried to give him the answer how I understand from my Guru, Bhagawan Sri Nithyananda Paramashiva:  Yoga is about Union between God and man.  Hard to grasp this concept, isn’t it? Well, let us go back to the Yoga Sutra.

So, what is YOGA?  YOGA CITTA VRITTI NIRODHAH (Sanskrit) – YOGA is the cessation of the modification of the mind field (from gross to subtle.). My own understand – the ultimate of yoga is beyond mind and body, only pure consciousness – a natural state of being.   So, Yoga is not about the Asana (Postures) or stretching exercise that most of the people think, including myself, before really explore deeper into yoga.

If Yoga is not about Asana/Postures, so why are we going through all these asana, I wonder?  I refer to the Nithyananda Yoga book and my Guru describes Asanas as ‘steady and comfortable body postures to tune oneself with the Cosmos’.  The body (gross) needs preparation to enter into more subtle dimension of Yoga.  So Asana do play an important part of Yoga because our being resides in the physical body and we have to keep this body fit and healthy in order for the being to move to the subtle plains.

That is why it is one of the eight limbs of yoga.