Yoga : Meditation in addition to yoga poses

If you think yoga is just for gaining (body) flexibility, stretching legs and to make body leaner, then you are far from the true meaning of this wonderful discipline and you will miss out on the other benefits yoga provides.

Life is increasingly becoming emotionally, mentally and physical exhausting. Everybody nowadays seems to be so busy that they tend to forget to devote some time to just sit back, relax and unwind. They instead build up stress in them. Too much stress then can cause discomfort on the affected person, from a simple headache to cardiovascular ailments.

As my Yoga Buddies have learned so far, yoga is addictive. It takes few practices to learn how to connect the body, mind and soul.  However, after “it clicks” , there is no way one can stop looking for more and more of  those majestic , relaxing , therapeutic moments that yoga brings us.

Yoga is a discipline originated in ancient India. The goal of yoga is to improve health, and to attain a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility. Yoga is a discipline of three steps: physical, mental and spiritual.

The First Step is (physical) body poses. I will start discussing poses in my upcoming letters

The Second Step is (mental), Meditation:

It is hard for us to stop logical track of thoughts. But, I really want all of us to master the technique and enjoy yoga practices to its fullest potential.

I thought we should know few minor details:

The discipline (meditation), found in various forms in many cultures, by which the practitioner attempts to get beyond the "thinking" mind (also referred to as "logic) into a deeper, more relaxed state.

The word 'meditation' has been used to name a variety of practices that are different enough (one from another) so that we may find trouble in defining what meditation is.

Some of the earliest references to meditation are found in the Bible, dating around 1400 BCE.

Meditation , is sometimes the translation of meditatio (in Latin), which is one of the steps used in ancient form of Christian prayer. In Latin, Meditatio means ‘to concentrate’. Christian meditation is the process of deliberately focusing on specific thoughts, and connection to God.

When it comes to yoga, we refer to ‘Meditation’ as a second of the three steps of Yoga. That is  when we attempt to becoming calm and concentrated, that is when “one perceives the self within oneself".

When we practice yoga, we have to meditate in a sense of becoming calm and concentrate on within.

Movement Meditation:

The Movement Meditation technique is where breathing and gentle flowing movements are combined Center and concentrate.  We take several deep, cleansing breaths. We center ourselves by visualizing our feet connected to the soil. We draw energy from the Earth.  We gently move our bodies in an undulating motion.

I use music to focus our attention on the movement during our group practices. Please, allow yourself to get lost in the sense of movement and the beauty of your body as it moves. Feel the areas of your body that are tight and let the movement loosen them up.

You can learn about meditation techniques by going this website:

http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/meditation/techniques.asp
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