Fitness with Yoga Exercises - Energy Meditation Zeal Rigour Excercise

DEFINITION AND VARIETIES OF YOGA :
What, then, is Yoga and what is Pranayama ? if anything abnormal is done by a person, anything beyond the capacity of an ordinary individual, it is generally said to have been done by the Science of Yoga. Before we are initiated into the mystery of this Science of Yoga, it is well to know what Yoga means. The word ‘Yoga’ is derived from the root “Yuja” to join or to weld together. Just a in welding, two pieces of the same metal are made to become one by the process of heating and harming, so also in the Yoga of Indian Philosophy, the embodied spirit of Jivatma, which is a part of the Universal Spirit Pranayama, is made to become one with the Universal Spirit by certain physical and mental exercises. There are good many ably written works on Yoga, both in the vernaculars and in English, and each has tried to define Yoga in its own particular way, and I will mention a dew definitions. Some have defined Yoga as “self concentration with a view to seeing the soul as it looks when it is abstracted from mind and matter.” Patanjali describes Yoga as ‘suppression of thought’. Here the word ‘thought’ must not be understood in the usual narrower sense of reflection, but should be taken to mean consciousness which includes sensibility, imagination and dreams.
A simple definition of Yoga is found in the Bhagwad-Gita, where it is described as equanimity of mind in thought and deed, resulting in efficiency of action, done as service dedicated to God. But the following is a more or less comprehensive definition of the term Yoga. “Yoga is the science, which raises the capacity of the human mind to respond to higher vibrations, and to perceive, catch and assimilate the infinite conscious movements going on around us in the universe.” In fact it makes one transmitting as well as receiving station of radio activity with the mind as the aerial. One can catch and receive the unspoken thoughts of others from any distance. One can also broadcast one’s own thoughts to assist others in spiritual upliftment or guide them when they are in difficulty. It is claimed that all the miracles performed by the long line of saints, saviours and sages of all times and in all climes, were due to the knowledge of this, the grandest of all sciences. From the definition given above, we can see that Yoga means the union or the linking together of man with God; or, more correctly, the disunion or separation of man from objects of sense, i.e., from the phenomenal world. It is the science which leads the initiate by easy gradations to the loftiest height of Self-realisation till he stands face to face with the objects of his search. This object of his search can be obtained by a variety of ways, either by dedicating all the fruits of work to God – Karma-Yoga – or the absolute surrender of all our hopes and aspirations including the self also to God, in the belief that His grace is our highest good – Bhakti-Yoga. The highest form of Yoga is that in which the soul does not see itself except as infilled by and made identical with the Absolute God – Jnyana-Yoga. This is enough for our purpose. I need not go deeper into the mysteries of Yoga, but a few words regarding its achievement will not be out of place.