What Yoga Isn’t: Start With Simple Poses To Get To The Unity Party

One feels intimidated to start a yoga practice by looking at intricate yoga poses, yoga clothes and awesome body shapes.

What if I told you that yoga was “invented” for the sole purpose of meditation?

Walk with me… The word yoga means “oneness” – oneness of ourselves with the universe, God, divine, whatever you are comfortable calling it “that”.

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Oneness of all that we are, of all of our parts: bright and dark, lovable and shameful, clear and confused. All are affectionately invited to the yoga party. It is the unity of all our aspects: physical, mental, emotional, energetic and spiritual. It is a healthy way of life.

In the words of one of my favorite yoga philosophers “Yoga is a process of coming together; it means bringing about a total alignment of the inner layers of one’s personality. “- Swami Krishnananda, Divine Life Society.

The most famous part of yoga is the physical poses. They are important because they bring health and we have to be on top of our health to explore meditation. While meditating wasn’t foreign enough, doing it with knee pain, constipation, or lack of sleep presents additional challenges that make it unbearable.

Hence the yoga poses, they undoubtedly provide this basis for the practice of meditation. Yoga is a science, not a religion. One of my teachers in India used to say that yoga makes a Hindu a better Hindu, a Christian a better Christian, a Muslim a better Muslim, etc.

Yoga is not a physical exercise. I think being seen as such can make it more appealing and an easy entry for many of us.

Yoga can be described as 8 stages that unfold from good human values ​​such as non-violence, truthfulness, cleanliness, moderation, self-discipline, contentment, self-learning, etc. which in Sanskrit are called yamas and niyamas (steps 1 and 2).

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Yoga poses (asanas) are step 3, so we are ideally stepping into the mat soaked in living principles, but in my experience they are all interconnected and order is subverted all the time.

Stage 4 are pranayamas, or breathing exercises, and all other forms of increasing and improving energy. Followed by Dharana, which is basically more yoga practices designed to start bringing the yogi a little more inward, a kind of bridge between external yoga and internal yoga, preparing us for stage 6 Dhyana, concentration /meditation.

I hear so many people say, “I’ve always wanted to try yoga. I invite you to try a class or video that you like and see what works for YOU.

Go with an open heart. A heart open to yoga and to yourself. For me, it’s my rock, my lifestyle, that keeps me rooted like a tree in a windy world.

Ana Mares Guia holds a Masters Degree in Yoga Therapy Applied to Mental Health. She taught yoga for 23 years. She owns Divya Jyoti Yoga Therapy Center in Tallahassee, where she offers private yoga therapy sessions and a yoga therapy group on Tuesdays at 9 a.m. For more information, [email protected].

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Physical poses are only part of the unity process of yoga