Yoga Cures: Simple Routines to Conquer Over 50 Common Ailments and Live Pain-Free (3 page)

A proper approach to physical alignment of the body is important for safety and therapeutic purposes, but making file:///C|/...ures%20Simple%20Routines%20to%20Conquer%20Mlments%20and%20Live%20Pain-Free%20-%20Stiles%20Tara/index.html[5/29/2012 10:54:20 PM]

an extreme shape is not the goal. When you move with your breath, your body will tell you where it is ready to go, and you’ll be at ease enough not to push or force it to move beyond that point. With yoga you start where you are, and you’re somewhere different every day.

Chapter 1

What Is Yoga?

You are not just a drop in the ocean, you are the mighty ocean in the drop.

—
Rumi

Yoga means union. The Sanskrit word
yoga
has many meanings: to unite, to join, to contemplate, and

to be absorbed. When we practice it regularly, we unite our mind, body, and spirit. We connect with

ourselves, and we are able to connect more meaningfully with others and the world we are in. It’s like

calling a meeting with your whole self so that you can check in on you.

Yoga is the ultimate act of self-study. It is a daily dive deep into ourselves, where we come back

refreshed and ready for all comers. Yoga goes much deeper than stretching. How you live in your body,

how you experience it, is how you live in your mind, and the other way around, too. What do I mean

by this? If your mind is tense your body is tense, and it dominos through the rest of your life. If your

mind is out of balance, your body is out of balance, and your life can spiral out of control. If your

mind is calm, open, and focused, your body and life also reflect and expand accordingly.

Yoga shows us how to wrangle the mind to serve us throughout our lives. Without such wrangling,

the mind can spin off in many destructive directions. But get that monkey mind in hand, and your

potential is limitless. Boundaries fade and life expands … the more you practice.

Why believe me? I’m not the only one to expound on the benefits of yoga. Many researchers

throughout the world have studied yoga and meditation. They’ve just firmed up what we who do it

already know: a regular yoga practice reduces stress, calms the mind, makes you happier, eases pain,

increases mental sharpness, and prevents and heals all kinds of ailments and diseases. Yoga is a practice

for living a better life, one deep breath at a time.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF YOGA—VERY BRIEF

No one knows exactly when the practice of yoga began, which makes sense since it is something that

exists always and is inside of all of us. Traditionally, yoga is a practice to unite with the Absolute,

recognizing that the Absolute is within all of us. Yoga joins together the body, mind, and spirit as one.

Like air, water, and earth, yoga is an element that is contained in all of us. In the Indus Valley of

northwestern India, stone carvings depicting figures in yoga poses have been found dating back five

thousand years or more. There is a common misconception that yoga developed out of Hinduism.

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However, Hinduism’s religious structures evolved much later and incorporated practices and ideas that

are yoga traditions. Yoga probably arrived in the United States in the late 1800s, but it did not become

widely known until the 1960s, when it became popular in the entertainment, pop culture, hippie, and

intellectual scenes. George Harrison’s interest in Eastern mysticism was sparked upon meeting with

Swami Vishnu-devananda, the founder of Sivananda Yoga centers around the world, who handed

Harrison a copy of his book
The Illustrated Book of Yoga
while the Beatles were on location in the

Bahamas filming
Help!
The Beatles began to study Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh

Yogi in London and Wales, and eventually at his ashram in Rishikesh in the Himalayas. The Beatles

were joined by Mia Farrow, Donovan, and Mike Love of the Beach Boys, who all jumped on the

bandwagon.

Around the same time, Harvard professor Richard Alpert, now known as Ram Dass, conducted

meditation and psychedelic experiments on prisoners. Upon being asked to leave Harvard for his

unorthodox experiments, Alpert went to India to be with Neem Karoli Baba, who would become his

guru and give him the name Ram Dass, meaning servant of Lord Rama. Yogis Sri Krishnamacharya,

Swami Sivananda, Shri Yogendra, and Swami Kuvalayananda made efforts to include women and

foreigners, who had been excluded from the practice. They also believed that Indian philosophy could

coexist with Western science and medicine, an innovative idea that carries into the present. Swami

Satchidananda, one of Sivananda’s students, demonstrated yoga at Woodstock. The practice of yoga

spread even deeper into the West when the influential B.K.S. Iyengar began his teacher/student

relationship with the famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin in 1954. Today, over $6 billion a year is spent

on yoga, and approximately 15 million people in the United States are practicing. There are many

styles, and hybrid styles, of yoga practice.

The poses are designed to heal you from the inside out. Each pose has specific purposes and benefits

ranging from improving circulation, regulating digestion, enhancing metabolism, and improving range

of motion to control, balance, and more. The yoga poses will carve out an optimal functioning body

and mind. They will strengthen, lengthen, and shape your muscles in the best way to operate your

entire system. An added bonus is that your body will be energized, strong, lean, and toned. Your skin

will be glowing and fresh with life. The poses, in short, are designed to build your body’s energy stores

from the inside out. Unfortunately the history of yoga hasn’t been immune to setbacks,

misunderstandings, and corruption. Turned off by false gurus, religious overtones, attempted ownership,

aggressive styles, and rigid prerequisites, many people have been excluded from the massive benefits of

a practice that is a gift to everyone.

Patanjali was a sage and a scholar who compiled one of the earliest texts on yoga, called the Yoga

Sutras. The Sutras could have been written as early as the first or second century BC or as late as the

fifth century AD, exact dates are unknown. In the text, he outlined the Yamas and Niyamas, which

together made up an ethical code of conduct for yogis to observe. Before we look at his code, I want to

pause for a moment to focus on one aspect of it: ahimsa. It is an observance in the Yamas that calls for

one to practice nonviolence. It’s a practice in kindness to all living things, including ourselves.

Yoga is about recognizing and being good to ourselves from the inside out. Don’t confuse being good

to yourself with being selfish. We cannot extend love to others unless we truly love ourselves. If we are

constantly hard on and judging ourselves, we do the same to others. We extend to others how we feel

about ourselves. An easy way to see how we are treating ourselves is to look to those around us. They

are a reflection of what’s going on with us.

Hopefully, we have all treated ourselves well at times and have enjoyed how good that feels. The

more we practice yoga, the better we feel, and the better we are able to cultivate a lasting attitude of

kindness. This sets us up for a whole lot more ease in all areas of our lives.

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THE EIGHT LIMBS OF YOGA

Patanjali wrote about the system known as Ashtanga Yoga, or the eight limbs of yoga. Here are the ethical guidelines he developed to be followed by any practitioner of yoga, including you, if you’re so inclined:

1. Yama:
Restraint, which lets us refrain from violence, lying, and stealing.

2. Niyama:
Observances. Following a set of outlined rules that lead to contentment, purity, and tolerance.

3. Asana:
The physical exercises (yoga poses).

4. Pranayama:
The breathing techniques.

5. Pratyahara:
The preparation for meditation, a withdrawal of the mind from the senses.

6. Dharana:
A state of concentration and being able to hold the mind on one object for a specific time.

7. Dhyana:
The act of meditation, the ability to focus on nothing, or no objects, indefinitely.

8. Samadhi:
Absorption. Being present, and the realization of the essential nature of the self.

I believe that when the number of people practicing yoga reaches a critical mass, many of our

collective mental and physical health problems will begin to fade away. But for yoga to really go

mainstream people need to understand that its practice is something anyone can do.

You don’t have to follow Patanjali’s eight-limbed path, or move away to an ashram to have yoga

benefit your life. You just have to begin to practice it. Simple. Easy. Powerful.

What do you do first? Breathe.

What next? Observe.

OBSERVE WITHOUT JUDGMENT

In meditation we can watch the itch instead of scratching it.

—
Ram Dass

Observation without judgment is the basis for all meditation including yoga, which after all is simply a

moving meditation. Yoga becomes truly useful when you can translate this attention and observation

into all areas of your life. Otherwise, it would just be a lot of stretching and bending, which is fine and

good, but not really the point.

You are the same person whether you’re on the yoga mat or off of it. Practicing yoga is a great

opportunity to observe your habits and tendencies. Do you give up too easily? Work too hard, but not