What is Yoga?!
Posted on January 22, 2014 by Heather Langan, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
Yoga, demystified. It can change your life!
Many people have questions about what yoga really is. Is it weird? Do you have to chant? Is it a cult or a religion? Do you have to be really limber to practice it? If you venture into a yoga class, will everyone be young and beautiful and laugh when you can’t touch your toes?
The answer to all the above is a resounding no, of course. Yoga is still unfamiliar to many people, but it’s not weird – at least, no weirder than tap dancing or Cajun cooking or pearl diving (okay, pearl diving may be a little weird, but you get the picture).
You don’t have to chant to do yoga. Some forms of yoga include chanting, some don’t, but this is a good example of where you bring your own choices and comfort level to your practice. Like to chant? Great. If you try a form of yoga in which chanting is involved, chant away. If you feel odd about it, just don’t do it. No one will think anything about it.
Yoga is not a religion. While the earliest yogis tended to be Hindu, this was probably because they were in India. In the modern world, most practitioners of yoga are not Hindu. There is nothing about most forms of yoga that require any particular religious or even spiritual inclination. Many other practices in the world that incorporate physical and mental activities align well with yoga, whether they are religious, philosophical or otherwise. Think of Judeo-Christian meditation, or silent retreats in which artistic expression or physical activity, such as walking, is an important element.
Yoga is, at its most basic, a personal practice that incorporates several things. While there are hundreds of types of yoga, most emphasize both physical and mental elements. Many incorporate breathing practices. Many types of yoga, particularly those types practiced in the West, incorporate asana, or physical positions. Many people who have studied the history of yoga believe that the physical asanas were developed as a way to prepare the body for meditation, where a calm, focused mind was the goal and the physical practice was just one of the ways to achieve this.
Yoga is an ancient Sanskrit word meaning yoke or union – in this case, the mind and body. It goes without saying, but bears repeating, that our minds and bodies are all one thing, they are yoked, intertwined, they are one. However, we persistently treat them as separate entities. This was true over two thousand years ago when yoga was in its early development and it’s even more true today. Now, more than ever, we need yoga to bring us into contact with ourselves, to help us tune in to who we really are. When we practice yoga consistently, all things have the potential to improve: Our overall ability to manage life and its many challenges, our diets and weight, our insight into our strengths and needs, our physical and mental health, our sex lives, you name it!
If you’ve read this far, you probably have enough curiosity to learn more. I encourage you to keep reading, researching and exploring. No matter who you are, if you are reading this, you can practice yoga.
