Integral Yoga, as its name implies, is a system of yoga that aims to integrate body, mind, and spirit. The system of Integral Yoga was brought to the West from India by Sri Swami Satchidananda. This system emphasizes the practices of hatha yoga, pranayama, and meditation as the way to develop physical and mental stillness in order to unlock inner truth. Integral Yoga is practiced and taught at the Integral Yoga Institute, which was founded by Sri Swami Satchidananda and has branches throughout the United States and the rest of the world. Integral Yoga hatha classes are offered by individual teachers, by the Integral Yoga Institutes and Integral Yoga Teaching Centers, as well as at Integral Yoga headquarters at Satchidananda Ashram-Yogaville, which is located in Buckingham, near Charlottesville, Virginia. Read the rest of this entry »
Ayurveda, the Indian “science of life”, is an ancient system of healing that sees health as our birthright. We are made of elements that create health when well-balanced, and disease when imbalanced. Ayurveda’s goal is to help us help ourselves to re-balance and restore health. Read the rest of this entry »
You can manage the urge to sleep with the practice of breath awareness. Read the rest of this entry »
Sleeping in meditation is a powerful sign of lethargy and fatigue. It signals that we need to watch the way we are handling our energy levels. Tamasic impulses need to be managed over the long run, and when fatigue or lethargy alerts us to an imbalance, it’s important to give it our attention. Read the rest of this entry »
The power of sleep, unfortunately, is real, and easily magnified. The commitment to step back from the brink of slumber requires the ability to recognize and manage factors that foster sleepiness. For example, if you have just eaten before sitting down to meditate you can count on at least 45 minutes of lethargy. That doesn’t mean that you can’t meditate during that time, but you won’t be anywhere near your sharpest while your energy is being funneled into digestion rather than concentration. This explains why meditation manuals advise waiting two to four hours after a full meal before meditating. Read the rest of this entry »
Meditation allows us to explore the encounter with sleep in detail. In meditation we observe the subtle shifting of consciousness. More important, according to the sage Patanjali, we gain a measure of control over it. The aspiration of every meditator is to gain mastery over the fluctuations of the mind. This is accomplished through relaxed concentration - the conscious settling of the mind in a resting place - and by gaining inner distance and detachment from the passing activities and objects of experience. Read the rest of this entry »
Hatha yoga means literally the “forceful yoga.” As its name implies, this approach to yoga emphasizes the vitality and life force of the physical body. Hatha yoga is undoubtedly the most well known, popular, and frequently practiced style of yoga in the West. It places great emphasis on purifying the body through a variety of means that include physical exercise, cleansing rites, and specific breathing techniques. These practices not only strengthen the body through the force of exercise, they can also help you to expand your own personal force, or store of energy, through their vitalizing effects. Read the rest of this entry »
While most authorities on yoga generally agree that bhakti, jnana, karma, and raja are the four major branches of yoga, there are several yoga practices, or traditional approaches to yoga, that have gained prominence, and which might be considered offshoots of the major branches of yoga. You may, or may have already, come across the names of some of these offshoots. Being familiar with the following popular terms will help round out your understanding of yoga. Read the rest of this entry »
Raja yoga is frequently described as the scientific path to yoga. This is because it lays out in a very clear, simple, and systematic way a series of steps that a practitioner of yoga can follow to achieve enlightenment. These steps, which are detailed in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, form a sort of ladder, each practice building sequentially on the practice that precedes it. The eight limbs, or rungs, of raja yoga, presented from the first to the eighth are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
While yoga is a diverse system of practice comprised of many approaches to self-realization, many authorities on yoga concur that there are four major branches of yoga that over time have served as a point of origin for developing a practice of yoga. In addition to these four branches, there are several other systems of yoga that have gained widespread interest and attention in building a yoga practice. These might be considered offshoots, or mini-branches, of the main four branches of yoga. The following descriptions will help you understand the four main branches of yoga, with some of their most important offshoots. Read the rest of this entry »
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