photo: Unsplash
Yoga has become hugely popular these days, but more because of the visual appeal of the poses. The internet is saturated with popular celebrities doing asanas – thats how Yoga gets it fame in modern times. Of course, not to forget marketing gimmicks like Bear Yoga or Goat Yoga.
Yoga has not been patented like Zumba, because the Rishis of India who discovered Yoga, wanted it to be freely accessible to everyone. But this has posed a challenge where people are marketing all kind of body focused exercises as Yoga with all kinds of wrong attributions or taking a minuscule part of it, and calling it the whole.
The goal of Yoga is given to us by ancient seers was to become realised and merge with the divine consciousness. Never would have the ancient seers have imagined that Yoga would be reduced to what it is, in modern times.
Some definitions of Yoga according to ancient Yogic texts are as follows
Cessation of mental fluctuations is Yoga – Patanjali
Yoga is deep concentration – Vyas
Yogaa is the union of individual soul with universal soul – Vedanta
Yoga is controlling all senses and resting your mind – Upanishads
Excellence in work is Yoga – Bhagwad Gita
Being in equanimity is Yoga – Bhagwad Gita
Sadly, the kind of Yoga we are exposed to is of people posing in a gymnast/ acrobatic/ contortionist manner. That’s not yoga at all. Always remember that reducing Yoga to a body focused practice is disrespecting the practice. Yoga is all about the 8 limbs – yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahaar, dharna, dhayana, samadhi, but more so the philosophy behind those 8 limbs.
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