Yoga

Yoga is an ancient form of meditation. Before becoming internationally famed for its many benefits, Yoga has been practiced and performed by the sages in India over thousand years. They used to practice Yoga to achieve physical, mental and spiritual discipline as well as to cure diseases.

Yoga has got references both in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism Yoga was referred as one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy. The major branches of Yoga in Hindu philosophy are,

• Raja Yoga
• Karma Yoga
• Bhakti Yoga
• Jana Yoga, and
• Hatha Yoga

In Sanskrit the word yoga has many meanings, but today Yoga refers to Yogasana, or the special meditation postures practiced to achieve physical fitness. The modern Yoga sutra is based upon the sutras written down by Patanjali.

Yoga has become popular worldwide for its many benefits. It can help in curing health issues and rejuvenating one’s physical and mental strengths. The various postures in Yoga are known as ‘asanas’ and the breathing exercise is called ‘pranayam’. Regular practice of yoga can help in,

• Improving blood circulation
• Improving rate of metabolism
• Boosting one’s immunity
• Relaxing body and mind
• Losing weight by increasing the BMR
• Mitigating stress level
• Developing muscle strength
• Meditating
• Curing health issues and pains
• Rejuvenating skin
• Slowing the ageing process
• Improving concentration level

Yoga has become popular in the western culture because of its holistic power. The focus of yoga is on controlling and channeling the vital power of one’s body. The yoga experts can actually control and channelize their vital strength to heal pains and diseases.

Yogasana also has medical benefits. This has prompted the National Institute of Health of United States to recommend Yoga as alternative medicine. Yoga can be used in curing many serious health issues. Some of which has been listed below,

• Asthma
• Epilepsy
• Arthritis
• Constipation
• Bronchitis and other pulmonary diseases
• Hypertension and blood pressure
• Heart diseases
• Colitis
• Anemia
• Obesity and eating disorder
• Back problems and pain
• Hepatitis and other blood diseases
• Diabetes
• Migraine
• Eye sight problems
• Alzheimer's disease
• Prostatomegaly
• Insomnia/sleeping disorder
• Kidney stone

Today Yogasana has established itself as a parallel form of medication and many people are getting attracted to it because it doesn’t use expensive medicines and surgical processes. Yogasana now has a cult following both in India and abroad. It is often less expensive than modern medicines and requires little or no equipments.

Today there are several Yoga centres being established in every corner of the world and people are gathering in these centres to receive holistic and spiritualistic cures. However, to perform yoga correctly one needs to learn the right procedure and therefore should enroll with a guru. If you have decided to learn yoga by yourself be careful in following the steps properly since performing it wrongly can have many negative effects too.



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