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What is Yoga

Yoga refers to traditional physical and mental disciplines originating in India. Patanjali systematized the conceptions of Yoga. Yogi Swatmarama, a sage of 15th century India, is the compiler of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. In this treatise Swatmarama introduces Hatha Yoga as a way of physical purification that the body practices for higher meditation. Hatha Yoga is a strong practice done for healing and purification. Hatha Yoga is what most people in the Western world associate with the word “Yoga” and is most commonly practiced for mental and physical health.

Yoga is a great treasure. Yoga keeps the body flexible, strengthens our muscles, dissolves tensions in the internal organs, activates our life energy and makes our mind positive. Yoga helps us to cope our life, to preserve our health and to let the happiness grow in our world. Through yoga we can become a Buddha, a Shiva and a Goddess. Kings have given up their kingdom to gain the wealth of yoga. Yoga is so vast that it can hardly be imagined. Many people nowadays are on an intensive search for the great good fortune. They seek it in relationships, in career and consumerism. They seek happiness in the wrong place. Where they seek, they will not really find it. All external happiness is fleeting. Lasting happiness a person can find only in himself. 90% of the happiness comes from the consciousness of a person. It depends on his mental attitude, his inner qualities and his ability to think positive. This is the clear recognition of the current happiness research. The ancient yogis knew these facts for thousands of years. They have focused their lives on the realization of their inner potential.

Get the benefits of yoga. Learn yoga from a video with beautiful music. Relax in a few minutes with an easy yoga series. Do it as it is good for you. If you cannot do something, don't do it. If you have little time, make only yoga exercises or only meditation. Do yoga at least once a week so that you stay healthy and happy.

The Five Principles of Health

The five principles of health give us a long, healthy and happy life. If we live by these principles, we can avoid most diseases. If we are sick, we become significantly faster healthy.

1. Eat healthy. A healthy diet consists of fruits, vegetables, cereals, milk, potatoes, pulses, etc. It is advised to eat little or no meat and much raw food (raw fruits and vegetables). Raw food gives the body lots of vitamins and minerals that protect him from disease.

2. Avoid drugs, smoking and alcohol. That causes many diseases and usually shorten your life significantly. Too many sweets (sugar, fat), lots of salt and lots of meat are also unfavorable. Don´t eat too much calories. You live longer, if you eat less (but not too less). Hear to your body. He knows what is good for you. Live wisely and stay healthy.

3. Do sports. Go walking, jogging, cycling, swimming once or twice a day (one half to one hour), to keep the body strong and healthy. It is also sufficient to train on an exercise bike (bicycle, treadmill) or to do dynamic yoga (creativ hatha yoga) for half an hour a day. Or to go for a walk on the weekend for an hour. It is important, that the body is well warmed through (practice until a slight sweating). It kills disease germs.

4. Relax sufficiently. Stress should always be put away by adequate recovery periods, yoga or meditation. For the inner happiness, it is important to live in the right proportion of personal activity (work) and rest (relaxation).

5. Think positive. Avoid negative thoughts. Keep your mind through conscious control predominantly positive. Positive thoughts lead to positive feelings and positive emotions have a positive effect on your body. Motivate yourself with positive phrases and ideas. Read positive books and have a positive task (hobby).

The Ten Principles of Yoga

The basis of Yoga are the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. In it, Patanjali recommends a two-step way. The first stage is the development of positive ethic qualities (the ten yoga principles). Without positive qualities in meditation inner peace will break through the chaos of the outside world again and again. The second stage of the yogic path is to practice meditation. One can say, that Yoga in the essence is based on positive thinking and meditation.

1. Non-violence (ahimsa) = No killing other beings. Be meek. Be peaceful.

2. Truthfulness (Satya) = Live in the truth. Basically, be honest with yourself and others. Also no little lies of convenience. A lie is permissible only in well justified situations, for example, if you save with a lie the life of another human being. A Yogi is silent in doubt. Those who consistently lives in the truth radiate truth. Their fellow men trust them.

3. Righteousness (Asteya) = Not stealing, not cheating. A Yogi is in professional life generally honest. He does not seek unwarranted advantage, but he is looking for fair trade.

4. Wisdom (Brahmacharia) = Live in the spiritual focus (in the light/in God = Brahman). Do not serve the money (outer luck) but the inner happiness (God, Brahman, enlightenment). Be centered in your inner happiness and peace.

5. Simplicity (Aparigraha) = Be moderate in external enjoyment and consumption. A spiritual person lives modestly outwardly and inwardly rich. A Yogi uses his energy not in outer actions, but lives so peaceful that it turns inward and cleanse his body from the inside. One day, he lives permanently in the light.

6. Worship of the spiritual goal (Ishvara-Pranidhana) = Thus we do not lose our spiritual path, it is necessary that we remind ourselves again and again to our spiritual goal. We can worship an image (Goddess, Shiva, Patanjali), we can bow before a statue (Buddha, Jesus, Shiva) or speak a mantra (prayer).

7. Sacrifice the ego (Shaucha) = Purification / cleaning. The way into the light passes through the crucifixion of the ego. Without a crucifixion there is no enlightenment. True sacrifice is an art. He who sacrifices too much braced themselves internally. Who sacrifices too little, does not solves his tensions.

8. Selfdiscipline (Tapas) = A clear goal, a clear life plan and a clear way of practicing. Tapas means to lead a disciplined life.

9. Reading (Svadhyaya) = The daily reading (mantra, meditation) keeps us on the spiritual path, cleanses our spirit, connects us with the enlightened masters and makes us to spiritual victors.

10. Contentment (Santosha) = Satisfied with what one has.

How to Practice Yoga

Before you opt for a particular style of yoga, you should consider what you’re looking for. Do you want strenuous exercises (stretching, muscle building, bodystiling) or relaxation (stress reduction, health, peace)? Sporting challenge you will find with Power Yoga, Iyengar Yoga and Kundalini Yoga. Relaxation you can find in the normal Hatha Yoga (Sivananda Yoga, Integral Yoga) and in the Viniyoga. Try out what is good for you (List of yoga schools). Ultimately, every yoga teacher has his personal style. Every yoga teacher has weaknesses and strengths. Learn from any yoga teacher. Find your own way to practice yoga. Take the best for you and accept in any yoga class the things that are personally not effective for you. And above all, always stay on your path of truth and accuracy. Don´t give up your mind on the door to spirituality.

The Main Practice Rules

Yoga is a path of health, relaxation and inner happiness. The ultimate goal of yoga is to live permanently in the light. We cleanse systematic our body and mind of the tensions (samskaras). This gives us inner happiness, healing and ongoing health. The body becomes healthy. The mind becomes positive. We get the properties of inner peace, inexhaustible energy, mental clarity, embracing love, joy and kindness. Yoga provides a variety of techniques (List of asanas). It has techniques for the body and the mind. We should practice each yoga exercise so, that it works well for us. What hurts us, we omit it. What is good, that we do. We can vary all yoga exercises creative. We ask ourselves constantly: “What do I need now? What’s good for me? What triggers best my tensions?” Ideal is a practice time of fifteen minutes. If you do four weeks yoga every day at a certain time, your mind gets accustomed to your daily practice. Then it is easy for you. Yoga becomes for you a simple way to preserve your health and your inner happiness.

Find your individual rhythm and your priorities. Do the breaks at the right moment and in the right track. If you do not want to spend much time for yoga, just do a little break at the end. Through the exercises you will gain experience with yoga. You learn the key techniques. You get a lot of exercise tips. After a while you'll know what is good for you. You'll find out what yoga exercises you need personally. You'll find your personal way to practice yoga. Yoga is an ongoing experiment. On the way to self-realization, you will need many different yoga practices. There are specific techniques for each stage of development. If you know the basic exercises presented here, you will find quickly in any situation the right technique.

Yoga and Breathing

Breathing in yoga is basically a natural breathing. The breath is calm and relaxed. For most people it is the best not to focus on the breath, but on the body and the postures. The breath finds on its own its optimal form. If a yoga exercise is strenuous, we breathe more calm and relaxed. We do not hold your breath. Thus we could cramp inside and block the process that releases tensions. It is better to breathe deeply in the stomach. Deep breathing is the natural way at a strenuous exercise. The body can absorb more oxygen and perform strenuous exercises with internal relaxation. Many schools of yoga teach to focus on the breath while doing the yoga postures. Sometimes even the yoga exercises are done in breathing patterns. You breathe in, go into a yoga pose, exhale and go into the next yoga pose. This is especially at the sun salutation, a series of well-known yoga practice. Yoga thus is a breathing meditation. This can be good for you. Then stick to it. But the concentration on the breathing leads to a loss of body awareness and inner relaxation. Yoga becomes ineffective. Most yoga practitioners can not concentrate on breathing and at the same time stay relaxed in the body. They are overwhelmed and tense up. The best way is to practice yoga exercises and breathing exercises separately in principle. Breathing exercises are important. We can absorb energy through respiration and resolve our tensions. Make breathing exercises in the sitting position to calm the mind.

The Best Time to Practice Yoga

Get used to a certain time for your yoga practice. At best you do every morning and evening for about 5 to 15 minutes yoga or meditation. If yoga twice a day is too much, you can practice yoga also once a day. Even once a day regularly yoga is a great asset to the health and relaxation.

A daily practice is ideal for long-term tension reduction, for the maintenance of physical health and mental wellbeing. The yoga exercises in the morning will make you ready for the day. You bring your energy system in motion and go with positive mood through the day. Yoga exercises or meditation in the evening are important to resolve the tensions accumulated during the day. As a result, the recovery value of your sleep increases significantly. You recover better and have so much more from your life.

Scientific studies have shown that the stress of the day is stored in the muscles. This stress is still largely present in the body in the next morning. It has not gone away. This shows the need for a regular tension reduction. Otherwise it may be that your inner stress is getting bigger over the years and causes great harm in the long term. Give yourself a shake and practice yoga or meditation every day.

The time is really quite small and the effect is huge in the long term. It is important to develop self-discipline. You need it to win spiritually. When we practice yoga in the long term, it will always open up new dimensions of practice. The seemingly simple yoga exercises unfold deeper effects. We feel energy that is created with each yoga postures. Yoga is a game with energy. And at some point the energy will then flow more strongly, and we remain a long time in a yoga position with a sense of ease, peace and bliss.

The Best Motivational Tips

An important point in the daily practice of yoga is the motivation. We all have to reckon with the fact that, although we recognize that a daily yoga program in the long term has a very positive effect on our health and general well-being, we all have very little self-discipline and perseverance. We can counter it by working regularly on our motivation.

First, we should never let go of our daily routine. Once we have slipped from the right path, we take up again our daily practice immediately after our period of weakness. We oppose our self-destructive thoughts through the positive thought of spiritual victory. We think about the benefits of a daily health and relaxation program.

Second, it is important to make our daily yoga practice in a way, that we enjoy doing it. An important tool for this is beautiful music. If we do the yoga exercises with beautiful music, it is a lot easier.

Third, we feel what is effective and good for us. We can vary our yoga exercises. We do yoga corresponding to our personal needs.

A big help is to make yoga in a group. A group strengthens us to take Yoga important. The energy of the group carries us through the yoga exercises. A solid yoga group gives us great support for a continuous yoga practice. About 20% of people can keep their yoga practice alone, but 80% with a group.

Yoga for Absolute Beginners

1. We lie down on our back and relax.

2. We raise the outstreched right leg and hold it in the air. Then we raise the left leg in the air and hold it.

3. We raise both legs and the head in the air. We hold it as long as possible and breath relaxed in our belly.

4. We go into the candle, raise the butt and the legs to the sky. The hands strengthen our back. We move our feet and relax a minute in the candle.

5. We lie down again and rotate the spine. We turn the pelvis to the right and the head to the left. And the other way round. We twist the spine as far as possible.

6. We turn in the prone position and raise the right outstreched leg. We hold it and breath relaxed in our belly. Then we raise the left leg and hold it in the air.

7. We put our head backwards and bring our feet as far as possible to the head. The legs are in the air and the hands lie beside the body on the ground. They support the position. We hold the Cobra, breath relaxed into the belly and move the feet.

8. We lie the head on our hands, move our feet and relax.

9. We sit cross-legged or in the heel seat. The back is straight and the belly relaxed. We think one minute the mantra "Om Shanti". We think it so fast, that all thoughts come to rest. Then we move a hand in blessing and think: "I send light to (name). May all people be happy. May the world be happy."

10. We lie down and make the muscle relaxation. We tense the muscles of the legs and feet. We relax. We tense the muscles of the arms and hands. We relax. We tense the muscles of the head and the face. We relax. We tense the muscles of the whole body. We relax. We move the feet. We relax completely for some minutes. We go peaceful and happy our way.

Yoga Basic Knowledge

Exercises, Stories, Meditation and Enlightenment. Yoga for Beginners, Inner Peace and Happiness.

Contents

What is Yoga

The Five Principles of Health

The Ten Principles of Yoga

How to Practice Yoga

Yoga for Absolute Beginners

Yoga with Positive Thinking