Kripalu Yoga - Learn the Benefits

By Michael Russell

The word "Yoga" is derived from the Sanskrit word "yuj" which means "to yoke". This roughly translated means "the union of the Individual Soul with the Universal Soul". Yoga is an ancient spiritual practice originating in India more than 5000 years ago. Its practice can be viewed either as physiological mastery (exercise), spiritual mastery, or both. There are four major branches of yoga.

*Bhakti Yoga ~ The yoga of devotion to a deity.

*Jnana Yoga ~ The yoga of intellectual endeavor and knowledge.

*Karma Yoga ~ The yoga of action in the world.

*Raja Yoga ~ The yoga of meditation.

There are many sub-branches including Anahata, Hatha, Kriya, Anusara, Kundalini, Anuyoga, Iyengar, Mahayoga, Ashtanga, Natya, Sivananda, Ati, Krishnamacharya, Pranava, Swara, Bikram, Kripalu and many more. The goals of yoga are expressed differently in different traditions. Kripalu Yoga is one of the many styles of teaching Hatha Yoga and is the style we'll be discussing here.

Kripalu Yoga can be described as the reciprocity of mind, energy and physical body. The prana or life force is the subtle current of rhythmic energy pulsations within the physical body. Every single act of the physical body is strongly affected and accompanied by emotional and mental conditions. Imbalance or even disease can be created by the most infinitesimal thought which disrupts or obstructs this crucial flow of energy.

The practice of Kripalu Yoga includes deep relaxation, breathing techniques, physical postures and meditation. Through the practice of this form of Yoga, you can release pain by eliminating layers of stress and resistance lodged in your physical body. This experience can dissolve blockages, free energy and actual healings can occur on all levels. Energy levels can be improved, anxiety reduced, blood pressure levels normalized, greater flexibility, more strength, increased levels of endurance and general well-being.

There are natural healing processes awakened to improve your mental clarity, emotional stability and your overall physical well-being. When emotional and mental disturbances are dissolved, huge amounts of prana are released to affect healing. The regular practice of Kripalu Yoga can have profound effects on the emotions, mind and physical body.

Kripalu Yoga teaches you to tap into your own inner-knowing instead of being dependent upon any guidance of external authorities. It's okay to be open to what others suggest, but you don't need to give away your powers to make your own decisions, your powers to reason and to be discriminatory. At all times during the practice of Kripalu Yoga you are establishing a nurturing and intimate relationship with your physical body.

Physical discipline alone will not provide the benefits of this practice in which your body becomes a temple, which you invoke with the presence of the divine. Each sensation you experience becomes sacred. Sensations are responded to with much tenderness and compassion. Every session is approached with an attitude of prayer.

The practice of Kripalu Yoga can take you to new spiritual and physical levels in your life. This form of Yoga practice may be an extension of your search for meaning in self and integration of the different aspects of being. For the average person still far from enlightenment, this particular practice of Yoga can be a way of increasing one's spiritual awareness, or cultivating insight and compassion. Yoga in itself is not a religion, but contains practical steps, which can be found in the spiritual practices of all religions, as well as those who do not consider themselves religious. No matter what your goals, Kripalu Yoga can be a method of improving your life on all levels.

Six Branches of Yoga

By Michael Russell

Yoga is an ancient tradition from the Eastern world, and these oldest practitioners tended to look at yoga as a tree with six branches. What all six have in common are the asanas (the physical positions and movements), Pranayama (the structured breathing or breath control), meditation and a strong moral code.

1. Hatha Yoga

In Indian, "ha" means sun and "tha" means moon. Hatha yoga refers to these twin energy channels in the body. Its goal is to prepare the body for the more pure state of meditation to come in the 2nd branch. Hatha yoga was brought to us by an Indian yogi attempting to purify the body to make it fit for higher meditation. Western yoga is almost completely the Hatha yoga branch, and Westerners find mental and physical comfort in the first branch alone.

2. Raja Yoga

Raja and Hatha Yoga are highly interrelated. Raja means "royal" in Indian, and in the royal tradition, this branch of yoga has eight included branches as follows:

- niyama - self discipline - asana - positions - pranayama - breath control - pratyahara - sensory deprivation - dharana - meditation - samadhi - ecstasy

Raja yoga is often practiced by religious leaders and monastery dwellers. However, anyone can find benefits in the practice of raja yoga.

3. Karma Yoga

The basic teaching of karma yoga is that what we do and how we behave today will influence our happiness and fulfilment in the future, or a future lifetime. Understanding this cosmic principle helps us to create our current environment with love and positivity in order to forestall negativity in our future. Practitioners of karma yoga lead a life of selfless devotion and service to those less fortunate.

4. Bhakti Yoga

Bhakti is a Sanskrit term meaning love of God and mankind. Practice of bhakti involves controlling and channeling emotions and having tolerance for all who come into our lives.

5. Jnana Yoga

Jnana yoga is the branch of the intellect. Practitioners pursue scholarly paths, usually those of yoga masters or other spiritual traditions. In our Western religious culture, the Jnana yoga practitioner may be likened to the Jesuit priest, the Kabala scholars or Benedictine monks.

6. Tantra Yoga

Tantra yoga prioritizes ritual as the best way to experience the divine. The Sanskrit word tantra translates to weave or loom. Rituals in everyday life lead to a recognition of the divine in everyday life which leads, in turn, to a reverent attitude in everyday actions.

Tantra yoga is the most misunderstood of the six branches. The ancient book, "The Kama Sutra" is a well-known example of this misunderstanding of the real goal of tantra yoga. It is a book of sexual positions and techniques, and in Westernized yoga tradition, tantra yoga has become associated almost exclusively with these published sexual practices. Worldwide, however, most schools teaching this branch of yoga recommend celibacy.

When finally understood by Westerners, tantra's ritualizations of everyday events appeal to them. Western civilizations tend to make rituals of everyday events anyway - births, deaths, weddings, going to church, forming clubs, and all the many various ceremonies and celebrations commonly held are all tightly related to tantra yoga rituals.

One of the best things about the six branches of yoga is that you are not limited to just one, or to a series. You can pick and choose what you want to practice when. Follow your own path using yoga as your toolbox.ka

Jnana Yoga - Intellectually Becoming God-Conscious

By Michael Russell

Jnana Yoga is the yoga of intellectual inquiry, using the mind to come to the profound realization that our God-Self, the consciousness that we are in reality a manifestation of God, is beyond and behind our mind. However, we should not fall into the mistake of thinking that we can discover God through the use of the mind alone. To achieve Cosmic Consciousness, what can be called Self-realization, we must continually ask "Who am I", in other words, am I just this material body and material mind, or am I in fact an integral part of something greater. That something greater is considered by yogis to be God, the presence of which everything and everyone is made up, whether or not the individual realizes it or not. The purpose of Jnana Yoga is to come to just that realization, in a way in which the small mind cannot impose limitations.

One of the great features of yoga is that there is a yoga for every type of personality or character. For those who are contemplative, there is Raja Yoga, the yoga of meditation. For those who are very action oriented, there is Karma Yoga, the yoga of selfless service. For those who are very emotional and who are inspired by feelings of love for the Divine, there is Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of love. For those who like ceremonies and are inspired by them, there is Tantra Yoga, the yoga of forms. Finally, for those who are very physical, there is Hatha Yoga, the yoga of movement and the one which is best known outside of India.

However, there are still others who are driven by the need to understand and for them there is Jnana Yoga, the yoga of the intellect. This understanding takes the form of reading, understanding and accepting the message in the Hindu scriptures, which date back from before the Bible was written and which some sages believe gave inspiration to the writers of the Old Testament. These scriptures espouse the philosophy of Vedanta, the philosophy of the Vedic scriptures, the scriptures, which Hindus accept.

It must, however, be firmly understood that Jnana Yoga is not just an intellectual exercise. We may learn about the omnipresence of God through the Vedic scriptures, but to actually experience the feeling of God, the aspirant has to perform some exercise that will transcend his limited intellect. This is done through meditating on the question "Who am I". The point of this exercise is eventually to come to the realization that "I" transcends the limitations of the body and is really a part and an expression of the universal "I", or God.

Thus, it can be seen that Jnana Yoga helps the aspirant by first appealing to his intellect, valuable for those who are very intellectually oriented, but then it helps the aspirant transcend his limited intellect by becoming aware of the Cosmic Intellect that forms and permeates everything. He focuses on the question of "Who am I" and by so doing, achieves the realization that the small I is really a part of the universal I. His intellectual exercises can be considered as the sugar, which coats the substance of his eventual God-Realization.

A Short History of Yoga

By Paula Flood Platinum

The original meaning of the word 'yoga' was not limited to the asanas or postures that are synonymous with Yoga in the West. The word yoga itself means union, and yoga was taken to mean any path which led the spiritual seeker to union with his highest Self, or union of the individual soul with the Universal Soul. In this sense, Yoga can trace its origins far back to the dawn of spirituality, to the time of the ancient Vedic seers, and possibly even before.

Over time, different yogic paths evolved reflecting the different types of human temperament. In the Bhagavad Gita, India's most famous scriptural work, three main types of yoga were described:

• Bhakti Yoga was for people whose natural spiritual tendency was to approach the Highest through love and worship. In India, Lord Krishna was a central focus for those following bhakti yoga, and the popularity of this path grew in the 15th and 16th centuries through the life and example of such great figures as Sri Chaitanya, Mirabai, and Kabir. This kind of yoga is probably most familiar to us in the West as the approach to God used in Christianity.
  


• Jnana Yoga: the path of knowledge, through studying books and scriptures, but more importantly through self-introspection. One famous 20th century jnana yogi, Ramana Maharshi, would commonly ask those seeking his guidance to contemplate on one simple question 'Who am I?'. The Buddha was also a jnana yogi
  


• Karma Yoga is for those who wish to make progress through staying in the world; it tells us to act selflessly, without attachment to the results of our actions. It means seeing and serving God in humanity; a familiar example would be the work of Mother Teresa.

The meaning we in the West give to Yoga today stems from the Yoga Sutras, which were written around 200AD by Patanjali and are generally considered to be the classic description of yoga. This text is looked upon as one of the six darshanas, or branches of traditional Indian philosophy. In this text, Patanjali describes an integral system of living called Raja Yoga, which included as one of its components a series of physical postures called asanas. In the West, the term yoga is generally taken to mean the practice of these asanas, which in addition to giving a sense of wellbeing, were also meant to prepare the body to be able to sit for long hours in meditation and contemplation.

A very influential text in the spread of these asanas was the Hatha-Yoga-Pradipika, written in the 14th century by Svatmarama. Hatha Yoga is a broad term usually used to describe the physical postures and breathing (pranayama). In the 16th and 17th century, this kind of yoga grew in popularity and was strongly influenced by Tantric principles.

The spread of yoga in the West can be partly attributed to such spiritual figures as Swami Vivekananda and Paramhansa Yogananda, who first awakened the interest of Western seekers in Eastern philosophy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with their expositions of jnana, bhakti and karma yoga. the promotion of Hatha Yoga in the 1920's by T. Krishnamacharya and the work of his students B.K.S Iyengar, T.K.V Desikachar and Pattabhi Jois have had a profound influence in shaping the yoga performed in today's yoga studios. The physical postures of Hatha Yoga found popularity with people in the West who were seeking physical and emotional balance rather than full-fledged enlightenment, and many styles evolved as individual teachers emphasised different aspects of the practice. For example, Iyengar Yoga emphasises precise alignment in the posture work, whereas Ashtanga Yoga concentrates more on strength and agility.