What is Yoga?

Find out what is Yoga and when it first came into the Western world

Today I want to discuss a little more about what is Yoga. To a beginner (or someone who is not familiar with the subject), Yoga can look somehow complicated.

Someone could even say that it is a dizzying array of physical manipulations that transforms apparently pleased humans into pleased human pretzels. This pretzels thing is a joke ofcourse, but you got my point hopefully.

As noted already in the introduction blog posts, some people even think about Yoga in terms of stereotypes, which makes the whole story even more upsetting.

For instance: term Yoga can also be a synonym for cult or and other kinds of archaic spirituals beliefs, which require you to quit your day joy, sell your house, move in the Jungle and never look back. Not to say that none of the above is true!

In fact, Yoga is very basic or ordinary activity to perform. Just take a visit to the countries like India, Japan, China where it has been practised for generations. What you will find out it that Yoga is really something pretty ordinary, like going to Fitness or Gym for example.

Perhaps you already know that. After all, Yoga has been present in our society for quite some time now. The first time the practice of Yoga came to west was in year 1893. This happened due to the visit of Swami Vivekananda, a guru from India, who visited World Fair in Chicago in the previously mentioned year.

Swami Vivekananda is nowadays known as someone who has sparked the interest in Yoga in the Western world.

The meaning of word Yoga

The word Yoga itself originates from the Sanskritic language: Yug, which basically means to "yoke, bind, join, direct" one's attention. Besides this meanings, Yoga can also connote things like fusion, union and discipline.

A definition of Yoga is also defined in The sacred scriptures of Hinduism. According to this ancient belief system from India, Yoga is defined as unitive discipline that leads you toward your inner and outer union, harmony and joy.

This is also stated in book Living Yoga, which was written by two experts in Yoga, Georg Feuerstein and Stephan Bodian.

In general, Yoga is most usually interpreted as conscious living: a tapping into your own inner potential for being and feeling happy. In Sanskritic language this is refered to as Ananda.

Hope this blog post has further helped you understand the meaning of Yoga and helped you with finding answers on the question: What is Yoga?

That is all for now, stay happy and see you soon with my next post on Yoga for beginners.

Advice for Yoga Beginners

Yoga for beginners: Advice before you start learning and practising Yoga - Part 5

It is time for the final lesson of my Yoga e-course. What you will find out here is advice every beginners to Yoga should know about. Do not worry though, I will still be publishing information on Yoga for beginners in the future, so this is not all you will get from me!

I am sure you know it by now that Yoga is an ancient and interesting way of uniting your body and your mind, which provides you with many proven health benefits on physical as well as emotional level.

The chances are you have already decided to go and find yourself a good Yoga program to start with. Perhaps you have already registered at your local Yoga center or maybe you have purchased yourself a DVD course or even an e-book.

At this moment you are probably very energized, optimistic and dying to get going! Ofcourse, who wouldn't be! After all, you are about to start something that can completely change your life to better. But before actually going to Yoga practice, there are a couple of important questions you should ask yourself.

Before you start with answering the questions, note that there is no right or wrong answers here. The main purpose of finding answers to the questions below is to stimulate your thoughts and to give you the mindset, which every student or beginner to Yoga needs in order to succeed and benefit from this really remarkable activity!

With that said, here are the questions you need to ask yourself before you start with learning and practising Yoga:

• What are your reasons for beginning with a Yoga program? Are those reasons realistic?


• How advanced is your Yoga program in terms of physical strain? Are postures hard to perform? Is there a chance you injure yourself while doing the selected Yoga program?


• Do you have clear goals for pursuing Yoga program? Do you know what you want to achieve?


• Do you have time and commitment to really get the most out of your Yoga program?


• Is there someone in your life who wants to negatively talk you out of this personal development path you are about to embark on? How will you handle this person? Will you avoid him or simply ask them to respect what you are doing?

Give yourself some quality time and think about the questions above. Ofcourse, many other questions will arise as well, so make sure to consider those as well.

When you have the right answers, you will feel clear and confident about experiencing Yoga and your life changing experience will begin!

Hope you got what you needed out of my mini Yoga e-course lesson. Stay in touch as more great information about Yoga will follow in my next blog posts!

What types of Yoga exist out there? - Part 4

By now you know that Yoga is not religion, but more like an approach to life in general. It can be treated as science as well, because its positive effects on your body and mind are scientifically proven.

To continue with my Yoga e-lesson part 4: I am going to introduce you to different types of Yoga that exist out there. But before I go and do that, perhaps it is appropriate to tell how variety within Yoga contributed to its promotion and spread in to the Western world.

Lets assume for a second that Yoga would consist out of one idea or language with very strict and unchanging rules. How would that help Yoga to become as popular as it is in today's world?

Well, not much I would say because it is much harder for only one idea or language with strict rules to spread outside of those who practise and follow it. Simply said: in such case the idea would be limited to only few lucky people who would actually find it on their own.

On the other hand, when a particular thing or activity has multiple ideas and ways of doing it, it spreads itself much quicker. This is simply because more people will get in touch with it, more people will talk about it and more people will accept it in their lifes.

Therefore the variety or different types of Yoga have in the last 110 helped a lot with spreading it into the western civilisation and into the world in general. Without this variety, Yoga would maybe still be limited and practised only to those areas where it originated.

This implies is that Yoga is very agile and flexible. As such it was certainly able to overcome cultural, religous and country boundaries with no problems at all.

Nowadays it is spreading faster than ever before. Just think about how many times you see or hear about Yoga on television, newspaper or even from friends or colleagues who are passionately talking about it.

At the same time, this diversity or variety of Yogic activites can also make someone to quit doing it after only one session. For instance, someone starts learning and practising the type of Yoga that is very difficult and unsuitable for beginners.

This can ofcourse make you feel uncomfortable as the activities are just too hard to handle for someone who is just starting out. Perhaps this has already happened to you as well.

But do not worry though. The advice I am giving to you on this Yoga for beginners blog will help you get over that. I will make your transition into Yogic activities as smooth as possible. Just stay with me.

Six major types of Yoga

With that said, here are the six (6) major types of Yoga:

• Tantra Yoga,


• Hatha Yoga,


• Raja Yoga,


• Jnana Yoga,


• Karma Yoga and


• Bhakti Yoga.

I will conclude my Yoga e-course in my next blog post with final lesson, where I tell you about the advice that every beginner to Yoga should know about!

How Yoga can help you to be healthy and happy

In my first two lessons I introduced you to the benefits that learning and practising Yoga has for your body. By now you know why Yoga is in some parts of the world also regarded as science.

By that I mean that results (such as making your immune system stronger, sleeping better, reducing hurt in your muscles and body joints,... ) can be measured in scientific, objective way.

This time I will write how Yoga can help you achieve other important things as well. This can be anything from feeling happy and good with yourself to achieving certain goal that you have in your life, such as losing weight or stop smoking for instance. Yoga can help you with that too, you know.

Here is how Yoga can help you be more positive by simly making you aware of what is good for you and what is not. If you are familiar with western psychologists such as Freud and Jung, then this should make sense for you. But even if you are not, I will try to explain it as simple as I can.

Whenever you as a human being make a decision or set yourself a certain goal, something inside of you activates itself (some people call it will, others call it awareness).

In that very same moment this awareness (or will if you want) starts to monitor the negative thoughts that are floating constantly through your mind. But instead of eliminating this negative thoughts one by one, Yoga rather suggest you to just observe the floating that is going on.

This is because through observing, the struggle will become exposed and therefore no longer nourished by your unconscious, unobserving mind. That will further on result in the diminishing of those negative thoughts that you have been previously struggling with. They will no longer bother you, so to speak.

As you continue to just observe your negative thoughts (rather than attacking them directly) you also lower your overall level of internal negativity. And when you lower your overall internal level of negativity, you lower your external negative behaviours!

At that point it is much easier for you to drop habits that all not contributing to your overall well-begin, such as excessive drinking, emotional overeating or smoking. This is simply because you get the perspective that you need to realise that something is actually make you feel bad and not opposite.

And that is where the real happiness and healthy lifestyle begins! Stay with me, subscribe and most importantly: stay happy! : )