The Yoga rules

By Aazdak Alisimo

Though the Western world has turned the ancient practice of yoga into a form of exercise, these moments are much more. Although trendy today, Yoga has been around for a long, long time.

Quite literally, the word "yoga" means "a bringing together of the parts in order to create a union ..." The term was taken from the Sanskrit language, which most people know, though we seem to have forgotten yoga's religious roots. Many thousands of years ago, high Hindu priests came up with a way to combine certain disciplined and highly spiritual movements. The original goal of yoga was to intertwine both the body and the mind until the two could become one. These priests observed a vegetarian diet, wore very little clothing, and did not care for material possessions. When we speak of yoga today, most of us forget about this brief narrative of yoga, and we seek these spiritual movements solely to get our bodies into shape.

There are many different forms of yoga throughout the east, though westerners have only adopted a few types. Many believe that those ancient Hindu priests were not built as we are today, which allowed them to be incredibly flexible and supple. Modern society has made our bodies stiff and rigid, which is why many people have a hard time with yoga poses. Still, yoga is not out of your reach if you only try and remember the key purpose of these movements.

Keep in mind that yoga was invented to center both the body and the mind ... it was not a form of physical exercise. If you can push past all those little voice in your head that are telling you to perform yoga poses in order to lose weight, you may just find that your true inner self is revealed. When you start to learn yoga, sign up for a class because you truly want to gain inner peace. Once you have this perspective in mind, you will then begin to see why an understanding of the brief history of yoga is so important.

Though we have taken and twisted yoga to suit our modern needs, western yoga is not completely hopeless. There are many yoga teachers that have studied the ancient ways of going through these movements, and many new forms of yoga are especially helpful. Try and open your mind when you attend a yoga class in order to see how the world views these spiritual poses.

This brief history of yoga may have been, well, brief, but it is detrimental that you remember where yoga came from. Make an effort to respect yoga's past in order to carefully calculate your future yoga poses. Remember, balance your body and mind in order to achieve peace ... the rest, will come naturally.

Aazdak Alisimo writes about yoga exercise for YogaExerciseInstructors.com.