EMERGING OF YOGA IN MODERN ERA
Yoga
is one of the most extraordinary spiritual sciences that mankind has ever
discovered. It is like a gem of great proportions, containing many facets whose
light can illumine the whole of our lives with great meaning. Going back over
five thousand years, it is one of the few spiritual traditions that has
maintained an unbroken development throughout history.
YOGA : An introduction
Today
‘YOGA’ is word or a subject by which everyone is familiar in the modern world.
In the modern period of busy and tenseful life, Yoga has attracted most of the
people by its impressive effects. Mostly people consider Yoga as a specific
technique of ancient Indian exercise by which one can keep body active and
healthy. While some people know that it is a procedure of enchanting some
mantra (Auspicious words) by sitting in specific posture to meditate on some
God or Goddess. People also understand
Yoga as procedure to attain peace and balanced state of mind to get relief from
stress and strain. Yoga is also known as an art of mysteries and wonders. Few
decades before people were of the view that for Yoga practice person has to
leave his family, property and worldly affairs and has to go in to forests,
hilly-caves or some lonely places and live in company of saints and priests to
adopt some spiritualistic activities. Yoga also has been considered for
realization of self and feeling of almighty God, which results in ultimate
peace, happiness and liberation. In many societies Yoga is attached with
specific religion particularly with Hindu religion. Conclusively people have
various views in capacity of their knowledge and understanding.
But apart from all the above
mentioned possibilities, there are infinite possibilities of mysteries and
achievements in the lap of Yoga. Science of Yoga is useful for a Yogi as well
as for a (Bhogi) person who is involved in worldly affairs. Yoga fulfills the
motive of theistic persons as well as the atheistic persons. Yoga is helpful in
solving the problems of a businessman and also helpful in development of
potentials of a student. Yoga has same utility for an illiterate or a villager
and for scientist for development of efficiencies. Its practice is useful for a
healthy person as well as for a patient.
Importance
and purpose of Yoga in modern era :
Traditionally,
in India, yoga dealt with the spiritual side of life, what we have introduced
as the path of Self-realization. Today most people are using yoga for healing
purposes. They should not ignore the potential benefits of adding ayurvedic
insights to yoga therapy. They should learn to understand the ayurvedic effects
of yogic practices and not merely try to define yogic healing in terms of
modern medicine or modern psychology alone.
Now a days Yoga practice is common in
the Western and eastern world, where Yoga classes can be found in every city or
neighborhood. Most people identify yoga with the physical postures or asanas
that are the most evident side of the system. While Yoga asanas can afford a
good door way into the vast temple of Yoga, they are hardly the entire
structure or its central deity. Eventually, most who look into Yoga will come
into contact with its broader and more spiritual practices, such as mantra and
meditation.
Actually the field of Yoga is so
vast that it opens the door for development of maximum potentiality in any
person of world irrespective of taste and ability but by correct and continuous
practice. Usually the purpose of Yoga is seen as therapeutically or preventive
measure to get cure from diseases or for prevention from possible diseases. But
the purpose of Yoga is infinite and has a key to develop physical, mental and
spiritual potentialities of individual to the optimum level.
We can see that in modern era of
scientific advancement, the people are dissatisfied even though they have
almost all the facilities of comfort. This proves that the achievement of
comforts, luxuries and attainment of peace and eternal happiness are different
to each other. So the real, eternal happiness, deep – satisfaction and peace
can only be attained by getting the state of eternal divinity. To attain
eternally divine experience of deepest satisfaction and mysterious state is the
real and ultimate purpose of Yoga.
So,
in the modern scientific era, we can foresight infinite possibilities and hopes
from the science of Yoga for eternity. Now it is also very clear that main aim
of Yoga is not only to free the body and mind from stress, disease and
unhappiness, because where there is a desire for one aspect of feeling,
opposite is always with it like two opposite surface of one coin. Where there
is worldly happiness then distress will also follow it like shadow. Main
purpose of Yoga is to go beyond both the states of feelings. We should
not be mistaken here in to understanding the purpose of Yoga to remain
lethargic, neutral or ignorant to the natural states of body and mind. The
basic purpose of Yoga is to be balanced and optimum development of physical,
mental, social, behavioral, spiritual and all other levels of the a Yoga
practitioner at the base of meditative awareness and consciousness.
Yogic Approach
Yogic methods cover the entire field
of our existence — from the physical, sensory, emotional, mental, and spiritual
to the highest Self-realization and the state of super consciousness. It
includes all methods of higher evolution in humanity — physical postures,
ethical disciplines, breath control, sensory methods, affirmations,
visualizations, prayer, mantra, and complex meditative disciplines. Yoga
understands the nature and interrelationship of the physical, subtle and
formless universes into the boundless infinite beyond time and space and shows
us how these also exist within each human individual.
BENEFITS OF
YOGA (in nut – shell):
1.
Development of maximum ethical values in the
person by Yogic Yama and Niyama.
2.
Development of perfection in actions and
behaviors in individual being by the practicing of Karam Yoga.
3.
Development of physical (somatic) level by
postures and Shatkriyas (the process of Yogic purification).
4.
Development of maximum control on breathing flow
and mental potentiality by the practice
of Pranayamas.
5.
Development of maximum potentials of senses
through the practice of Pratyahara (Sensory control).
6.
Development the optimum level of mental
concentration by Dharan, the art of contemplation.
7.
To go beyond the boundaries of ignorance and mind
by the practice of Meditation.
8.
Experience of unity in diversity and diversity
in unity OR Totality in pointed ness and pointed ness in
totality in the universal mysteries by
attaining the state of Samadhi.
