Recources For Learning Yoga

[YaNanNallari]

Do you guys have any recommendations for books or online sources for starting and understanding yoga? I'd greatly appreciate any help

[Deep]

@YaNanNallari Sure, I can help you. There are 2 types of yoga, physical and spiritual. Physical yoga is Hatha yoga, which is all the crazy postures people do. Spiritual yoga has 4 categories: 

1. Bhakti (devotional) yoga: This yoga is about having intense love for God. The love becomes so intense that you can no longer see yourself separate from God. 

2. Karma (action) yoga: This is about doing selfless work for the greater good. It increases your love for everyone because you see yourself in them. They are God and so are you. 

3. Jnana (wisdom) yoga: Through extreme wisdom you can discern what reality is. For example, you can become aligned with whatever is permanent (your True Self) and discard whatever is fickle. I think Ramana Maharshi was a practitioner of this. 

4. Raja (royal) yoga: This involves succeeding in meditation after practicing severe disciplines. This is the only one that has specific techniques. You can read about this at www.sacred-texts.com. 

The first 3 don't have any specific techniques. It's also possible to mix and match all of them. It depends on what kind of person you are and how you relate to spirituality. All of them lead to the same destination. 

[Seeker_of_truth]

@Deep There is also a branch called kriya yoga which includes all those postures and Im pretty sure it also comes under spiritual yoga. http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/yoga-meditation/demystifying-yoga/kriya-yoga/

One technique in jnana yoga is the neti-neti technique - The self-enquiry.

And yeah, it seems we have to mix and match everything. According to sadhguru every person needs a certain amount of every kind of it.

@YaNanNallari You should go through sadhguru's website. They offer isha kriya meditation and chit shakti meditation freely downloadable. I saw a youtube video of upa yoga too which is a yoga that is only for physiological benefits. For understanding what is yoga I think you should watch sadhguru's videos or read his blog. I knew all that I know about yoga from there only.

[Arman]

Funnily enough I just posted a quote from this website, and I have suggested it in the past so I apologize to mods if it seems a bit spammy - but I have found aypsite.org to be a pragmatic and systematic guide to understanding and taking on practices. You can start slow and simple and move up. The site is a bit outdated visually but go to the main lessons section and read anything that captures your eye. 

The opening to its pitch is "An open and integrated system of advanced yoga practices is offered here which will unfold lasting inner peace and natural ecstatic radiance."

Edited September 30, 2017 by Arman