Best yoga for meshing spiritual growth with body awareness?

[pfletcha]

         Frankly I've been pretty confused ever since Leo posted the video about "the importance of real yoga," in opposition to the Westernized yoga, whose benefits lie mostly in increasing flexibility and overall vitality.

          Or do they? I bought a book on kriya yoga and gave it a good shot ,( not enough to really give a solid opinion so bear with me!) but it just didn't seem like there was enough body movement going on. Body awareness or more specifically the mind/body integration thing has always been something I struggled with, and my intuition seems to tell me that traditional "static" meditation wont be enough to help make significant gains. In fact the only time Ive ever seemed to notice meditation working is when I've done it (focused on breathing, awareness) during an asana yoga session in a class with a teacher. By the end of the session , I was in a state I could only describe as being surrounded by a beautiful , peaceful energy. I remember looking around at some of the more experienced practitioners around the room and being in awe of this display of "human origami". This all leads me to believe that i need to integrate mindfulness with a form of yoga  which involves more movement than the purely "spiritual" yoga.

 

         Thoughts, anyone?

[pfletcha]

I'm confused. where is my thread? lol

[Hellspeed]

Maybe Hatha yoga, i know a yogi doing this, quite useful.

[Forestluv]

For me, yin yoga. I like it’s balance of meditation, deep relaxation, effort and surrender. Many people like kriya yoga and there is a mega thread on the forum for kriya.

Different minds and bodies will resonate differently to different yoga forms. Even the same mind-body will resonate differently on different days. I do a mixture of three yoga forms. 

[Chi_]

Hatha Yoga is a great way for spiritual growth through body awareness. The Hatha Yoga Leo spoke about in the video was the westernised version of it which you find everywhere but there are still very authentic forms of it taught if you know where to look for. If done properly it could be very powerful

The Isha Foundation offers very authentic programs of classical Hatha Yoga and I highly recommend it. Since there are 5 main practices under Hatha Yoga, the practice called "Surya Kriya" is a complete spiritual practice if you are interested. I have seen tremendous benefits both spiritually and physically since I started my practice. Please feel free to ask any questions. 

 

 

Hatha Yoga 

 

 

Surya Kriya 

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Chi_

[pfletcha]

This lesson video is AWESOME, exactly what I was banking on! hopefully someone else catches this vid

[Chi_]

6 minutes ago, pfletcha said:

This lesson video is AWESOME, exactly what I was banking on! hopefully someone else catches this vid

I've seen this video, have you and or anyone actually tried it? 

[Girzo]

Just give Kriya a try, you haven't done it yet. You can also do hatha yoga, why not. Those two types of yoga are very compatibile.

Get to the First Kriya Pranayama and Maha Mudra as soon as possible, practice it twice a day for a month and then make a judgement. I can predict it will be very positive.