The Effectiveness Of Yoga For Enlightenment

[Flicker_boy]

so i've been meditating for some time now and want to take up some physical exercise in my routine. yoga is currently on my mind cause i've been told it goes well with meditation. any thoughts on this? how do they enhance one another? what are the 'spiritual' benefits of yoga? can it take you to enlightenment alone?

[Leo Gura]

What you want is REAL yoga (basically meditation), not the physical yoga you see at your local gym.

Nothing wrong with physical yoga. It's good for the body & mind. But it won't get you enlightened. Not even close.

[mystic]

I am just wondering @Leo Gura how can you be so sure about it?

[Extreme Z7]

@mystic Have you ever had a strong mediation experience? I mean a REALLY STRONG and DIFFICULT meditation session. Where your ego feels like its being pushed to its limits and you imagine banging your head on the wall. But yet still manage to sit it through even for an hour. That's how we're sure.

Edited June 30, 2016 by Extreme Z7

[mystic]

@Extreme Z7 No I haven't and I do not understand what you mean by that!

[Pav]

@Leo Gura What are the differences between the two? How can I tell if I've got the real yoga or not?

[Prabhaker]

@InsidesOut Yoga means union. Meditation is the most supreme phenomenon as far as union with reality is concerned. But yoga has fallen into wrong hands, and not only recently – for centuries it has been in the wrong hands.

Patanjali has divided yoga into eight parts. His division is clear-cut, very scientific, but he was not really aware of human stupidity. He started with the body – and that's the right way to start. The first part of yoga must be physiological because man lives on the circumference, in the body, so the work has to start there, only then can it reach the mind. And when one has gone beyond the body and beyond the mind, then the third, meditation, happens.

So according to Patanjali the first part belongs to the body. But he was not clearly aware that millions of people would remain entangled with the first part. Hence yoga has become synonymous with yoga postures: people standing on their heads and doing all sorts of contortions. That has become synonymous with yoga.

A few people, only very few – if a hundred people become interested in yoga then only one person will get out of the physiological entanglement. And that one person will become entangled in the psychological. If a hundred persons are entangled in the psychological then only one person gets out of it...and only when you get out of the mind does the real yoga begin.

The physiological part of yoga will give you great physiological powers; it can make you live a really long, healthy life. But what are you going to do with a long life? If you are idiotic, instead of being idiotic for seventy years you will be idiotic for two hundred years. It is not going to help anybody; it will be a calamity.

The second part is even vaster than the physiological. If you get into it you can have many psychic powers, you can read people's thoughts. But what is the point? Your own rubbish is so much, what is the point of reading somebody else's rubbish? He is tortured by his rubbish and you are reading his thoughts – and you think you are doing something great!

Hence I say the only essential thing, the real core of all religion, of all yoga, of all methods of search, is meditation. One should put aside everything non-essential. You can use things as stepping stones, but not more than that – just like jumping boards. You need not bother too much about them.

Edited October 6, 2016 by Prabhaker

[TheLawisOne]

On 6/30/2016 at 11:36 PM, InsidesOut said:

so i've been meditating for some time now and want to take up some physical exercise in my routine. yoga is currently on my mind cause i've been told it goes well with meditation. any thoughts on this? how do they enhance one another? what are the 'spiritual' benefits of yoga? can it take you to enlightenment alone?

Most westerners think of Yoga as physical stretching and bodily activity but there are actually many forms of Yoga. It's actually an umbrella term for a group of mental, physical, and spiritual disciplines/activities/paths to attain "enlightenment". 

 

There's Karma Yoga (selflessness), Bhakti Yoga (devotion/seeking divinity), etc.... Some Yogi's will do a conglomeration of Yogic practices to reach the state they perceive as enlightenment and some will stick to one.

 

Personally, and this is my subjective opinion, I'd practice a few different types of Yoga. 

[ajasatya]

we practice hatha yoga (the physical part) so that we can develop a healthy spine and a solid meditative body posture. hatha yoga is just a step. maybe the easiest one.