What Is Yoga Actually Designed For?

[electroBeam]

What specific benefits are there to following a yogic practice, rather than say just meditating?

What specifically is advantageous to performing certain bodily movements and holding certain poses for enlightenment, rather than just sitting and performing usual meditation?

Does it help you concentrate? Does it make it easier for a dynamic mind to eliminate fluctuations? What are the Zen Buddhists missing out from the hindu yogis?

[Prabhaker]

3 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

What specific benefits are there to following a yogic practice, rather than say just meditating?

Yoga is a path for extrovert people.

Patanjali has divided yoga into eight parts. 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 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 hundred years. 

Only essential thing, the real core of all religion, of all yoga, of all methods of search, is meditation. 

10 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

Does it help you concentrate? Does it make it easier for a dynamic mind to eliminate fluctuations?

Concentration, discipline, yoga discipline, other methods of chanting mantras – they all reinforce your mind and make it stronger, capable of using the powers that are in your subconscious, in your unconscious, in your collective unconscious. If you are not aware – and you are not aware – this is like giving a sword, a naked sword to a child to play with.

12 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

What are the Zen Buddhists missing out from the hindu yogis?

If you want to grow into a meditator, Zen is appropriate for modern man. Path of Yoga can give you great powers, disciple of yoga is very difficult to follow.

[electroBeam]

@Prabhaker Why was yoga so popular in India, when you can just do concentration techniques commonly found in Buddhism? Was it just a cultural norm, or is there more to yoga that makes it more powerful than say visualizing a circle in your head for 30 minutes? Or the famous focusing on your breath?

[Prabhaker]

2 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

Why was yoga so popular in India, when you can just do concentration techniques commonly found in Buddhism?

Yoga is very ancient in India, Buddhism is only two thousand years old.

Physiological part of yoga offers devices to maintain good physical health and longevity. The second part,the psychological part , is even vaster than the physiological. If you get into it you can have many psychic powers. 

Buddha was not offering anything. He was saying, there is no God, no soul, no paradise, people were not able to understand him. Buddhism spreaded in China and eastern Asia ,only because his disciples manipulated his teachings.

[electroBeam]

Hahaha only 2000 years old.

[Prabhaker]

1 minute ago, electroBeam said:

Hahaha only 2000 years old.

India has a long history, when Buddha was born , that was the golden age of India, Indian civilization was at its peak.

[electroBeam]

@Prabhaker Sadghuru always talks about yoga and kundalini awakenings as being very dangerous. Hes sometimes acts almost scared of it. I havent done much yoga yet (only taoist and some zen) had no idea it was so old and established and powerful.

Edited April 2, 2017 by electroBeam

[Prabhaker]

1 minute ago, electroBeam said:

Sadghuru always talks about yoga and kundalini awakenings as being very dangerous.

Upbringing of modern man is different from the people who developed Yoga. It demands a disciple and lifestyle which is not suitable for modern man. 

[Deep]

1 hour ago, electroBeam said:

What specific benefits are there to following a yogic practice, rather than say just meditating?

What specifically is advantageous to performing certain bodily movements and holding certain poses for enlightenment, rather than just sitting and performing usual meditation?

Does it help you concentrate? Does it make it easier for a dynamic mind to eliminate fluctuations? What are the Zen Buddhists missing out from the hindu yogis?

Yoga was not just about following certain bodily practices. Sage Patanjali devised a system called Ashtanga (eight limbs) yoga or Raj ( royal ) yoga. It says that before one sits down to meditate, one has to implement certain disciplines into their everyday life. There are 10 such disciplines, including celibacy and truthfulness. It says one has to practice those disciplines rigorously to get their mind under control. The disciplines are not imposed because sex is evil or anything like that. They want to break free from the idea that they're the body/mind and if they chase after sex it reinforces the idea that they are the body. The Buddhists have a similar thing called The Eight Fold Path. 

Now the good news is that Raj yoga is not the only pathway. There are as many paths as there are people. Another pathway the Hindus advocate is called Karma yoga. It means working for the greater good of society without any expectations for rewards. Like a doctor who treats his patients just out of love for humanity. He is brushing away the limited idea of who he thinks he is. 

 

 

 

[electroBeam]

@Deep which yoga would you suggest to be the most appropriate if you want to increase concentration skills and self discipline? Maybe a yogic path that advocates a life purpose too?

[Deep]

@electroBeam  The other two pathways are Jnana yoga and Bhakti yoga. Jnana means wisdom; through extreme wisdom one can become enlightened by discerning what is illusion and what is reality. Bhakti means devotion. It can be devotion to any cause or God one believes in until there is no separation between them and their object of devotion. 

I suggest mixing and matching from different yogas. I use some discipline from Raj yoga such as truthfulness and mix it with my life purpose. It helps me become congruent. 

[jse]

Yoga is so yesterday...  Facebook is the new yoga.

[Harikrishnan]

To me Yoga is for helping meditation. i had one of worst spines and while attending a vipasana i had a insight i should start going for yoga so i can sit longer in lotus position without those iritating body pain. I went for yoga and guess what my body posture improved and i can sit with out any problems in lotus for 1+hrs. But after 6mnths i stopped going and guess what body pain is back ?

[Prabhaker]

On 4/2/2017 at 4:29 PM, electroBeam said:

What Is Yoga Actually Designed For?

Yoga is discipline. It is an effort on your part to change yourself. Many other things have to be understood. Yoga is not a therapy. In the West many psychological therapies are prevalent now, and many western psychologists think that yoga is also a therapy. It is not! It is a discipline. And what is the difference? This is the difference: a therapy is needed if you are ill, a therapy is needed if you are diseased, a therapy is needed if you are pathological. A discipline is needed even when you are healthy. Really, when you are healthy only a discipline can help then.

It is not for pathological cases. Yoga is for those who are completely healthy as far as medical science is concerned, normal. They are not schizophrenic; they are not mad they are not neurotic. They are normal people, healthy people with no particular pathology. Still, they become aware that whatsoever is called normality is futile, whatsoever is called health is of no use. Something more is needed, something greater is needed, something holier and whole is needed.

Therapies are for ill people. Therapies can help you to come to yoga, but yoga is not a therapy. Yoga is for a higher order of health, a different order of health – a different type of being and wholeness. Therapy can, at the most, make you adjusted. Freud says we cannot do more. We can make you an adjusted, normal member of the society – but if the society itself is pathological, then? And it is! The society itself is ill. A therapy can make you normal in the sense that you are adjusted to the society, but the society itself is ill!

Yoga is not therapy; yoga is not trying in any way to make you adjusted to the society. If you want to define yoga in terms of adjustment, then it is not adjustment with the society, but it is adjustment with existence itself. It is adjustment with the divine!

If your mind has come to realize that whatsoever you have been doing up to now was just senseless, it was a nightmare at the worst or a beautiful dream at the best then the path of discipline opens before you. 

Patanjali takes it for granted that you are interested in yoga, not as a hope, but as a discipline, as a transformation right here and now.