Benefits of Yoga

Yoga was born in India over 5000 years ago. And it was much different than what we have today.It was adpted by the yogis to the time and place and thats why we have so man Yoga styles and techniques.
Ultimately in the big picture, there is only one YOGA.And there are many approaches to it, or many paths, that leading to the same mountain.To Translate word Yoga from Sanskrit, the old ancient Indian language it means to Unite to Yoke.The goal of Yoga is to harmonize and bring a sense of union to your spirit , mind , and body at the same time. This ancient practice combines postures with breathing techniques ,meditation, philosophy, diet, medicine , way of thinking and the way of living.Yoga is known to restore energy, health, balance, and life attitude. It is considered to be the most powerful  overall health and well-being system ever existed on the planet. 

Doing Yoga asanas on a routine basis enhances brain wave coherence that further helps to improve brain functions, such as memory, cognitive and intellect. It creates new neural pathways and reduces dysfunctional thinking and depressive attitude. Yoga has a great impact on several hormones within the body. It reduces stress by lowering the stress-related hormones (cortisol) in the body. It tunes your body and mind for greater efficiency and performance. It also increases the levels of serotonin in the body, which further helps in increasing happiness and emotional stability. 

Yoga teaches you to focus on breathing while you hold the poses. This helps you to quiet your mind, so that you can focus your energy wherever you want. It brings a state of mental calmness and joy where you feel satisfaction with your life. Those who practice yoga and meditation have decreased irritability, moodiness, crankiness and feelings of depression. With less stress and anxiety and more confidence, you feel more energetic and rejuvenated, which in turn enhances your efficiency.

Reiki Kanji

Reiki Kanji is the way "Reiki" is written in Japanese. A Kanji is a Chinese pictograph, a picture that describes a certain word. The written Japanese language was imported to Japan from China a long time ago. It evolved, but essentially still remains either the same or similar to the original Chinese. That means that Chinese and Japanese people can, to a certain extent, understand each others written language, even though the pronunciation is totally different.
In the 1940's the Japanese government decided to launch a grammar reform, to simplify many of the very complicated Chinese Kanji. The Kanji are so hard to remember, even for Japanese people, that they have to constantly write and read them in order not to forget their own language. Of cource in the process some of the deeper meaning of the original, ancient Kanji was lost. Some of the ancient Kanji, the one for "river" and "mountain" for instance, resemble the thing they describe.

Dr. Usui did of course use the ancient version to write the word "Reiki"(and everything else), but the contemporary version is correct as well. Due to their eighty year old Reiki tradition, Japanese Reiki practitioners use both versions.
Kanji were originally written with ink and brush, or else printed, and only in recent times- for convenience sake- have they been written with pen and computer keyboards. When a Kanji is written by brush, it sometimes looks very different from the way the same Kanji is written with a pen or on a computer. Most of the people involved with Reiki in the West are non-Japanese. And so many Kanji that are said to mean "Reiki" in books on Reiki, in manuals of Reiki teachers and in their advertisements, are in fact misspelled or badly written.
Unfortunately, this goes for the Reiki Master Symbol as well.

The top characters stand for "Rei" and the bottom characters for "Ki". The word "Rei" means spirit, ghost or soul. The word "Ki" means energy, feeling or mood. Put together, these two words are usually translated as "universal life energy" or "cosmic energy". 

Article by Frank Arjava Peter

Restorative Yoga

In restorative yoga, props are used for support the body so that you can hold poses for longer, allowing you to open your body through passive stretching. The postures are usually adapted from supine or seated yoga poses with the addition of blocks, bolsters, and blankets to eliminate unnecessary straining. For instance, a seated forward bend (paschimottanasana) can be done with a bolster or several folded blankets on top of the legs so that your forward bend is fully supported with the entire torso resting on your props. Legs up the wall (viparita karani) is a classic restorative, with the wall used as a prop to support the legs.

What to Expect
Restorative classes are usually very relaxing and are a good complement to more active practices. The teacher will arrange for the necessary props to be available to you. The lights may be dimmed and if it is chilly, you may be covered with a blanket since you will not be warming up the body the way you would be in a regular class. After you are set up in a pose with all your props, you will hold the pose for an extended period, often up to ten to twenty minutes. Although you are supported, you will definitely still feel the stretch. It's a relaxing style of practice that leaves you feeling open and refreshed.

By - Ann Pizer

Benefits

Restorative poses help relieve the effects of chronic stress in several ways. First, the use of props as described in this book provides a completely supportive environment for total relaxation.

Second, each restorative sequence is designed to move the spine in all directions. These movements illustrate the age-old wisdom of yoga that teaches well-being is enhanced by a healthy spine. Some of the restorative poses are backbends, while others are forward bends. Additional poses gently twist the column both left and right.

Third, a well-sequenced restorative practice also includes an inverted pose, which reverses the effects of gravity. This can be as simple as putting the legs on a bolster or pillow, but the effects are quite dramatic. Because we stand or sit most of the day, blood and lymph fluid accumulate in the lower extremities. By changing the relationship of the legs to gravity, fluids are returned to the upper body and heart function is enhanced.

Inverted poses  dramatically alter hormone levels, thus reducing brain arousal, blood pressure, and fluid retention. also benefits aere like slowing of the heart rate and dilation of the blood vessels in the upper body that comes from reversing the effects of gravity.

Fourth, restorative yoga alternately stimulates and soothes the organs. For example, by closing the abdomen with a forward bend and then opening it with a backbend, the abdominal organs are squeezed, forcing the blood out, and then opened, so that fresh blood returns to soak the organs. With this movement of blood comes the enhanced exchange of oxygen and waste products across the cell membrane.

Finally, yoga teaches that the body is permeated with energy. Prana, the masculine energy, resides above the diaphragm, moves upward, and controls respiration and heart rate. Apana, the feminine energy, resides below the diaphragm, moves downward, and controls the function of the abdominal organs. Restorative yoga balances these two aspects of energy so that the practitioner is neither overstimulated nor depleted.

by Judith Hanson

Agni, the Fire of Life

What happens within this movement of prāṇa and apāna? According to yoga we have a fire, agni, in the body, situated in the vicinity of the navel, between the prāṇa-vāyu and the apāna-vāyu. The flame itself is constantly changing direction: on inhalation the breath moves toward the belly, causing a draft that directs the flame downward, just like in a fireplace; during exhalation the draft moves the flame in the opposite direction, bringing with it the just-burned waste matter. It is not enough to burn the rubbish; we must also rid the body of it. A breathing pattern where the exhalation is twice as long as the inhalation is aimed at providing more time during exhalation for freeing the body of its blockages. Everything we do to reduce the rubbish in the body is a step in the direction of releasing our blockages. With the next inhalation we bring the flame back to the apāna. If all the previously burned waste has not left the body, the flame will lose some of its power.
Certain physical positions are beneficial for the meeting of fire and rubbish. In all inverted postures, the agni is directed toward the apāna. This is the reason yoga attributes so much significance to the cleansing effects of inverted postures. Cleansing is intensified when we combine inverted postures with prāṇāyāma techniques.


All aspects of prāṇāyāma work together to rid the body of apāna so that prāṇa can find more room within. In the moment when waste is released, prāṇa fills the space in the body where it really belongs. Prāṇa has its own movement; it cannot be controlled. What we can do is create the conditions in which prāṇa may enter the body and permeate it.
The Yoga Sūtra describes the flow of prāṇa with this lovely image: If a farmer wants to water his terraced fields, he does not have to carry the water in buckets to the various parts of his fields; he has only to open the retaining wall at the top. If he has laid out his terraces well and nothing blocks the flow of the water, it will be able to reach the last field and the furthest blade of grass without help from the farmer.3 In prāṇāyāma we work with the breath to remove blockages in the body. The prāṇa, following the breath, flows by itself into the cleared spaces. In this way we use the breath to make possible the flow of prāṇa.
Understanding prāṇa as an expression of puruṣa, we have as little possibility for working directly on prāṇa as we have of influencing our puruṣa directly. The way to influence prāṇa is via the breath and mind. By working with these through prāṇāyāma, we create optimal conditions for the prāṇa to flow freely within.

TKV Desikachar

Developing Your Personal Yoga Practice

Almost any Yoga teachers will often refer to "your practice," which means your individual experience with yoga as it develops over time. Yoga, first and foremost, must be approached in accordance to your comfort zone. No pose, technique, or instructor behavior will instill any benefit if you are at all uncomfortable.

Because yoga is so diverse, there is plenty of room for interpretation from one person to the next, even within the same classroom. You need to work at your own pace; not mine, not the neighbor's, not even your own of a week ago.


Don't ever let anyone physically push your body into a position beyond that which you are able to assume by yourself; don't let anyone coax you to go further than you wish to go.
This is your practice; only you have the wisdom to dictate where your practice goes. Although the poses themselves do not change, your relationship to them will.
Anyone can start a yoga practice, even if you don't feel like you are very flexible or very strong. These things will develop over time.
Another great thing about thinking of yoga as "your practice" is that it encourages the noncompetitive spirit of yoga. One of the most difficult, but ultimately most liberating things about yoga is letting go of the ego and accepting that no one is better than anyone else.
Everyone is just doing their best on any given day. The amazing thing about yoga is that your practice is always evolving and changing so it never gets boring.

Yoga Nidra: Guided deep relaxation

 

Experience Extreme Relaxation of Conscious Deep Sleep

 

Yoga Nidra, which is derived from the tantras, is a powerful technique in which you learn to relax consciously. In yoga nidra, sleep is not regarded as relaxation. People feel that they are relaxing when they collapse in an easy chair with a cup of coffee, a drink or a cigarette, and read a newspaper or switch on the television. But this will never suffice as a scientific definition of relaxation. These are only sensory diversions. True relaxation is actually an experience far beyond all this.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - 8 Limbs Of Yoga

In Hindu philosophy, yoga is the name of one of the six orthodox (which accept the testimony of Vedas) philosophical schools. founded by Patanjali. Karel Werner, author of Yoga And Indian Philosophy, believes that the process of systematization of yoga which began in the middle and Yoga Upanishads culminated with the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.Scholars also note the influence of Samkhyan and Buddhist ideas on the Yoga Sutras.The yoga school accepts the samkhya psychology and metaphysics, but is more theistic than the samkhya, as evidenced by the addition of a divine entity to the samkhya's twenty-five elements of reality.The parallels between yoga and samkhya were so close that Max Müller says that "the two philosophies were in popular parlance distinguished from each other as Samkhya with and Samkhya without a Lord...."The intimate relationship between samkhya and yoga is explained by Heinrich Zimmer:
These two are regarded in India as twins, the two aspects of a single discipline. Sāṅkhya provides a basic theoretical exposition of human nature, enumerating and defining its elements, analyzing their manner of co-operation in a state of bondage ("bandha"), and describing their state of disentanglement or separation in release ("mokṣa"), while yoga treats specifically of the dynamics of the process for the disentanglement, and outlines practical techniques for the gaining of release, or "isolation-integration" ("kaivalya").
—[78]
Patanjali is widely regarded as the compiler of the formal yoga philosophy.The verses of Yoga Sutras are terse and are therefore read together with the Vyasa Bhashya (c. 350–450 CE), a commentary on the Yoga Sutras.Patanjali's yoga is known as Raja yoga, which is a system for control of the mind. Patanjali defines the word "yoga" in his second sutra, which is the definitional sutra for his entire work:
yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ
- Yoga Sutras 1.2

This terse definition hinges on the meaning of three Sanskrit terms. I. K. Taimni translates it as "Yoga is the inhibition (nirodhaḥ) of the modifications (vṛtti) of the mind (citta)".The use of the word nirodhaḥ in the opening definition of yoga is an example of the important role that Buddhist technical terminology and concepts play in the Yoga Sutras; this role suggests that Patanjali was aware of Buddhist ideas and wove them into his system. Swami Vivekananda translates the sutra as "Yoga is restraining the mind-stuff (Citta) from taking various forms (Vrittis).
Patanjali's writing also became the basis for a system referred to as "Ashtanga Yoga" ("Eight-Limbed Yoga"). This eight-limbed concept derived from the 29th Sutra of the 2nd book, and is a core characteristic of practically every Raja yoga variation taught today. The Eight Limbs are:

-Yama (The five "abstentions"): Ahimsa (non-violence), Satya (Truth, non-lying), Asteya (non-covetousness), Brahmacharya (non-sensuality, celibacy), and Aparigraha (non-possessiveness).
-Niyama (The five "observances"): Shaucha(purity), Santosha(contentment), Tapas (austerity), Svadhyaya (study of the Vedic scriptures to know about God and the soul), and Ishvara-Pranidhana (surrender to God).
-Asana: Literally means "seat", and in Patanjali's Sutras refers to the seated position used for meditation.
-Pranayama ("Suspending Breath"): Prāna, breath, "āyāma", to restrain or stop. Also interpreted as control of the life force.
-Pratyahara ("Abstraction"): Withdrawal of the sense organs from external objects.
-Dharana ("Concentration"): Fixing the attention on a single object.
-Dhyana ("Meditation"): Intense contemplation of the nature of the object of meditation.
-Samadhi ("Liberation"): merging consciousness with the object of meditation.

In the view of this school, the highest attainment does not reveal the experienced diversity of the world to be illusion. The everyday world is real. Furthermore, the highest attainment is the event of one of many individual selves discovering itself; there is no single universal self shared by all persons.