What Makes Ashtanga Yoga Different?

Ashtanga Yoga is the type of yoga which was created and established by a master named K. Pattabhi Jois. Due to it's theory containing eight different limbs, or components, it is also known as "Eight-Limb Yoga". It doesn't imply that the practitioner has a double set of limbs, but master Pattabhi Jois showed that the optimum path of purification is made up of the eight spiritual practices. The basic idea is that these limbs only can be kept in balance by the appropriate application of the Ashtanga Yoga method.

The first four limbs that symbolize Ashtanga Yoga, and are considered externally correctable are (original names within double quotes):

- Moral codes or "yama"

- Self-purification or "niyama"

- Posture or "asana"

- Breath control or "pranayama"

Then there is the other set of limbs which are the internal practices:

- Sense control or "pratyahara"

- Meditation or "dhyana"

- Concentration or "dharana"

- Contemplation or "samadhi"

K. Pattabhi Jois declared that practicing these Eight Limbs as well as its sub-limbs of the external practices which contain the niyama and yama is impossible. In doing so, the body should be strong so that it can technically perform the methods well enough. If the body is weak, and the sense organs are not functioning well, practicing will never be productive at all. This is a primary philosophy that K. Pattabhi Jois has applied, it is of prime importance for the Asthanga practitioner to learn and understand this way of thinking. This will make you confident in that the body will significantly improve and become stronger and healthier.

Vinsaya and Tristhana are performed in Ashtanga Yoga.The Vinsaya is a style that makes Ashtanga and its fundamental principles different from the others. Vinsaya basically means the movement and breathing which is used effectively together in order to cleanse the body. Each movement done is accompanied by only one breath. Sweat is the most important product of Vinsaya. When you produce sweat, it only indicates that you are successfully applying the method. When you perform the Asanas, or postures, the body produces heat which causes your blood to "boil" and excrete the toxins outside of your body. The contaminations are found in your sweat. So the more sweat you produce, the more toxins are released. This is the natural way for the body to get rid of unwanted substances.

The poses are used to fully develop the physical strength and health of the body. It is the sequence of practices that make this possible. There are three postures used in Ashtaga Yoga.

The three are grouped on different levels:

- The first is the Primary Series which aims on aligning the body and also detoxifying it.

- The second is the Intermediate Series opening and cleansing the energy channels which comes to the process of purifying the Nervous System.

- The last series would be the Advanced Series from A to D. In this set, the grace and strength are assessed.

The Tristhana is another yoga principle which symbolizes the close union of the three places of action and attention. First is the posture, second is the breathing technique ad last is the Dristhi of the Looking Place. All these three should work altogether to perform a function. The breathing is always controlled and synchronized with the movements, in such a way that each movement is accompanied by breath.

Ujjayi Breathing is the Yoga Breathing Technique used in the implementation of Ashtanga Yoga. Applying this ancient technique is something that you should work on gradually in your daily practise. What you need to master is holding your pose longer at the same time hold your breath.

This is an amazing breathing exercise that will intensify your internal fire and will toughen the Nervous System. Both Ashtanga and Tristhana deal with the series of Dristhi. The Dristhi is defined as the point on which you acquire your focus or concentration while doing the Asana. This allows your mind to be purified and stabilized clearly. Clearing your mind (that is sometimes compared to an over active monkey) and cleansing it is the ultimate goal in the Eight-Limb Yoga or Ashtanga Yoga.

What Is Ashtanga Yoga

Ashtanga yoga, also known as power yoga, is quickly gaining popularity among practitioners. So what is Ashtanga yoga? It is the form of yoga most used by athletes and those interested in quickly increasing strength and stamina. Because of that, Ashtanga yoga postures have a higher degree of difficulty than those in other styles. Additionally, they are done as part of series.

Usually, students doing Ashtanga yoga postures will move quickly from one to the other to maintain that focus on strength. That is in opposition to many other forms of yoga where the emphasis is on breathing, relaxation, and flexibility.

Who Should Practice Ashtanga Yoga?Ashtanga yoga poses are for most anyone who is in decent shape. If you are new to exercise, this is probably not the form of yoga with which you should start. Even the very easiest of Ashtanga poses are very demanding on the body, especially since you will even start with a body warming routine that is designed to activate your muscles. Overall, Ashtanga yoga can provide you with a build up of strength, stamina, and even some flexibility which explains its popularity with those involved in athletics.

If you decide to give Ashtanga a try, you should expect things to progress quickly. You will likely start right off with a sequence of yoga poses. Those will be practiced until the teacher feels you have mastered it fairly well and have complete understanding of its fundamentals. Then, you will move on to another series and a higher level of difficulty. Overall, it is a very fast moving form of yoga.

Ashtanga Poses As for the Ashtanga yoga poses, they range widely in terms of positioning. You will find yourself moving from standing, backbent, inverted, balancing, seated, and even twisting poses. In power yoga, the sun salutation sequence of poses is very popular as well, so you will often use standing forward bend, upward dog, downward dog, and many other poses sprinkled in as well.

Though much of the focus in Ashtanga yoga poses is on the development of stamina and strength, you will also, as with any yoga, be focusing. You will be asked to focus your eyes on a point as you move through the poses given out by your instructor. In order to get the full effect and benefit of Ashtanga, you should make sure that your muscles and perhaps even the rooms are very warm. This ensures maximum flexibility and minimal injury as you work through the demanding postures.

If you are into athletics, exercise, or just want a new physical challenge, perhaps you should consider giving Ashtanga yoga a try. The clear choice of athletes and an increasingly popular form in general, it is perfect for those that are in decent shape and want to increase their strength, stamina, and flexibility. Power yoga is a series of poses taken in a quick and free flowing sequence. Even the classes move quickly with teachers adding more difficult sequences every time one is fairly well mastered. So if you learn fast, like to work hard, and think you are up to the challenge of power yoga, then you may benefit greatly from Ashtanga yoga poses.

Kripalu Yoga – Joining Forces

Intertwining the mind, body, and energy is the primary goal of Kripalu yoga. Those who practice it believe that the body contains energy pulsations in a flow that are called prana, which is sometimes referred to as life force. The idea is that the smallest thought or worry can cause problems with the prana in your physical body. That is why Kripalu is important; it is a way of being aware of the prana and using breathing with thought to prevent blockage or disturbance of the life force in your body. In turn, you will feel an increased level of mental clarity and emotional control. Boiled down to its essence, Kripalu yoga is about looking at yourself in order to free you. Kripallu yoga followers believe that by simply examining and experiencing physical, emotional, and mental processes, you begin to erase blockages in the prana. In turn, this creates a better flow of life force inside you and invokes a feeling of physical and mental well-being.

Why Kripalu? Yoga, in all its forms, has been shown to be highly effective in honing the physical human body. This is much of the reason for yoga’s immense popularity. What Kripalu does, though, is use the physical body and yoga’s benefits to it as a vehicle for pursuing the greater good of mental and emotional stability and clarity. Hence, many believe it to be the most complete and beneficial form of yoga.

The idea is that as you release your emotional and mental impurity, you increase the amount of prana in your system which in turn also helps with physical healing and performance. Of course, when all yoga practices and meditation are prefaced with techniques, such as the Maharic Seal (Azurite Press), that seal the body's energy fields from external influences, the experience of self knowledge is both clearer and authentic.

Kripalu yoga does not teach this, however.Many use this popular form of yoga to combine physical fitness with self growth and the empowerment of the self. In Kripalu, you will learn to lead yourself through self-examination rather than through a leader or instructor. In this form of yoga, leadership is there only to help you turn yourself into your own leader. Your sensitivity to self, others, and your own body will increase from the focus you will receive when you look inside. To take it deeper, many believe that you are using your body to as a temple to attract the presence of those powers greater than yourself. Though some may be skeptical, many more feel such presences when led there through their own self-examination.When you learn Kripalu from an instructor, you will find that it usually does not matter what your level is in yoga. The classes are generally conducted in the same way for new yoga practitioners and veterans alike.

The emphasis, remember, is on looking inside yourself and seeing what is there. Though there are postures and a “right” way to do them, you will likely be encouraged to concentrate on your mental state and on increasing the flow of your prana.Moreover, Kripalu is truly about life change. You will learn to focus on your spiritual well being outside of the classroom as well as while you're on the yoga mat, contributing to your overall well being and helping you on your way to being the best person you can be.Kripalu is a unique form of yoga. With emphasis on looking at the self and ridding it of all that has gone awry, this form of yoga is about more than just fitness of the body. It is about fitness of emotions, spirit, and even a little bit of the soul.

Astanga Yoga

Year 2006 is 5,055th year of Kaliyuga. As per Hindu mythology the present era is Kaliyuga and it is considered as a dark age for mankind. According to this belief every face is wearing a mask- mask of artificiality.

Shirking responsibilities and buttering people have become the way of life, the way to get some quick gains!Job satisfaction is linked to the bulge of the pay packet. Who talks about that real man-making education now?

You may wonder what Ashtanga Yoga has to do with the above observations. Well, it has got everything to do! Astanga Yoga is concerned with humanity and divinity of the individual.Humanity has gone astray. Can he be called a human being, living in a brutal, materialistic culture, dehumanizing and deprived of deep inner divinity? Who, now thinks about individual sense of awareness and cosmic sense of awareness? To talk about permanent happiness and permanent satisfaction is considered tomfoolery! About 2100 years ago, matters were so confused in the human society, that even the system of yoga became distorted in many aspects.

Therefore, an effort was made by Sage Patanjali then. He worked to reclassify and codify the human techniques which he termed as Ashtanga Yoga.Ashtanga Yoga means eight limbs. Later, Swami Vivekananda called it Raja Yoga.To attain equanimity of the mind is no ordinary achievement.

To think appropriate to the occasion and act according to the requirements of the occasion requires a high degree of mental discipline. That can be achieved according to Ashtanga Yoga, by Yama-controlled conduct with others and Niyama- regulation of one's personal habits.Yama has 5 parts: Ahimsa-non harm in thought, deed and activity; Satya-benovelent truthfulness; Asteya-non-stealing; Brahmacharya-universal thinking; and Aparigraha- simple living. Niyama has 5m parts: Shaoca- purity of mind and cleanliness of body; Santosa-mental ease and contentment;

Tapah-social service; Svadhyaya-inspirational thinking; and Ishvara pranidhana- to meditate on the cosmic consciousness.Ashtavakra, a great saint named “Ashtanga Yoga” as “Rajadhiraja Yoga”- the yoga of kings of kings. Saga Patanjali used this text of Ashtavakra as the base for his subsequent classification of the yoga techniques.

He made it more relevant to the modern day requirements and changed human psychology.So practice and follow the principles enunciated in the Ashtanga Yoga for a total life. It is required to live in harmony and attain spiritual bliss which is the ultimate goal of human life. Only such perfect individuals can hope to attain the much cherished concept of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” (the world is one family).

They also say that we must strive to make the concept of global village into a reality! Ashtanga Yoga has given you the ways and means to achieve it, 2000 years ago!

Hatha Yoga

Patanjali collected the yoga knowledge available in 2 A.D. and wrote a treatise called 'Yoga Sutra.' The yoga of Patanjali has 8 limbs to be practiced in sequence. They are Yama (restraint), Niyama (observance), Asana (posture), Pranayama (breathing), Pratyahara (withdrawal of senses), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation) and Samadhi (ecstasy). The end of yoga after Samadhi would be the union of individual consciousness with the universal consciousness.In the modern age, yoga has come to mean basically 'Hatha Yoga,' 'Ha' meaning sun and 'Tha' meaning moon unites in Hatha Yoga.

It is the symbolic union of active and passive energies, the opposites. The Hatha Yoga aims to unite harmoniously the body, mind and spirit, and create a healthy, supple and strong body and a relaxed, stress free mind.In the late 19th century, T. Krishnamacharya, a yoga teacher in Mysore Palace in south India, was the source of most modern Hatha Yoga. His disciples B.K.S. Iyengar, K.Pattabhi Jois and Indira Devi, and his son T.K.V. Desikachar, were instrumental in setting up their schools and spreading Yoga throughout the world, particularly in America.Each one has its own name, but it is only a matter of stress rather than substance.

They are Ashtanga Yoga of Pattabhi Jois, Iyengar Yoga of B.K.S. Iyengar, Vishnu Yoga of T.K.V. Desikachar, Bikram Yoga of Bikram Choudhry, Sivananda Yoga of Vishnu Sivandandam, Integral Yoga of Swami Sachidananda and Ananda Yoga of Swami Kiriananda.Yoga as an exercise is vastly different from calisthenics or aerobics. In yoga the body does not do any movement, but holds different postures that are designed to direct the life energy to all parts of the body. The respiratory and pulse rate drops.

The endocrine system increases activity.The benefits of yoga are many. It helps in managing many illnesses for which there are no cures. It helps in building a supple and strong body. But its major contribution is in relaxing the body and mind, relieving stress and rejuvenating the energy level. Positive thinking and feel-good factors increase amongst practitioners of yoga. The degree of concentration in yoga students is very high.With some amount of commitment and regular practice of Hatha Yoga, there will be a substantial difference to the quality of life in the modern age.

What is Sahaja Yoga

What is Sahaja Yoga? A unique method of mediation is used for sahaja yoga which is a type of yoga that claims to be based on an experience called self-realization. It works partly with Tantra Yoga and every human being should find that is works for them.Sahaja yoga combines several processes so an inner transformation can take place, during which the devotee can become united, integrated and balanced overall.

Over hundreds of thousands of people in over ninety countries worldwide have ultimately proved and experienced the practice of sahaja yoga.Sahaja yoga is practiced by people who pride and prioritize themselves on respecting all major religions as well as their founders, they in fact consider themselves a part of the one tree of life.

When practicing sahaja yoga you will notice immediate benefits including stress relief and a feeling of peace and contentment.Besides mental benefits you will also receive physical benefits such as the alleviation, prevention and even the cure of illnesses. It also helps a person to attain balance and the absolute highest level of enlightenment.

Giving up the self-destructive habits in life such as smoking, drinking, drugs and overeating are a major part of the practice of sahaja yoga which ends up leaving an individual incredibly healthy, normal, balance and moral.Providing people with a true and authentic means of personal and spiritual growth is the basic aim of the sahaja yoga practice and it tries to help each individual to become more peace loving and it is considered to be a type of yoga that will benefit society and the world as a whole.

This form of yoga has no negative aspects or expectations and the only premise is the end result of making people feel better. For sahaja yoga meditation programs there have never been a charge since their doors are open to everyone at all time regardless of a persons financial situation.In addition, no sort of funding is given from charitable sources or governmental agencies to help conduct any of these programs. Those who practice this form of yoga have never been forced to give any sort of money to support and they are not frowned upon in any way for not giving.