Living The Good Life » The Origin of Yoga, best we find out some background here!

The Origin of Yoga, best we find out some background here!

This is the final in this series on yoga, and what a better way than find some info on the origin of yoga.

So have a quick read and hopefully you will get a pretty good idea of what yoga is all about and wether it will help you or not.

Yoga in my view is definitly a great way to help you on your way to living the good life and certainly helped me in my business dealings and working along and with other people.

I will write another post on how yoga helped me in business, in the meantime enjoy the origin of yoga.

Images of a meditating yogi from the Indus Valley Civilization are thought to be 6 to 7 thousand years old. The earliest written accounts of yoga appear in the Rig Veda, which began to be codified between 1500 and 1200 BC. It is difficult to establish the date of yoga from this as the Rig Veda was orally transmitted for at least a millennium.
The first Yoga text dates to around the 2nd century BC by Patanjali, and prescribes adherence to “eight limbs”
(the sum of which constitute “Ashtanga Yoga”) to quiet one’s mind and merge with the infinite.

The first full description of the principles and goals of yoga are found in the Upanisads, thought to have been composed between the eighth and fourth centuries BC.
The Upanisads are also called Vedanta since they constitute the end or conclusion of the Vedas (the traditional body of spiritual wisdom).
In the Upanisads, the older practises of offering sacrifices and ceremonies to appease external gods gives way instead to a new understanding that man can, by means of an inner sacrifice, become one with the Supreme Being (referred to as Brahman or Mahatman) — through moral culture, restraint and training of the mind.

Hindu yoga

Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita famously distinguishes several types of “yoga”, corresponding to the duties of different nature of people. Capturing the essence and at the same time going into detail about the various Yogas and their philosophies, it constantly refers to itself as such, the “Scripture of Yoga” (see the final verses of each chapter). The book is thought to have been written some time between the 5th and the 2nd century BC. In it, Krishna describes the following yogas:

1. Karma yoga, the yoga of “action” in the world.

2. Jnana yoga, the yoga of knowledge and intellectual endeavor.

3. Bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion to a deity (for example, to Krishna).

Patanjali

Perhaps the classic description of yoga is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which form the basis not only of the darshana called “yoga”–one of six such “orthodox” (i.e. Veda-accepting) schools of Hindu philosophy–but also of the practice of yoga in most ashrams (to the extent these can be distinguished). The school (dharshana) of Indian philosophy known as “yoga” is primarily Upanishadic with roots in Samkhya, and some scholars see some influence from Buddhism.
The Yoga philosophy fully believes in the epistemology of the Samkhya school, as well as its concept of the individual spirits (Purusha) and the Nature (Prakriti)—but differs from Samkhya’s atheism.

Dont worry if you are a person that struggles with all the terminology, you are not alone I find some of these words irrelevant to know but essential to be there.

Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras presents the goal of yoga as ‘the cessation of mental fluctuations’ (cittavrtti nirodha), an achievement which gives rise to the possibility of stable meditation and thus deeper states of absorption (dhyana or samadhi).
This requires considerable restraint (yama) and self-discipline (niyama; see below for Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga)). Patanjali’s yoga is sometimes called Raja Yoga (Skt: “Royal yoga”) or “Ashtanga Yoga” (”Eight-Limbed Yoga”), in order to distinguish it from Hatha yoga.
It is held as authoritative by all schools. Patanjali is also known for writing commentaries (Mahabhashya) on the Sutras of the great Sanskrit grammarian Panini. In fact, Panini, Patanjali and Katyayana are regarded are the highest authority not only in Sanskrit but also in the whole of Linguistics.

Patanjali’s text sets forth eight “limbs” of yoga practice. Interestingly, only one of them involves physical postures (and these mainly involve seated positions).
The eight are:

1. Yama (The five “abstentions”): violence, lying, theft, (illicit-) sex, and possessions

2. Niyama (The five “observances”): purity, contentment, austerities, study, and surrender to God

3. Asana: This term literally means “seat,” and originally referred mainly to seated positions. With the rise of Hatha yoga, it came to be used of these yoga “postures” as well.

4. Pranayama: Control of prana or vital breath

5. Pratyahara (”Abstraction”): “that by which the senses do not come into contact with their objects and, as it were, follow the nature of the mind.” — Vyasa

6. Dharana (”Concentration”): Fixing the attention on a single object

7. Dhyana (”Meditation”)

8. Samadhi: Super-conscious state or trance (state of liberation)

God in Yoga philosophy

The philosophy of Yoga also presented certain arguments for the existence of God (Ishvara, lit., the Supreme Lord):

• The Vedas are regarded as evidence. The Vedas and their commentaries, the Upanishads mention and describe God—hence God exists.

• Continuity: people and things have various degrees of differences among themselves. Some people are foolish, some are wise. Hence there ought to be some Being who has the highest level of knowledge among all—who is omniscient. That Being is God

• Cosmic Evolution, leading to this universe, occurs because of the contact between Purusha (spirit) and Prakriti (Nature). Purusha is static, and Prakriti is unconscious. Hence there can be no contact between these two things of opposite characteristics, unless God—the omniscient Being—brings about this contact.

• Meditation upon God is regarded as the best means of attaining Liberation. If meditation on such a Being helps in liberation, and all obstacles are removed, then the object of the meditation must have a real existence.

Ishvara is regarded as a special Purusha, who is beyond sorrow and Karma laws. He is one, perfect, infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and eternal.
He is beyond the three qualities of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. He is different from an ordinary liberated spirit, because the latter were bound once, whereas Ishvara was never bound. He is kind and merciful.
He is the father of the demigods (the various Devas) and of the sages (rishis), as well as their guru; He is the author of the Vedas.

Yoga system is perhaps the first philosophy in the world to give arguments for monotheism. Yoga says that Ishvara can be only one and unique.

If many Gods are assumed:

• Let’s say if they are two Gods. If God #1 gives a certain quality (say white color) to a thing and God #2 gives another (say black color) to the same thing, this would be mutually contradictory. On the other hand, if God #1’s choice reigns supreme, God #2 would fail to remain as God

• Let’s say that the Gods work in as a committee to do certain tasks one by one. Then while one God is doing his work, the existence of the other Gods would be superfluous and unnecessary.

Hope you enjoyed that and please do leave a cmment below

As I said earlier I will tell you how yoga helped me

Love

Gaylene

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