X-Ftn-To: Wade Humeniuk 

"Wade Humeniuk"  wrote:
>"Danijel Turina"  wrote in message
>news:c013dt49la6msgguqofprmd1sguqr5qq25@4ax.com...
>> Yoga is a much more serious thing than that.
>
>I often see this statement uttered in reference to yoga.  Though I have a
>yoga practice and I think I understand where that statement comes from I
>find myself bewildered at the utterance of it.  I am very interested it what
>people really mean by the statement.  Its like its saying that "mundane"
>actions are somehow frivolous and have no merit.  I also have visions of
>deadly serious and humorless yogis sitting around "doing" yoga.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, so I'll clarify. According to
Patanjali, yoga is a body of eight limbs: yama, niyama, asana,
pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi. Yama and niyama
are the moral foundations, the necessary prerequisites of yoga, and
are very similar to the biblical ten commandments. Basically, in order
to even engage in practice, you have to be a good human being, full of
moral virtues, and to aim at the realization of the highest truth.
I guess you'd find that step obsolete, and go directly into the fun
and games part.
Asanas, the next step, are the practice of stillness, instead of
motion (asana can be translated as "stand" or "posture"). The basic
intention is putting the body in a firm position with the erect spine
in order to comfortably conduct the higher practices. Asanas often
include bandhas and mudras, which are meant to short-circuit certain
pranic currents on the physical level. This results in complete
stillness of the body and senses, and simultaneous awakening of the
inner awareness.
When the peace is attained on the physical level, the next step is to
recognize and direct the pranic flows - pranayama. The mastery of
breath grows into the mastery of will; the consciousness is withdrawn
from the illusory objects in pratyahara. In dharana, the consciousness
is focused in one thought, most often ista-devata (one's chosen deity,
or Divine aspect), which results in Divine visions, to which one
surrenders and attains samadhi, the ultimate self-realization and
realization of the highest reality.

I'm afraid that it's not fun and games, but it brings far more joy.
Unfortunately, people who are emerged in the eternal joy and blissful
wisdom can seem very uninteresting in comparison with all those
parties where people have so much fun that most of them blow their
brains out sooner or later, when they realize the futility of it all.

As you can see, serious practice doesn't mean a boring one, but a more
demanding one - and, also, more rewarding.

-- 
Homepage: http://www.danijel.org