Yoga (English: Yoga, Hindi: योग) is a Chinese word, which originally came from the Sanskrit “yug” or “yuj”, and its meaning is “unanimity”, “combination” or “harmony”. Yoga originated in ancient India and is one of the six philosophical schools in ancient India, exploring the truth and method of “the unity of Brahman and self”. The yoga that modern people call mainly refers to a series of methods of self-cultivation and mind-nurturing.
Yoga originated in the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India. The ancient Indian yoga practitioners created a series of exercise systems that are beneficial to the body and mind based on the observation, imitation, and personal experience of the postures of animals, that is, asanas.
Modern scholars divide yoga into four periods:
Pre-classical period
Starting from 5000 BC until the appearance of the Rigveda, it is about more than 3,000 years. It is the original development of yoga, and there is a lack of written records. Yoga has gradually developed from an original philosophical thought into a practice method, and meditation and asceticism are the center of yoga practice.
Classical period
Around 300 BC, the great Indian philosopher Patanjali (English: Patanjali) created the “Yoga Sutra”. On this basis, Indian yoga truly took shape, and the practice of yoga was officially formulated as a complete eight-branch system. Patanjali is honored as the founder of yoga.
Patanjali, the founder of yoga, is generally believed to have been born around 200 to 500 BC in the Indian region of Ra’r’h. In legend, Patanjali’s mother, Gonika’, had always hoped to pass on her learning to a wise and capable person, but failed. She held water in her hands, closed her eyes and prayed to the sun god. Just as she was about to offer water to the sun god, she opened her eyes and saw a small snake in her hand. The small snake instantly turned into a human figure and said to her, “I want to be your child.” Gonika’ agreed and named him Patanjali. Pat means to fall, and an‘jali means to put your hands together. Because Patanjali seemed to have fallen from the sky into her hands, she was named Patanjali (Hindi: पतंजलि).
Post-classical period
After the “Yoga Sutra”, it is the post-classical yoga. It mainly includes the “Yoga Upanishads”, Tantra, and Hatha Yoga. There are 21 “Yoga Upanishads”. In these “Upanishads”, pure cognition, reasoning, and even meditation are not the only ways to achieve liberation. They all need to be transformed physically and spiritually through the practice of austerities, in order to reach the state of oneness of Brahman and self. Therefore, came up with dieting, abstinence, asanas, chakras, and mantras, mudras, and combination with gurus. These are the essence of post-classical yoga.
The modern development of yoga
Yoga has developed to the present day and has become a physical and mental exercise and practice method widely spread in the world. It has been spread from India to Europe, America, the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, and so on. It is highly praised for its obvious effects on psychological stress reduction and physiological health care. At the same time, various types of yoga branch methods have evolved, such as hot yoga, Hatha yoga, hot yoga, health yoga, etc., as well as some yoga management sciences.
The eight stages of practicing yoga
In order to achieve “control of the mind”, the ancestor of yoga, Patanjali, proposed in the “Yoga Sutra” the eight stages of practice that must be followed in the practice of yoga, which are called the “eight branches of practice”. These exercises are:
- Observance of Precepts (yama): Refers to the precepts that must be observed, including not killing, being honest, not stealing, not having extramarital affairs, and not being greedy. The “Yoga Sutra” believes that before doing yoga exercises, a person must have sufficient moral cultivation, otherwise, his mind will not be calm.
- Observance of Niyama: Refers to the moral guidelines that should be followed, including
(1) Purity (purity of the body and food, which is “outer purity”; purity of the inner pollution, which is “inner purity”)
(2) Contentment (not asking for things outside of one’s share)
(3) Austerity (enduring hunger, thirst, cold, heat, sitting, standing and other pains, and observing fasts, pilgrimages, austerities, etc. vows)
(4) Study (learning classics, reciting sacred sounds)
(5) Worship of God (worshiping the great god of freedom, and dedicating everything to God) and so on.
- Asana: It means to keep the body stable, relaxed and at ease, and the mind relaxed. Including the lotus sitting, hero sitting, auspicious sitting, diamond sitting, supreme good sitting, and so on.
- Pranayama: It refers to adjusting and controlling breathing. The “Yoga Sutra” points out that when regulating breathing, three functions of breathing should be paid attention to first: the function of inward inhalation, the function of outward exhalation, and the function of not exhaling or inhaling and storing the air in the chest and abdomen for a long time.
In addition, four things should also be noted:
(1) “Place”, refers to the range that the breath reaches in the chest and abdomen after the breath is inhaled; where the breath reaches in the universe after the breath is exhaled.
(2) “Time”, refers to the time of breathing. It is required that during the process of exhalation and inhalation, the speed must be moderate, and the interval and rhythm are appropriate.
(3) “Number”, refers to the number of breaths. It is required that the exhalation and inhalation must be slow and long, and it is forbidden to be short and rough.
(4) “Concentration on one realm”, refers to the problem of adjusting the mind. When breathing, the mind should be focused on one point and not scattered.
- Pratyahar: It means to restrain all kinds of sensory organs and make the activities of the senses completely under the control of the heart.
- Dharana: It is to make the heart focus on a part of the body, such as the navel, the tip of the nose, the tip of the tongue, etc.; it can also focus on an object outside, such as the moon, the statue, etc.
- Dhyan: Also known as meditation, it is to make the focused heart unified with the focused object and make the subjective and objective integrated.
- Samadhi: It means that the heart and its focused object are combined into one. Samadhi is divided into two types: “thinking samadhi” and “non-thinking samadhi”. The former refers to the state of still having certain thoughts and emotions after reaching samadhi. The latter refers to the state where all the changes and functions of the heart have been cut off, and it is completely integrated with the focused object, that is, the highest state of yoga.
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