Here are some Hatha yoga videos, from beginners to advanced stages. Yoga is one of the best ways to cultivate your mind and body union. It tones muscles, increases flexibility, calms the mind and can improve overall health. You can notice results from your very first practice, and as you become familiar with the postures, both your yoga practice and your body will evolve in an enriching and truly powerful way. Read more »
The Hindus classify the systems of philosophy into two classes, namely, the nastika and the astika. The nastika (na asti “it is not”) views are those which neither regard the Vedas as infallible nor try to establish their own validity on their authority. These are principally three in number, the Buddhist, Jaina and the Carvaka. The astika-mata or orthodox schools are six in number, Samkhya, Yoga, Vedanta, Mimamsa, Nyaya and Vaisheshika, generally known as the six systems (shaddarshana (1)). Read more »
The examination of the two ancient Nastika schools of Buddhism and Jainism of two different types ought to convince us that serious philosophical speculations were indulged in, in circles other than those of the Upanishad sages (1). Read more »
The main exposition of the system of Samkhya and Yoga in this section has been based on the Samkhya karika, the Samkhya sutras, and the Yoga sutras of Patanjali with their commentaries and sub-commentaries. The Samkhya karika (about 200 A.D.) was written by Ishvarakrishna. Read more »
Pancashikha speaks of the ultimate truth as being avyakta (a term applied in all Samkhya literature to prakriti) in the state of purusha (purusavasthamavyaktam). If man is the product of a mere combination of the different elements, then one may assume that all ceases with death. Read more »
The earliest descriptions of a Samkhya which agrees with Ishvarakrishna’s Samkhya (but with an addition of Ishvara) are to be found in Patanjali’s Yoga sutras and in the Mahabharata; but we are pretty certain that the Samkhya of Caraka we have sketched here was known to Patanjali, for in Yoga sutra I. 19 a reference is made to a view of Samkhya similar to this. Read more »
We have now to meet the vexed question of the probable date of this famous Yoga author Patanjali. Weber had tried to connect him with Kapya Patamchala of Shatapatha Brahmana; in Katyayana’s Varttika we get the name Patanjali which is explained by later commentators as patantah anjalayah yasmai (for whom the hands are folded as a mark of reverence), but it is indeed difficult to come to any conclusion merely from the similarity of names (1). Read more »
The conception of Yoga as we meet it in the Maitrayana Upanishad consisted of six angas or accessories, namely pranayama, pratyahara, dhyana, dharana, tarka and samadhi (1). Read more »
The word Yoga which was formerly used in Vedic literature in the sense of the restraint of the senses is used by Patanjali in his Yoga sutra in the sense of the partial or full restraint or steadying of the states of citta. Read more »
It is very probable that the earliest beginnings of Nyaya are to be found in the disputations and debates amongst scholars trying to find out the right meanings of the Vedic texts for use in sacrifices and also in those disputations which took place between the adherents of different schools of thought trying to defeat one another. Read more »
Of the six classes of entities or categories (padartha) we have already given some account of dravya (1). Let us now turn to the others. Of the qualities (guna) the first one called rupa (colour) is that which can be apprehended by the eye alone and not by any other sense. The colours are white, blue, yellow, red, green, brown and variegated (citra). Colours are found only in kshiti, ap and tejas. The colours of ap and tejas are permanent (nitya), but the colour of kshiti changes when heat is applied, and this, Shridhara holds, is due to the fact that heat changes the atomic structure of kshiti (earth) and thus the old constitution of the substance being destroyed, its old colour is also destroyed, and a new one is generated. Rupa is the general name for the specific individual colours. There is the genus rupatva (colourness), and the rupa guna (quality) is that on which rests this genus; rupa is not itself a genus and can be apprehended by the eye. Read more »
Nyaya seeks to establish the existence of Ishvara on the basis of inference. We know that the Jains, the Samkhya and the Buddhists did not believe in the existence of Ishvara and offered many antitheistic arguments. Nyaya wanted to refute these and prove the existence of Ishvara by an inference of the samanyato-drishta type. The Jains and other atheists held that though things in the world have production and decay, the world as a whole was never produced, and it was never therefore an effect. In contrast to this view the Nyaya holds that the world as a whole is also an effect like any other effect. Read more »
Shabda or word is regarded as a separate means of proof by most of the recognized Indian systems of thought excepting the Jaina, Buddhist, Carvaka and Vaisheshika. A discussion on this topic however has but little philosophical value and I have therefore omitted to give any attention to it in connection with the Nyaya, and the Samkhya-Yoga systems. The validity and authority of the Vedas were acknowledged by all Hindu writers and they had wordy battles over it with the Buddhists who denied it. Read more »
We have already seen that the indefinite ajnana could be experienced in direct perception and according to Vedanta there are only two categories. The category of the real, the self-luminous Brahman, and the category of the indefinite. The latter has for its ground the world-appearance, and is the principle by which the one unchangeable Brahman is falsely manifested in all the diversity of the manifold world. Read more »
‘Raja’ means king and thus Raja Yoga is the ‘Kingly Yoga’ or the ‘Royal Way’ of Yoga. Our mind is the ‘King’ in question, the master in our lives is the mind, and the control of mind is the primary concern of Raja Yoga. Read more »
The term asana or seat, firm seating, is used in Hatha yoga to indicate a large variety of different yoga postures which typically involve bending and stretching the trunk of the body, or more precisely to twist the spine, and serves to keep it very flexible. The difference between yoga poses and Western physical exercises consist mainly in this that the latter are largely intended to build up muscular strength; the yoga poses not at all. In the yoga poses the chief aim is to cultivate poise and balance which, whether in sitting, or in standing or in walking, will need the minimum of muscular effort, and if possible no effort at all. Read more »
But, whatever you choose, one thing you will need in all things and at all times — concentration of purpose, of thought, of feeling, of action; so that this, like a powerful-magnet, will polarize everything with which you deal. In all the aims of life it is needed for success. Read more »
WHEN the student is well practised in concentration, so that he can put on the mood of it like a garment, let him or her proceed to meditation and contemplation. Read more »
An esteemed friend has asked me: “Is it not correct to do that sort of Meditation in which one stills one’s own thinking, and remains in a state of active expectancy of an intuition?” This arose apropos of a statement of mine that Patanjali had taught Meditation as a continued mental effort to understand some subject, not as a voluntary stoppage of mentality. Read more »
The Anusara Immersion program is intended to give power to yoga practice through attentive study, practice and dialogue. The Anusara Immersion is a flight into the lessons of Anusara Yoga (Asana, Pranayama, Meditation). The Anusara Immersion is perfect for those that desire to research the mystery and deep practices of Anusara yoga. Read more »
Drdhata, or strength or firmness, the acquisition of which is the second of the above-mentioned processes, is attained by asana. Asanas are postures of the body. Read more »
This Yoga breathing site is devoted to presenting the many faces of Yoga. The goal of Yoga breathing is to illustrate the classical approaches of Raja Yoga, Jnana, Karma, and Bhakti Yoga, as well as Hatha Yoga, Kriya, Kundalini, Laya, Mantra, and the modern approaches of Ashtanga, Bikram and Anusara Yoga. Concentration, meditation, contemplation, mantra join into a unified force directed towards a complete understanding of Yoga.
The Yoga breathing site provides valuable and helpful information for those seeking to make yoga a part of their everyday routine. There is no promotion of any one belief system, only solid information about yoga, and not unbiased promotion of some yoga class. The hundreds of pages are packed with useful information: articles about yoga in general, yoga schools, yoga and health; and step-by-step yoga postures, concentration and meditation. The yoga beginner will get concise and easy-to-understand information about yoga basic principles and more advanced yoga techniques.
Yoga postures are catalogued in a supportive guide and offer step-by-step instructions, yoga video lessons, and yoga photos to better understand the practical side. This site also features essays on Yoga sutras of Patanjali.
The explanation of the theologians, that the spiritual nature has been superadded to the animal nature by some extra-cosmic spiritual agency is not scientific, nor does it appeal to our reason. Now let us see what Vedanta has to say on this point. Vedanta accepts evolution and admits the laws of variation and natural selection, but goes a step beyond modern science by explaining the cause of that “tendency to vary.” It says, “there is nothing in the end which was not also in the beginning.” It is a law which governs the process of evolution as well as the law of causation. If we admit this grand truth of nature, then it will not be difficult to explain by the theory of Evolution the gradual manifestation of the higher nature of man. The tendency of scientific monism is towards that end. Read more »
About a definition of asana, yoga pose, we can quote Patañjali, which enunciates in three brief aphorisms the principles on which the âsanas, their objectives and effects, are established, as well as the process through which such effects are achieved. It is appropriate to underline that all of this concerns the static aspect of the âsana. Read more »
Ashtanga Yoga, also sometimes spelled “Astanga” Yoga because of the Sanskrit spelling of the word, is an exact and efficient approach to yoga that draws attention to physical power and body stamina with performing a fluid series of arranged yoga postures. Read more »
asanas, demonstration classes, dhyana, energy enhancement, hatha yoga, mind and body, path to enlightenment, postures, pranayama, raja yoga, swami, word yoga, yoga asana, yoga posture, yoga practice 
