Hatha yoga videos

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

Tratak – intense concentration on an outside object

Tratak has many potential uses, but the word may simply be translated as (intense) concentration. Actually it means an unbroken gaze or attention fixed on an object, a steady gazing at a particular point or object without winking – looking at or into it. Read more

Neti, nose cleaning

Neti is a Hatha Yoga cleaning process. Neti is cleansing of the nasal passage of the respiratory system. By cleaning and affecting the mucous membranes inside the nose, they are stimulated so that the whole surrounding area is also strengthened, including the eyebrow centre, which is an important point of contact for the Anja Chakra, the third eye, or, physiologically, the pineal gland. The entire breathing system is affected by Neti. The little cilia hairs which clean the air passages by ’sweeping’ up the dirt are also activated as the mucous membranes are affected. Read more

Relaxation Pose – Shavasana

Regrettable as it may be, we are immersed in a tension-filled world. It is this very tension that forms the basis for many psychosomatic disturbances. Psychiatry offers tranquillizers but Hatha Yoga offers drugless, inner relaxation through the thousands-years-old process known as ‘Shavasana’. Read more

Raja yoga and psychoanalysis

‘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.
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Easy pose – Sukhasana

Sukhasana literally means ‘easy’ or pleasant ‘pose’. Sukha means “easy,“ “joy,” and this pose should feel so good that it fills you with joy! Sukhasana is an optimal yoga pose for practicing Pranayama, the pose calms the mind, and stills the body. Sukhasana is one of a number of meditative poses. Like all meditative poses it shares certain common characteristics. Read more

Beginner yoga poses for meditation

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

Hatha yoga – conjunction of opposites

‘Hatha’ is perhaps the best known aspect of Yoga among Westerners. To most yoga students it is simply a difficult system of physical control involving the use of various yoga poses (Asanas) and the learning of specialized breathing techniques (Pranayama). Read more

Relaxing asanas

Yoga relaxation is directly connected with the awareness and it has for objective the lessening of tensions that operate on the level of consciousness (citta). The concept of cittavishrânti (stillness on the level of consciousness) has gained in importance from hatha-yoga, which attributes a great meaning to the mental relaxation. Read more

Bikram yoga class

Bikram Yoga is for beginners, as well as advanced students of yoga. Bikram yoga is a challenging of 26 asanas, or postures, and 2 breathing exercises and is generally considered as the most intense type of yoga. Bikram Yoga is ideally practiced in a room heated to 105°F. Read more

Gnani Yoga – by Yogi Ramacharaka

The Yogi Philosophy may be divided into several great branches, or fields. What is known as “Hatha Yoga” deals with the physical body and its control; its welfare; its health; its preservation; its laws, etc. What is known as “Raja Yoga” deals with the Mind; its control; its development; its unfoldment, etc. What is known as “Bhakti Yoga” deals with the Love of the Absolute–God. What is known as “Gnani Yoga” deals with the scientific and intellectual knowing of the great questions regarding Life and what lies back of Life–the Riddle of the Universe. Read more

Mudra

The term mudra is derived from the root mud, “to please,” and in its upasana form is so called because it gives pleasure to the Devas. Devanam moda-da mudra tasmat tam yatnatascaret. It is said that there are 108, of which 55 are commonly used.(1) Read more

Objectives of Asana

The âsanas are situated at the beginning of the learning process of yoga: they constitute the first part of hatha-yoga and the third part of the astânga-yoga of Patañjali. Read more

What is Asana?

The term âsana literally means “sitting position” or simply “position”: it points out a bodily posture that contributes to the physical and mental stability and it generates a sense of comfort.

The term âsana is also used to point out a vegetable mat, or also a skin of well tanned antelope, which is a comfortable support to sit on the ground. In hatha-yoga the âsanas occupy a primary place, while they represent the third step in the eightfold yoga of Patañjali (astânga). Read more

Yoga and Fitness

Many types of yoga exist and Hatha Yoga is the component of yoga that gives most attention to the body and is the form of yoga that gives most emphasis to breathing. Hatha Yoga is also an exceptional fitness program. Hatha Yoga is based on the initiative that obtaining extreme control over the body can be the means to control the mind and liberate the spirit. Through poses (asanas), breathing exercises (pranayama), and meditation, Hatha Yoga’s fluent exercises stimulate, and make stronger the whole being— body, mind, and spirit. You can start with the physical exercises alone; yet, Hatha Yoga will rapidly begin to show results in other parts of being. Read more

Ashtanga Yoga the Yoga of Eight Limbs

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

Hatha Yoga and spiritual well-being

Hatha Yoga is a source of many detailed notions and practices that promote psychophysical and spiritual well-being. Additionally, Hatha Yoga is a system of religious therapy, a path of healing the body and mind that serves the purpose of liberation of a human being.

Hatha Yoga is a useful starting point to examine the relationship of medical and spiritual health because it connects the cultivation of physical and psychological health with spiritual well-being and demonstrates the idea of spiritual liberation of human beings as healing.

Hatha in Sanskrit literally means force, violence, an aggressive force. This is the reason Hatha Yoga is often referred to as the forceful yoga connected with the body. Hatha Yoga is the type of yoga most commonly practiced in the West and to many people, yoga is identical with the practice of physical postures, so Hatha Yoga generally refers exclusively to the practice of asanas, the physical postures of yoga.

Linguistically in the Hatha, Ha means “sun,” and tha means “moon,” so hatha is a combining of complementary forces. Hatha Yoga is the branch of yoga that transforms the human body via physical strengthening and purification to make the body a worthy vehicle of self-realization. The two syllables in the word hatha, which stand for the sun (ha) and the moon (tha), mean a deep union of the body and the mind and of the masculine and feminine energies within each individual. Thus, the word hatha reminds us that in essence, hatha yoga is a search for interior unity and wholeness. A multiplicity of approaches to executing these postures has developed over time; as a result, various approaches to Hatha Yoga have developed with many schools and Hatha Yoga teachers.

Hatha Yoga is the branch of yoga that concentrates on the body. Hatha Yoga is an excellent body, fitness program, and a health remedy. Hatha Yoga is based on the notion that gaining supreme control over the body is the key to control of the mind and freedom of the spirit. Hatha Yoga works under the assumption that supreme control over the body, or the physical self, is one path to enlightenment, to spiritual freedom. Hatha Yoga is a sort of spiritual fitness plan in which balance is a key.

In Hatha Yoga consideration for the physical body is in the foremost view; this particular type of yoga involves cleansing rituals and breathing exercises designed to manipulate the body’s energy through breath control, in addition to the postures or exercises for which Hatha Yoga is commonly known.

An essential and important part of Hatha Yoga and other forms of yoga is the control of breath or pranayama. In fact, the manipulation of breath to control the physical manifestation of prana in the body is Hatha Yoga’s realm. Yogis purposefully learn to use prana to drive the mind to a higher state of consciousness. Through postures (asanas), breathing exercises (pranayama), and meditation, Hatha Yoga exercises, strengthens and tones the body, mind, and spirit. Even if you start with the physical exercises alone, however, Hatha Yoga will quickly begin to work its wonders.