Practicing yoga poses is not just a simple exercise. Yoga is a powerful technique, a philosophy to have a unanimous harmony of mind, body, and spirit. For example, one cannot just work out healthy but have stress in the mind, which couldn’t be termed as a healthy lifestyle.
Where did Yoga Poses come from?
Traditionally, yoga encompasses various concepts in the form of ‘8 Limbs of Yoga’ (Ashtanga Yoga), where it provides a holistic technique to not just cleanse our particular lifestyle but our overall existence.
‘Ashtanga Yoga’ is explained in the second chapter, ‘Sadhana Pada’ of the highly powerful and most influential philosophy of Yoga, ‘Patanjali Yoga Sutras’. Among the eight limbs, Asana is one of the vital limbs mentioned for the path of yoga.
You must have heard this many times, “Yoga is not just a physical posture, an exercise or a breathing technique”. Yet, all you see your friends who do yoga are likely doing that very same thing, postures, and breathing techniques that look much like an exercise in the end.
Those yoga postures are called ‘asanas’. Yoga poses – asanas, is an integral part of yoga, which is a physical medium of practice for not just the body but also our mind.
What is a Yoga Pose?
A Yoga pose is the physical practice of yoga, also known as ‘yoga asanas’. Its daily practice can keep both our body as well as our mind calm and balanced.
Patanjali quotes on ‘asana’, “Sthira sukham asanam“, which means, that which is steady and which is comfortable is asana.
Praciting yoga poses extends our comfort level by shifting even our uncomfortable zones into a comfortable ones.
Life is full of possibilities, where anything can happen, and smaller your comfort zone, there is more which you are uncomfortable with. Thus, life being vast, yet one being comfortable only in a limited sphere makes them more prone to misery.
The university exists in duality. Thus, there are always ups and downs in life. Asana is that which enables us to maintain equanimity. Asana is a practice to find comfort and stability in any kind of posture. In a way, it is the medium to train the mind to be stable and balanced through the physical medium of body postures.
Purpose of Doing Yoga Poses (Asana)
The regular practice of yoga poses has deeper gifts to present to us beyond its undeniable health and fitness benefits and its current fashionability.
Practicing asana is also a spiritual practice in and of itself. While most are captured at first by the lure of healing, flexibility, and strength from yoga, we can achieve much more with the regular practice of yoga asanas.
Everyone who practices yoga has always found a connection with the transcendental. No wonder, because there are many beautiful purposes and effects of practicing yoga poses.
1. Better Body Postures for Better Mentality
Different body postures indicate our different feelings or state of your mind, which is known as ‘body language. A person with a strong mentality has a good, strong body posture, whereas, a person with a weak mentality usually has a weak posture. Body postures are true evidence of our state of being within.
Since the mentality of a person can define the posture they have, so can the body postures change have changes in the mentality of the person. Thus, daily exercise and yoga asanas help a lot to relieve our minds from stress and revive them. These postures in the form of Yoga Asanas serve as tools to help us mold our mind, body, and personality.
2. Bringing Back Your Natural Rhythm of Breath
If we observe properly, our breath and our state of mind are related. A calm person has a calm breath, an angry person has a short breath and a depressed person has a weak breath. Likewise, having an unstable state of mind most of the time, we eventually breathe in an unnatural rhythm.
Thus, whatever we feel natural is not actually natural. Patanjali, mentions that we obstruct the flow of breath and then slowly bring them back to the natural flow by practicing yoga poses and certain methods of Pranayam.
3. Letting go of the Effort
We are all determined to have our life on our own terms. Thus, seeking that perfection and control brings a lot of trouble. However, there is only up to a limit till which we can have control.
Thus, the practicing postures remind us to let go of that control. While we do our yoga poses, we initially put in an effort and then let go, which gives the amazing experience to witness the rest of everything happening. Yoga reminds us that, sometimes it is best to let go and relax. We drop the false notion that we are in control.
4. Turning the Mind Inwards
Also known as Pratyahara, it is one of the eight limbs of yoga. It means being aware and fully interiorizing one’s senses. The nature of our senses is to flow outwards. For instance, everything we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell is something happening outside of us. As a result, even our energy that goes into the senses goes outwards. Thus, the conscious process of turning our attention and thoughts inwards by withdrawing our energy from the senses happens when we practice yoga asanas.
5. Having Focus and Concentration
Dharana means stillness of thought in the mind. In a simpler term it can be said as having an introspective focus, concentration or one-pointedness thought of mind. Usually, our mind is bombarded with various thoughts, emotions, and ideas. It usually swings like a pendulum in the past and the future.
Dharana is when our mind is focused on the present moment. This step is imperative for the next limb, ‘Meditation’, as without Dharana, meditation is not possible.
6. Knowing Our True Identity
When we become still during asana, we begin to separate ourselves from our thoughts. By entering a state in which we experience thoughts as a surface phenomenon after we move more deeply into relaxation. Then, we realize that thoughts are like the clouds passing in the sky which doesn’t have much meaning.
Then, we get in touch with our consciousness that is the background of thoughts, and the thoughts begin to lose their power over you. As a result, like the dusty layers over the mirror, thoughts, like the specks of dust get removed we can see our true infinite self.
7. Preparing our body for a better Meditation
Meditation, which is also known as Dhyana is the art of doing nothing. The state of meditation is beautiful and amazing where we are both in deep rest and awareness at the same time.
More so, the rest in meditation is said to be deeper than the deepest sleep. A calm mind, good concentration, clarity of perception, improvement in communication, inner strength, and relaxation are all-natural results of meditating regularly. In today’s world where stress catches on faster than the eye can see or the mind can perceive, meditation is no more a luxury. It is a necessity.
However, one having a restless body, an unhealthy body, or a body in pain cannot sit for peaceful meditation. Asana is like the daily servicing of the body, practicing which keeps the body flexible, fit, and healthy. The ultimate practice of asana as well as pranayama is to prepare our body for quality meditation.
8. Reach the state of Samadhi
Samadhi is the state of oneness, where there is no distinction, between the actor of meditation, the act of meditation, and the subject of meditation. Samadhi is that spiritual state when one is so absorbed in whatever it is contemplating on, that the mind dissolves the sense of its own identity into the higher identity.
There is only oneness in samadhi, which happens through the sustained practice of yoga. Practicing asana is vital to reach that higher state of bliss.
Benefits of Practicing Yoga Poses (Asana)
1. Brings out the Best of Us
Yoga asanas are training the body for the comfort zone that it really deserves, that it has come to this planet with. As mentioned above, Yoga poses need stability and balance which can happen only when we feel comfortable.
With the help of our body postures, practicing yoga asanas pushes our body and even our mentality to achieve stability and success in the uncomfortable areas. Thus, the daily practice of yoga poses brings out the best of us.
2. Happiness and Contentment
Being happy and content isn’t an act but is an attitude. Thus, it is not so easy to influence a yogi who has a mind that is steady as a stone. Practicing yoga gives us the state of mind to be comfortable, steady, and calm in any situation. As a result, yogis are more happy and more content in life.
3. Better Body Posture and Flexibility
While some yoga poses are easy, most are quite challenging to perform. And mastering any yoga pose takes a lot of regular practice of meditation, stretching, and strength. Thus, yoga helps the body to become flexible and strong from inside to the outside.
Regularly practicing various yoga asanas stretches the body and tones each and every muscle, thus making them strong. It also helps to improve body posture while you are standing, walking, or sitting. Hence, it is a good way of getting away from all of those unwanted body pain or aches.
4. All round Health and Fitness
Yoga asana is called an “all-rounder”, wherein it helps in breathing techniques, postures, and meditation. Hence, it is regarded as a package of holistic fitness. The regular practice of yoga poses would help improve one’s health through body detoxification, promoting physical strength, boosting and improving mental strength, and protects the body through quick healing in cases of infection or injury.
5. Makes Us More Disciplined
Discipline is one of the pillars of yoga and even in life. We can hardly achieve success in any field without it. Likewise, it takes a lot of discipline to become a yogi and practice yoga poses daily. We do not need discipline when we enjoy doing something, rather it is needed when we do something that we do not enjoy doing.
Yoga may seem very attractive in the beginning phases but it takes much effort and discipline to see it through the end. Perhaps, this could be one of the main reasons why many try Yoga but very few become yogis. Thus, those who do yoga asana daily naturally develop an attitude of discipline in their personality.
In Conclusion
Only when the body is healthy and the mind one-pointed and inward does a person have a chance to discover the inner dimensions of life. For this, meditation is the key to this spiritual practice.
Meditation being the goal, asana is the basic means of enhancing the capacity of the body and mind so that a person could sit in meditation for long periods with as few distractions as possible.
After a regular practice of yoga asana, you learn to maintain this ease, everything you say and do becomes an asana. Following this, your body, mind, and soul are always in a higher meditative state.
Yoga Poses (Asana) is a gift for humankind that holds the power to unconditional happiness, peace of mind, and even divinity.
