Saturday, May 24, 2008
Yoga Stories - I Am Connected
...After five years of living in a yoga retreat site, the night switchboard person was away on vacation for three weeks and I was called upon to do his third shift. This was in addition to my regular work.
There were not many phone calls that came in after 9 pm, however it was important to have a 24 x 7 switchboard presence. That's why I was there.
As a method of self-study, I used the opportunity to work on a very detailed timeline of my life, month by month, year by year, noting milestones and important and memorable events in my life. I worked on it most of the night shift and some during the day. I even culled through old Billboard charts to see when popular songs were played to pinpoint when certain events of my life happened...more
How Much Yogis Earn
...uite considerable.
Among the western nations, USA has also taken to Yoga in a big way, mainly due to its contribution to the general well being of the body. The Yogi teachers are paid variably in different parts of the country. In New York for example, the teachers are paid a basic of $35 per hour for the classes and gyms pay upto $65 per hour for an hour of class. This most often tends to be only the basic pay. The payments often tend to increase based on the number of students...more
Yoga in Practice: Bhakti Yoga
...If Yoga were like fine wine, Hatha Yoga would surely be the wine for export. It could be said that Raja Yoga and Kundalini Yoga got a fairly strong foothold outside India, as well. All of these forms of Yoga have many aspects, but the physical aspect is what lures most Yoga students - outside of India.
Bhakti Yoga, on the other hand, is a spiritual form of Yoga and is very commonly practiced within India. Bhakti Yoga is union by love and devotion to God. Therefore, this is the form of Yoga that really does have a deep spiritual aspect and a connection to Hinduism. This spiritual, and religious, aspect is possibly the reaso...more
Yoga - A Brief Historic Perspective
... members who were in their community and at the same time act as religious mediators. Archaic Yoga had the same objectives as it was community oriented and it aimed to determine the order of things through senses and inner vision, which then could be applied to daily living. As time went on, Yoga has progressed and has concentrated on the inner experience. Yogis then started focusing on how to attain individual enlightenment.
It is widely accepted today that many religions have their actual roots in shamanism, of which we know that it tried to act as a conduit between the known and the unknown. Shamanism could be seen as the belief system of people who lived during the Stone Age. Life on earth has always been challenging. Even in modern times many people go hungry even though there is the technology to go into space.
This suffering is not easy to witness and an individual's helplessness in regards to his own suffering and that of others remains extremely difficult to reconcile. This could be one of the many reasons the vast majority of humans living on earth have taken refuge in some or other form of faith or belief...more
