What is yoga?

What is yoga?

Yoga is an ancient, very kind, very logical and harmonious system of self-exploration and exploration of the Universe. Yoga reveals the inherent ability of a person and makes this person stronger. Yoga is the system of self-exploration and exploring of the Universe, which consequently gives the person freedom. Physical freedom from the constraints of the body, freedom from the constraints in psychological, mental and spiritual aspects. Yoga has absorbed wisdom of many centuries and experience of the followers of this system. Very specific recommendations were made as a result of this self-exploration. They disclosed how to maintain person’s physical and mental health in the most effective way, how to discover hidden strengths in every human being. Yoga reveals the inner creativity in the person.

The basics of any yoga teaching is the observance of harmony in the inner and external life - the rejection of extremes (marginalization). Thus, any physical or mental exercise may be yoga exercise or not. It depends on the factor of harmony. So, if it is done harmoniously, if it is executed following the principle of inner harmony and certain inner attitude as prescribed in yoga. Or in other words, the main thing for yoga is the method.

The method in yoga means harmonious combination, where and when to force ourselves and when to let it go. It means that while exercising sometimes you have to keep yourself in shape and to overcome the inner laziness, but sometimes you should completely enjoy the pleasant sensations of the exercise execution. Yoga encourages taking the middle path. But to do so and forego all extremes does not mean to become a mediocrity. Rather, it is the science of how to make extremes balanced.

There are also other descriptions of achieving the harmony through the emotions and feelings of a person. For example, through the concept of joy. In Hatha yoga when making some exercises that require physical participation of the body, the following advice is given: when performing an exercise, we should enjoy it (feel the joy) - it's either the joy from the exercise itself (the first method) or the pleasure from overcoming ourselves (the second method). We also should learn to recognize the moment when and how we should alternate these two methods.

In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the method of approximation to the harmony in yoga and as a result, achieving a state of yoga is defined as "Chitta Vritti Nirodha" (Yoga Sutra of Patanjali Chapter 1. Aph. 2) or in a free translation, it means "to stop the occurrence of parasitic thought forms in the mind that is coloring our consciousness." It means that the flow of thoughts caused by unconscious impressions (samskaras) is responsible for ruining the balance in our lives and that distance to harmony increases.

The most in-depth descriptions of the methods of yoga is found in the Vedas (their age reaches several thousand years). The description of the methods is related to the notion of Rita. This concept has many meanings​​ such as: the cosmic harmony, the law of truth, the principle of freedom, harmonic rhythm of joy and happiness, the law of spirituality and many others. The meaning of using of the Rita principle results in subordination of all your actions, emotions and thoughts to Rita. It means that all our manifestations in the Universe are in harmony and in line with the global harmony and super logical root cause of being. The process of bringing life, actions, words, thoughts, and emotions in line with the principle of Rita is also referred to as yoga. Thus yoga is the Unification process, the Union, and the Resonance with the law of Rita or we say it is the Essence of Life and the root cause of entire existence, or when a human - the Microcosm - brings himself/herself in harmony with the Universe - the Macrocosm.

When one person's life path is in compliance with the principle of Rita, it is referred to as Dharma. The consequence of all human actions is called Karma (the law of cause and consequences). If a person acts in accordance with the principle of Rita and thus follows the path of Dharma, he or she acquires good karma, destroys negative karma and in the end goes out of the karma scope becoming free. So yoga is a way through the Harmony of Rita to the freedom.