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| I would like to know if yoga originally stems from some sort of religion, and if so, which one, and how. |
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| Namaste. I have been attending kundalini and hatha yoga classes for 6 months now. I have been told from my teachers that yoga is not a religion, it is a science. We have an ashram (yoga spiritual comunity) near where I live. People of ALL religions can attend this place because yoga does not belong to any specific religion. In my experience yoga is a science of the mind, body, and spirit. It truly is a wonderful experience.
OM |
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| yoga stems from hinduism and is the perfect form of maintaing fitness. hindus used to live for 1000's of years just by practising yoga. |
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| Response to original questioner and Siddhartha:
Siddhartha. With no offense, your answer is incorrect. Yoga does not stem from Hinduism at all, though there is a link Which is like this. Yoga is more than 20000 years before Christ, as against only 3000 or so in some books. Yoga is a philosophy which is beyond development, which means there is nothing left to explore. Only exploration left is to know what was explored in the past. All styles are only way of passing what is known. The word Hinduism came also in a wrong way. Hinduism is NOT a religion. It is a philosophy follwed and developed in Sindhu River (mispronounced by foreigners as Hindu, similar to British idiosyncracy of Bombay for Mumbai, and India for hindustan). When the other religions based on personalities such as Christianity and Islam came much much later, the Hindu philosophy was mis announced as Hindu religion. Because both Yoga and Hinduism developed in the same region, there is a similarrity. But, out of these Yoga is much older.
Neel kulkarni www.authenticyoga.org |
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| hindus used to live for 1000's of years just by practising yoga. Your absolutely right, it's just so hard for people to understand that nowadays.
Namaste |
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| Julian,
The point of yoga is not to live for a long time, but rather to live that amount of time that you are alive to the fullest. Quality of life is important, quantity is incidental. A long life without joy is Hell.
Yoga literature often mentions never dying and special powers. These are a waste of time as they do not exist. (If, for example, the authors of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika had practiced what they preached, they would still be alive today!) Only imaginary "super heros" from today or yesterday have super powers. We humans can have health and happiness. We humans can make the most of our lives, live them to the fullest and share joy with others.
The many physical, mental and spiritual benefits of the practice of yoga do exist and are not imaginary. Do the practice, experience the benefits and leave the hocus pocus and special powers to the gullible.
Namaste,
Jim |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| Good points here. Especially the one that mentions that yoga predates hinduisim. Some yogis practice some techniques like holding an arm up in the air for 20 years then they are physically disabled for the rest of their existence, while others improve the quality of their life.
Yoga literature that mentions 'siddhis' the special powers are not a waste of time at all. Quite the opposite infact. As it helped yoga to develop as it was a purely oral tradition for many years before Patanjali came along. The 'siddhis' served many important purposes (books can be written on this), one of which was to help preserve yoga tradition. Yoga is more clever and simple than many think.
Id also like to point out that it is very good that jimg questions this too! However it is good to understand that imagination is the most powerful energy us humans can have. Without it, a nuclear bomb would never have been developed. I cant see a physically fit yogi defending himself against an exploding nuclear bomb. Imagination is also an extension of reality.
One of the 'siddhis' is that one can achieve the lightness of a feather. This is very possible and can even be explained with modern science. Many times after a good quality yoga session, I have felt as light as a feather because I am more coordinated so the effort of movement is spread throughout the whole of oneself and one is light. In the same way you can see a small elderly japanese judo master defeating a big karate expert body builder-because they understand how to coordinate well and spread the effort of movement throughout themselves. Whether they think its chi (prana) or not, that is the scientific explanation of it (without going into more technical details).
Then you get the other extreme which seems to fill in gaps in indian society and sometimes spreads to the west. Characters like Sai Baba who are magicians and do magic tricks to wow people and get followers. In the west many almost worship celebreties. At the end of the day whether you are a yogi or a celebrety you still go to the toilet like anyone else. If you go to the toilet in a town as a yogi or a celebrety your business still goes into a sewer pipe along its course and people are employed by companies which are usually connected to government to keep it running and are part of society just as anyone else is.-now im diverting somewhere else-but just to say that some people feel they need to worship a holy man but a holy man is no better or worse than you. We are one big family! |
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| For those who are interested in learning more about siddhis, "The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India" by David Gordon White is an excellent book on the subject.
On being "light as a feather". You may feel as though you are light as a feather, but if you weigh yourself, you will see that your actual weight has not changed. Your body is made up of cells. Unless you have fewer cells or smaller cells, your weight will remain the same. (If you have fewer cells or smaller cells, where did the part that is no longer there go?) You can lose body fluids through sweating or urination, but as soon as you drink water, your weight will return. You cannot change the physical laws of the universe, no matter what you do.
vibes, if you would like to become the richest man in the world overnight, just take your "light as a feather" techniques and use your imagination to sell them as a weight loss program!! (I am all for imagination as it is a critical ingredient to a full and successful life, but one must always differentiate between imagination and physical fact.)
The "small elderly Japanese judo master" defeats "the big karate expert body builder" because the judo master has learned techniques that allow him to use the weight and force of his opponent against his opponent.
One society's holy man is another society's madman. There is no "holy" outside it's temporal and cultural paradigm.
The purported ancient origins of yoga are without written or archeological evidence of any kind. The idea of making yoga as ancient as possible is part of the presumptive authority of tradition, i.e. the older the tradition, the truer and more authority it has. This concept has been repeatedly been dis-proven since the 16th century. The first known use of the word "Yoga" was in the Vedas (the oldest of which is from no earlier than 1500 BCE). The term "Yoga" was used literally as "yoking" a war horse to a war chariot at this time and not in it's later contexts. |
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Extreme Veteran
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| LOL! Am I to take you seriously? You mentioned in another post (in the Yoga Teachers Section) that unconscious policemen and animals can eat?
You can change your weight on scales by playing with you attention and intention although your true weight remains the same. You can move as light as a feather-it means not being stiff and spreading the effort of movement through the whole of oneself. Im not interested in being the richest man in the world. Without imagination einstein and leonardo da vinci would have been nothing special nor would indian culture and most culture and science.
The above mentioned techniques to defeat body builders involve good coordination and awareness-Check youtube, Im sure you can find some good footage.
It is well known amongst Ancient Indian scholars that yoga was an oral tradition traditionaly. Hope thats helped you! |
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| vibes - 2010-06-18 2:31 PM
LOL! Am I to take you seriously?
===> That is entirely up to you.
The above mentioned techniques to defeat body builders involve good coordination and awareness-Check youtube, Im sure you can find some good footage.
===> I'm sorry, but you really don't understand. I have a second level black belt in Taekwondo (#05158882 issued by World Taekwondo Headquarters in Kukkiwon, S Korea) and really do understand how martial arts techniques work, not from youtube, but from years of training and first hand experience. While good coordination and awareness are part of all martial arts, a weaker, smaller person can only beat a stronger, larger person by being much faster, and having much better technique. The whole art of Judo is based on using your opponent's strength, inertia and weight against him, so the larger and stronger your opponent, the more useful the techniques.
It is well known amongst Ancient Indian scholars that yoga was an oral tradition traditionaly.
===> Scholars have no idea how old a tradition is if there is no written or archeological evidence. If they say otherwise, they are not scholars, but snake oil salesman. Most ancient teachings and traditions were oral before they were written, but if there is no tangible evidence how old that oral tradition is, simply making up big numbers is not helpful and lacks integrity. It is safe to assume that the first written usages of the word "Yoga" were from earlier oral traditions and that later usages of the word were the result of later evolutions in the practices and philosophy.
Hope thats helped you!
===>Thank you for being helpful.
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| This will help you understand judo and yoga greater hopefully- Judo means 'the gentle way'. Ju=gentle do=way. Judo is to action, as the scientific method is to thought. The principle of judo is like the nature of water. Water flows to a balalnced level. It has no shape of its own but moulds itself to the receptacle that contains it. Judo is an art and a philosophy, the ultimate object of judo is the attainment of harmonious unity of opposites in tune with life's realities; n short the unity of man and God or Nature. Judo practice promotes the sense of balance and self-confidence, cultivates the ability to overcome brute force, inherited weaknesses or shortcomings. What is missing in most martial arts (including most judo taught nowadays as a sort and not the original judo) is the interrelation and intermingled working of gravitation, body,bones, muscles,nerves,conciousness,subconsciousm and unconsciousness to open the way to better understanding.
The techniques and speed as you mention play some role but are not the most important at all. You can have great speed and technique, but this wont help you in many cases whereas attitude and body control will. The most important principle is to move your own body before attempting to move the opponent. There is almost always a solution to any situation, wherby swivelling,rolling,moving out of the way etc, achieves easily, rapidly and effectively, what can be performed only with great effort and slowly by moving the opponent primarily. When in doubt what to do, movement to remove oneself in the direction where there is no restraint will generally solve your problem.
The judo path differs from other disciplines (such as taekwondo) in a number of ways. What a man can do now is mostly determined by his personal experience,the habits of thought,feeling and action that he has formed....Incapacity to do is produced by fear, imagination and otherwise distorted appreciation of the outside world. The original judo teaches an unemotional, objective activity which has nothing to do with what the person feels or is and the results depends entirely on when, what and how a thing is done, and on nothing else. The result is that a small, sometimes insignificant physical body of 60 years of age or over can control a powerful youth as if the latter has no will of his own. This is ONLY possible by the impersonal,unemotional and purely mechanistic habits of thought and action incuated by judo practice. Judo evolved a specific regimen to fulfill the goals of judo pratice.
Outstanding excellency in any activity is impossible without generalized coordinated control...Those men we incorrectly call 'great' (martial arts masters) are simply better coordinated in most of their being. Perhaps the most important feature of coordinated movement as is done in original judo is that in the correct act there is no muscle of the body which is contracted with greater intensity than the rest. |
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| vibes - 2010-06-18 4:10 PM
Perhaps the most important feature of coordinated movement as is done in original judo is that in the correct act there is no muscle of the body which is contracted with greater intensity than the rest.
All movement is a result of one or more muscles contracting and other opposing muscles relaxing and stretching. When no muscle of the body contracts with greater intensity than the rest, you have either total muscular relaxation and no movement at all, or spasticity and spastic movement, not controlled movement.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that you have developed a theory and are looking for things to substantiate that theory. Wouldn't it be more productive to fit the theory to the data, instead of the data to the theory?
How do you know what the "original judo" was like? What are your sources?
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Extreme Veteran
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| Kano the father of original judo, mifune, feldenkrais and his close friends. |
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| You studied with these people? |
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Extreme Veteran
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| No, but feldenkrais did. Im not that old my friend jimg |
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| So many of your theories about yoga and movement are Feldenkrais in origin?
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| Generally from my father who before he sadly passed, became a teacher of sanskrit/yoga/indian philosophy after having worked with freedom fighters in India, then worked with some of Indias top scholars and knowledge yogis in the 50's,60's and 70s, and getting to know feldenkrais while in Israel. Most of my theories on movement are inspired by feldenkrais, as an indian yogi elder told me once "nobody has understood movement to his levels". |
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| vibes - 2010-06-20 11:16 AM
No, but feldenkrais did. Im not that old my friend jimg
So how old are you?
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Extreme Veteran
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| What do you eat for breakfast? |
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| Oatmeal with raisins and 1% milk.
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| yummy |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| good stuff! Keeps you going. |
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| Tae Kwon Do is not very effective in terms of self-defence - Try Brazilian Jiu-jitsu! |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is brilliant!!!!! Glad someone appreciates it here. It will do all yoga practioners much good to have a go at it. |
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| Julian Figiel - 2010-07-02 6:11 PM
Tae Kwon Do is not very effective in terms of self-defence - Try Brazilian Jiu-jitsu!
Are you saying this because you are advanced at both forms and therefore able to compare them based on first hand knowledge, or are you just repeating something you heard without even knowing why this may be true?
The reason that Brazilian Jui-jitsu is good for self defense is because it allows you to successfully defend yourself against a larger, stronger attacker who has a hold on you.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a martial art, combat sport and a self-defense system that focuses on grappling and especially ground fighting. The art was derived from the Japanese martial art of Kodokan judo in the early 20th century, which was itself developed from a number of schools (or Ryu) of Japanese jujutsu in the 19th century.
It promotes the principle that a smaller, weaker person can successfully defend themself against a bigger, stronger assailant by using leverage and proper technique—most notably by applying joint-locks and chokeholds to defeat the other person. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu can be trained for sport grappling tournaments (gi and no-gi) and mixed martial arts (MMA) competition or self-defense. Sparring (commonly referred to as 'rolling') and live drilling play a major role in training, and a premium is placed on performance, especially in competition.
The reason Taekwondo is good for self defense is because you can disable an opponent before he/she gets hold of you. If the opponent nonetheless gets hold of you, Taekwondo is less effective.
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art and the national sport of South Korea. In Korean, tae means "to strike or break with foot"; kwon means "to strike or break with fist"; and do means "way," "method," or "art." Thus, taekwondo may be loosely translated as "the way of the foot and fist" or "the way of kicking and punching."
Taekwondo was the world's most popular martial art in terms of the number of practitioners, in 1989. Its popularity has resulted in the varied development of the martial art into several domains: as with many other arts, it combines combat techniques, self-defense, sport, exercise, meditation, and philosophy. Taekwondo is also used by the South Korean military as part of its training. Gyeorugi, a type of sparring, has been an Olympic event since 2000.
Formally, there are two main styles of taekwondo. One comes from the Kukkiwon, the source of the sparring system sihap gyeorugi which is now an event at the summer Olympic Games and which is governed by the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF). The other comes from the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF).
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yoga and religion
