Yoga And Its Benefits
The purpose of any true spiritual path is to raise our awareness to allow us to directly perceive the spiritual dimension. Being spiritual means to recognize one’s own spirituality and recognize the transcendental essence of ourselves and others. It also means to see that we are all connected to God and to respect each other in that regard. That is one of the goals of Yoga. But how can we be certain that there even is a God?
This comes by a reawakening of our higher consciousness and the knowledge of our spiritual identity. It is through the process of yoga and following the path of Sanatana-dharma that we can achieve this higher consciousness and perceive exactly who we are. The Yoga-sutras of Patanjali make up the essence of yoga practice. However, yoga itself is a deep and serious discipline, and there are many types of yoga that can be practiced. There are four primary types of yoga depending on the yoga positions. There is:
Jnana-yoga is the path of intellectual growth and understanding what is real and what is not.
Karma-yoga is the path of right action, detachment from the fruits of one’s deeds, and committing our activities for a higher, spiritual purpose. Raja-yoga or Astanga is the path of inward meditation and the attainment of higher states of consciousness through various practices. Bhakti-yoga is the path of raising consciousness, and developing our love and devotion for God and decreasing our attachment to aspects of the temporary material world.
There are additional types of yoga, but they are usually considered branches of these four paths.
However, in the early stages, yoga is, essentially, a tool for controlling the flickering nature of the mind, and for promoting the growth of one’s positive qualities and expanding one’s awareness from material to spiritual consciousness. It is explained that Yoga is the process of completely calming the activities of the mind, which include memory, imagination, misconception, perceived knowledge, and sleep. When these are stabilized, then it is called yoga, which offers the opportunity for the practitioner to fully realize his own essential and fundamental nature. Yoga is the attempt to realign our Selves with the Supreme Self, God.
When you practice yoga you can feel the unwanted burdens of the mind melt away, such as hate, anger, greed, envy, discontent, anxiety, etc. Then other qualities like blissfulness, peacefulness, tranquility, and contentment will be felt. These are qualities everyone is trying to find and are among the many things that can be accomplished with yoga, at least on the rudimentary level. As you continue to progress, you may enter into the deeper levels of awareness and transcending the mind and gradually progress so far as to attain realizations as to what your own spiritual identity is and what your relationship is with the Absolute. Becoming free from material life and regaining one’s spiritual identity is the aim of all forms of yoga.
But in spite of all of these benefits, people frequently find it difficult to follow this path. This is only because they lack the motivation to exercise. But once you start performing Yoga on a regular basis, it will itself keep you motivated. The benefit of feeling motivated by Yoga practice is what makes Yoga so different from all other health maintenance programs. Yoga can become a lifestyle because there is no discomfort involved.
Why do so many diets fail? Why do so many exercisers quit? Lack of motivation is usually the reason for diet and exercise failure. People already know they should drink more water, walk more, eat better, and exercise, but they need to stay motivated without “burning out.”
When performing Yoga, positive energy is all around the room. Positive energy generates motivation to exercise and generates powerful visions of success. The next step is to believe the powerful visions of success, which are formed in your mind. Some people are afraid to succeed. Perhaps they inherently feel a lack of self-worth, but Yoga also works on improving one’s self-esteem. It is normal for people to feel apprehensive about change, but change is often one of the gateways to success.
So we can say that consistency acts as the key as far as the benefits of yoga are concerned while we are in the process of learning yoga positions. We can’t derive benefits from yoga if we are not consistent with our routine. If we fail to be consistent, then it is very difficult to derive positive results and yoga can’t be blamed for this. To stay motivated, a beneficial technology is motivational hypnosis.
Self hypnosis therapy has proven to be very effective in getting and keeping us motivated. Self-hypnosis is based on the combination of auto suggestion and visual imagery, and it works on a deeper unconscious level than imaginable. Motivational self hypnosis engages your unconscious mind, and compels it to positively alter self-image and self-perception.
Unbeknownst to us, our unconscious is largely responsible for the way we think and react. If we train it to think along different lines, your corresponding behaviors will change too. You will want to understand the true potential that lies within us, and by using hypnotherapy techniques you can tap into that potential. Through positive affirmations such as “I can do it” along with powerful visual imagery, hypnotherapy CDs can retrain your mind into believing that everything is possible, and nothing is impossible. This means that yoga combined with hypnotherapy can help us to achieve success more quickly.
Alan B. Densky, CH opened his hypnotherapy practice in 1978. He offers a broad range of self hypnosis CDs & DVDs for all aspects of self-improvement, including hypnosis for exercise motivation.
- Alan Densky
