Some Westerners see the practice of Yoga as a form of relaxing meditation and gentle body stretching.
Those in India, or who have studied Classical Yoga, know that the physical exercise plays a very small role in Yoga.
Yoga is a path with a very clear destination in mind - Brahman or god. By this it means attaining our ‘god’ self.
At the heart of Yoga is the meaning of the word - the uniting of the whole person on every level. Therefore the only way to achieve Brahman or our ‘god’ self is to make ourselves whole again.
Essentially, there is no difference between a whole person and Brahman. God is not separate to who we are, but rather we are god. Understanding and accepting this truth shatters the illusion we have been taught from birth onwards.
In the West, life can be seen as a dynamic interplay between force and control, with all of its materialistic spoils. While in the East, life is seen as a softer, gentler counterpart, where ‘going with the flow’ is preferred. Nowadays, these roles seem to have been reversed as the East becomes more like the West and the West endears itself more to the East.
For Yoga, the Western drive to control and force is a foreign notion, especially when the ultimate goal is to become our deepest Self, something that can only be achieved by withdrawing ourselves from the outside world and learning to control our senses, desires, thoughts, and emotions.
This wisdom is something that both Yoga and the Essenz share - the surrender and sacrifice of the individual ego and the acceptance of I AM. The separation of the self from the whole is revealed as the ultimate illusion, and the oneness with the whole the ultimate truth.
In the case of Yoga, an eight-limbed path is offered with eight stages for those who wish to raise their consciousness from a basal ego state to the highest state of Brahman. Once all aspects of the self are aligned and whole, the practitioner reaches the most blissful state of Samadhi, or I AM. Nothing else to do, except be.
Yoga’s eight limbed path consists of levels that help the practitioner prepare for the next stage. They are lessons in discipline that start on the outside and move inwards. Yoga asanas, or the physical exercises that we have come to know in the West, are the third external level on the eight limbed path. After the Asanas, come Pranayama (stillness through breath), Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), and much later, Samadhi - the ‘union with our true Self’.