Yoga and Spirituality are inseparable. Yoga is an ancient teaching that helps the persistent practitioner to achieve the spiritual enlightment. By no means it consists of a set of exercise routine only.
Yoga is comprehensive system, a way of thinking, a way of living our everyday lives. Physical postures or Asanas and breathing exercises or Pranayama that are so popular on the West are just steps 3 and 4 of Raja yoga, which is one of the yogic paths’ to spiritual development.
There are 7 steps in Raja Yoga leading the practitioner to self-realization. These steps are described in the book of the sage Patanjali “The Yoga Sutras”. You can download it for free on this page.
Yoga played an important role in my life providing insights and answering the numerous questions that I had hard time to find answers to.
The Eastern occultism entered my life when I was 20 years old. I was lucky enough to find the book of Mabel Collins “Light on the path and through the gates of gold” in the country where the books on spirituality and religion were not published. Read the details on the Yoga page. You can also download the “Light on the path” for free.
Yoga personally helped me in a variety of ways – from improving my intuition to losing weight.
How to combine the simple Western Yoga practice with Yoga as a spiritual development tool?
It is not as hard as you might think. Here are some steps, simplified:
1. Do not lie, cheat, take advantage of other people or harm others in any way in your everyday life.
Stop habits that are damaging for you; stop harming and sabotaging yourself in any way.
Change your habitual negative thinking into positive the positive one. See some tips in the Techniques to Help You Think Positively article.
Stop judging people, you are no better than they are. As you go further in your practice you will realize deeply the concept of Oneness of all life so this will become easier for you.
Thanks and Regards
Meena
