We wrote about yoga, spirituality, and religion in this post a few months back.  Here’s an excerpt from Kino McGregor’s article on Mind Body Green:

If you come to the practice of yoga looking only for pleasure, yoga will eventually disappoint you. Sooner or later, you’ll get bored with the practice or you will experience pain or discomfort in a posture you previously found fun. The basic lesson of this centuries-old science of self-exploration is that if you heed the call of pleasure and pain, you will always be a slave to the sensory experience.

If you instead learn to train the mind to be present, focused and equanimous regardless of the inevitable vicissitudes of life, then you will gain your freedom and ultimately experience your limitless, powerful higher self.

Sincere spiritual investigation is a journey to your center. Along the road, all of your attachments and aversions will be challenged. Everything you know yourself to be will be questioned. It’s not for everyone.

1. You have to commit to the practice for a long time, perhaps for your entire life, before you can expect to see measurable results.

This framework removes the ego’s attachment to getting anywhere fast in the practice.

Click to read more of Kino Macgregor’s post for MBG  here — YOGA. 

Via Yogacityny

This week I’m going to change things up a bit and write about the “Yoga: The Art of Transformation” exhibit down in DC. If you haven’t heard yet, the Freer | Sackler Museum at the Smithsonian put together a “leitmotif” of two thousand years of yoga art.

The exhibit is amazingly great, with weathered sculpture from ancient temples to miniature paintings from the medieval era to post-structuralist reinterpretations of the colonial-era photos of costumed-up ascetics. If you’re a yogi with a bent for art or history, be sure to catch it.

For me personally one of the key insights of the exhibition and its supporting scholarship was how instrumental photography and film have been in the development of “modern yoga”. Few of us probably know that the modern, postural yoga we practice today was developed only in the 1930 – 50s, by Krishnamacharya and his successors. Fewer still probably know the extent to which these pioneers relied on photography and film not just to popularize their redefined yoga but also to develop it.

Prior to the 1930s, there were some seated postures and austerities described in ancient texts and performed by ascetics, but nothing like the aerobic sequences taught by Krishnamacharya and Jois. When pre-modern artists weren’t depicting deities, they would draw the body conceptually, as a map of the universe or subtle energy channels, like the Chakras and Nadis.

Read more here — YOGA

Via Bloomberg:

Scientists are getting close to proving what yogis have held to be true for centuries — yoga and meditation can ward off stress and disease.

John Denninger, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, is leading a five-year study on how the ancient practices affect genes and brain activity in the chronically stressed. His latest work follows a study he and others published earlier this year showing how so-called mind-body techniques can switch on and off somegenes linked to stress and immune function.

While hundreds of studies have been conducted on the mental health benefits of yoga and meditation, they have tended to rely on blunt tools like participant questionnaires, as well as heart rate and blood pressure monitoring. Only recently have neuro-imaging and genomics technology used in Denninger’s latest studies allowed scientists to measure physiological changes in greater detail.

The science is advancing alongside a budding “mindfulness” movement, which includes meditation devotees such as Bill George, board member of Goldman Sachs Group and Exxon Mobil Corp., and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch recently revealed on Twitter that he is giving meditation a try.

It’s an interest that dates back to an exchange program he attended in China the summer before entering Harvard as an undergraduate student. At Hangzhou University he trained with a tai chi master every morning for three weeks.

“By the end of my time there, I had gotten through my thick teenage skull that there was something very important about the breath and about inhabiting the present moment,” he said. “I’ve carried that with me since then.”

Click to read the full article on bloomberg — YOGA.

Image via Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images

Via CBS and ESPN

Calvin Johnson, who recorded an NFL-record 329 yards in the Lions’ most recent game, does yoga as part of his pregame routine. The specifics of it vary based on what he wants to stretch out, but he definitely believes it is beneficial. He was no stranger to yoga but started doing it consistently when quarterback Drew Stanton was with Detroit from 2008 to 2011. Stanton’s wife, like Raiola’s, was a certified yoga instructor.

With Stanton gone to Arizona, Johnson’s pregame yoga routine is now done in solitude with his yoga mat and a yoga video. Johnson, the best receiver in the NFL, now sees yoga as a way to maintain some flexibility and improve his overall health.

“Whatever I’m feeling, if I need to work on my hamstrings, if I need a full-body deal or if I just need to work on my hips, whatever needs work,” Johnson said.

“I’ve seen definitely a positive impact from just being loose in my hips, hamstrings,” Johnson added. “I know it’s something that worked for me. I’ve just been doing it ever since.”

Click to read more about Nate Burleson and Calvin Johnson benefitting from yoga. 

Image via Jason Miller/ESPN/Getty Images

Via Carrie Hensley 

Samadhi Pada (Contemplation)

The traditions of yoga were passed down orally from teacher to student. In fact, it is said that Pantanjali (author of the Yoga Sutras) was the first to codify the science of yoga. Students were expected to memorize the correct pronunciation of the sutras before they were able to learn their meanings and applications.

In terms of the yoga sutras, book 1 is more the theory of yoga. Pantanjali begins with the more esoteric concepts for the experienced yogis. Book 2 is the more practical application of the yoga philosophy for lay people like me, and possibly you:). I find it helpful to have a general understanding, however, so I like to start at the beginning. In this weeks article, we are asking the question, what is yoga.

We are reminded in sutra 1.1 that without practice, we will remain stagnant. One of the concepts that I, personally, appreciate in yoga is the necessity for direct experience. It is here that we set the intention (sankalpa) to learn, to peel back the layers of ignorance, and reconnect to our True Nature.

Click to read more of the yoga sutras.

Image via Carrie Hensley 

From The Times of India:

As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker, such is the disciplined mind of a yogi practising meditation on Self.

Bhagwad Gita 6.19 * To live immaculate amidst impurities of the world – this is true yoga practice.

Adi Granth * He who practises yoga does two things with one stroke: he simplifies his whole life and he gets free access to the Divine.

Sri Chinmoy * The word yoga means skill – skill to live your life, to manage your mind, to deal with your emotions, to be with people, to be in love and not let that love turn into hatred.

Sri Ravi Shankar * Yoga is not a religion. It is a science of well-being and youthfulness, integrating body, mind and soul.