Alishia O’Dell
Yoga
T/TH 7:30-8:50
Chapter One Summary
1. What is Yoga?
a. Others think Yoga also includes breathing and relaxation practices. (I am one of them.)
b. We need to understand how yoga has changed over thousands of years into the remarkable systems we have today, we can benefit more from our practice.
2. The Big Question, “Who Am I?”
a. The word yoga means an exercise system and a method to achieve the union of your individual self with the you who is much bigger, such as your spiritual self, your true self, or your soul, called parama-atman.
b. Whatever you are experiencing is OK. There is no right way to do the exercise.
3. Yoga’s Beginnings
a. The hunger to understand oneself has motivated people to create religion, myths, the science of psychology, and mystical systems.
b. Like tree branches starting at the trunk an growing toward the sunlight, some long and some short, Yoga schools may be young or old, traditional or modern.
4. Jnana Yoga
a. Jnana Yoga is often called the Yoga of wisdom.
b. We mistakenly think of ourselves as individual actors because we see it that way: our senses and minds confirm for us that we separate people.
5. Raja Yoga
a. Raja Yoga is often called royal Yoga.
b. Raja Yoga’s purpose is to become the ruler over one’s mind.
6. Tantra Yoga
a. Tantra Yoga is the Yoga of energy control.
b. Tantra yoga offered a revolutionary new way for the yogin to quest for truth and understanding.
7. Hatha Yoga
a. Hatha Yoga is the Yoga of balanced body energy.
b. Hatha Yoga’s body-changing methods are considered incomplete as a mystical path in the three most important old Sanskrit works on the subject, and in some modern lineages.