4 types of yoga

[Rajagopals]

Bhakti yoga--path of devotion inclination of people who learn through emotion

jnana yoga--path of rational inquiry

raja yoga--path of mental concentration (meditative it said)

karma yoga--path of right action.

...'if so which ones and why did u choose the yoga style you choose?

Excellent question which can open up the truth of Yoga !

Any one can do Karma Yoga - is just to do one’s duty as assumed by the family, culture and society one is born in to and assuming good deeds bring good results and help the man kind.

One who is not fully convinced about the above said even after practicing for many years try to find better answers by learning more about the involvement of mind in karma yoga – Raja Yoga.

When a disciple finds the Raja Yoga guru stuck (no answer) on many questions, he tries to find the truth from within (inner self) – Jnana Yoga

The reasons for only one Jesus Christ (or people like Jesus) is that he is a Jnana Yogi who is also in to the Bhakti at the same time.

This might sound silly, but the truth about why no one is emerging in to that level what Jesus, Budha, or Allah achieved is that – not many have Bhakti after they master Jnana Yoga. Arrogance of knowledge makes them not see the power of Bkahti and stops them from knowing Atman (universe) and thus the nature makes sure the safe custody of its most guarded secret.

Bhakti – is nothing but the love that a person can assume and has no limits – the more it is the more powerful you are and more open – means far reaching – means universe.

I can say I love all those who read this line, and I am sure you get (know) what I am feeling now ! So it is the easiest but most difficult feeling that can take knowledge across worlds !

I vote Bhakti as the highest level of achievement that a Yogi (one who practice Yoga) can achieve and get blessed !

Let love (Bhakti) come to you all !

 

[robtex]

wow kmguru and rajagopals..could you two elaborate more on your posts for us laymen?

 

[kmguru]

Ask away O' Rob of Texas...I will try to answer the best I can. The problem with these type of forums is that it is difficult to transfer large amount of knowledge with a few sentences and almost impossible to pass on tacit knowledge.

There is an interesting book by Jeff Hawkins (creator of the PalmPilot) called "On Intelligence" that is worth reading if you want to understand Jnana yoga in modern context...

 

[Rajagopals]

rajagopals..could you two elaborate more on your posts for us laymen?

I pray if I could be so proficient in Yoga so as to explain in a layman’s language ! But sure I can give it a try.

Up to the stage of Jnana Yoga, I would say, it is quite easy. The reason is, if you are determined, destined or mere lucky, to find a KMGuru/book/friends who can lead you to Jnana Yoga, the rest automatically follows – I mean you surely makes some advance in Janana Yoga through ages. For mastering you need to restrict your life so hard that you will have deficiency of vitamins as well as kids ! But once you master Jnana yoga, or at least assume so since it only take few thousand years, you will still find far below certain mortal souls whom you will find so close to God and you tend to envy, secretly enquire about the reason for that. Then you find them only praying or just showing a bit of Bhakti. To your amazement you will again tend to ask yourself what the hell is kept in Bhakti that push these f**kers so close to God ! And then comes, if you are destined, the truth of the nature (universe), the existence of the universe is merely depended on the love that exists between molecules, atoms, etc etc be it micro or macro, all is put together in to this Pandora’s box so carelessly but still it remains with all the entropy trying to break it ! But still it remains were it needs to be ! If Himalayas were to move few yards I may not be able to send you these funny notes ! So does the ocean in some part of the world which if decides to come up a bit I am sure, our readership will again reduce !

So the f**ing point is, wana break the cycle, first open up your mind, nope I am not quoting from the Matrix movie, but this is the truth. Understand that like God emanated his power though Jesus, Allah, Budha, Krishna etc etc he also is there within you, love that self ! Atman in Sanskrit means that Godly part of your inner self which knows everything. Tag on to that, so start loving, obeying, and accommodating the true self. Let that be as natural as it can be, with all the problem of a normal life, with all the inabilities of ‘You’, with all confusion, but make the love so steady and constant that what ever might come and go let the love (Bhakti) remain. And once you are Ok with your self and the Atman you can surely extend the same the rest of the universe. Stop killing animals to eat, since there is so much more out there, stop killing human beings (let the war on war begin), let love flow from you to all those whom you meet. Let there be no end to it, if you can simply purify yourself to that extend the truth will come to you.

Thannoon perukathukku than pirathu oon unpan
Enganam aalum arul - Thirukkural (in Tamil Language)

To increase once own flesh, if a person consumes another beings flesh,
How can he think of the divine ?

So how many f**kers reading this still eats flesh, I am ok if you are only chewing, cause I do, or else my gurl will leave me !

 

[robtex]

elaborate more on the atman please
what is a kmguru?

 

[Rajagopals]

elaborate more on the atman please
what is a kmguru?

I may not be the right guy to explain ‘atman’ in its fullest sense, as my knowledge is limited to my senses – Mastaka Jnanam (knowledge from the self) than Pusthaka Jnanam (bookish knowledge), but still I am dedicating the first few minutes (even an hour is just 60 minutes) of my busiest Monday mornings to this !

Atman - the self

A quote from Katha Upanishad - Nachiketas’ third wish is to know whether or not the Spirit continues to exist after death. Yama (God of death) tells him that there are two paths, a path of wisdom and a path of ignorance. The path of wisdom leads to the Self, to Atman. The path of ignorance leads to the pursuit of only worldly pleasures. (Do some homework to find what is this conversation about !)

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Atman (Hinduism) Good reference !

What ever I type below is my version of how I look at it, no reference to any material, book or source for that matter and any mistake (may be it stands away from many commonly practiced, well debated and better understood theories) in that is purely deliberate !

Atman is nothing but the logic (reason) for your being. That logic is the only (physical) presence of God in you. When a person takes birth, this is the only thing that gets in to the same and motivates itself (molecules/atoms etc) to exist as a living being (for the first stage of understanding lets limit the scope of this discussions to living beings!). This explains for the presence of God in Jesus, Alla, Budha and Me ! and You too Brutus ! And if you are able to find the logic behind this logic (atman) you crack it ! So for you to reach this logic (atman) first you need to identify a way to approach it, the best route is Bhakti – devotion, love etc for something, and let that something be – a deed (karma yoga), meditation and results (Raja Yoga), knowledge (Jnana Yoga), or Atman (Bhakti Yoga) in the form of Bhakti to a God.

Remember, Jesus, Alla, Budha, Krishna everybody had a small share of atman from the Almighty but not the whole Almighty itself. So when I say God you need to pray to that bigger logic from whom that small logic came to all humans including the above four. I consider Lord Shiva as the God, almighty and I find him as the logic of logics, the reason of reasons, the Guru of gurus, and the Atman of atmans.

I consider the atman in me, is more conscious about the small affairs of my tiny life on earth than all the godly (and worldly) affairs ! So I tend to remind him constantly of the things (material and physical) that I want in my life in the form of a pray. And I make it easy for him to achieve by requesting things in the most simplest and normal way. For me to come to office quick, I will pray that let the roads be as clear as possible. Its achievable and doesn’t hurt some one, and does not stands away from the nature and it’s natural cause. So do I achieve the result. So it was just a prayer come true. Make it simple and let that prayers be natural. So all your prayers tend to fulfill. Now slowly start to forget things, or let the atman take care of things as this body, deeds, and results belong to him, let what ever happen the way it has to. So now you are ahead of atman, and you can focus on the route to the bigger atman (the source). Now you have Bhakti, belief, love in yourself, the God and atman (small one as well as the big one).

And I think the route ahead is purely based on your interest and lets save other peoples valuable time by taking it offline.

Thus explained Hamsa, the Atman

Kmguru is a friend of mine who’s posting on Jnana Yoga you can find here if you can use your mouse and keyboard a bit intelligently.

 

[kmguru]

Thank you Rajgopalji... :m: :m:

 

[Edward123]

Thank you for sharing such a useful thoughts and information about the yoga and its types. Yoga is the best exercise which helps to develop healthy mind and body. Have you heard about yogasuppliesonline.com. I use them to get complete information about the yoga and its types. You can visit this to get more information's about yoga...

 

[nirakar]

I am a believer in the philosophy that all Yoga paths increasingly become the similar paths as progress is made on the path and become one path just before the end of the journey.

This might sound silly, but the truth about why no one is emerging in to that level what Jesus, Budha, or Allah achieved is that – not many have Bhakti after they master Jnana Yoga. Arrogance of knowledge makes them not see the power of Bkahti and stops them from knowing Atman (universe) and thus the nature makes sure the safe custody of its most guarded secret.

My own hunch is that many have and continue to emerge to the level of Jesus and Buddha but that the situation does not call for them to or does not enable them to have roles like the roles that Buddha and Jesus and Mohamed have had in mass culture. Would Jesus be remembered were it not for the perfectly imperfect flawed but usable personalities of Peter and Paul?

The jewel that is the sweet, loving and profound teachings of Jesus was passed forward in time by a disgusting, violent, idiotic, perverted religion that had the qualities needed to thrive and endure in the social climates in which it found itself and thereby was able to pass forward those sweet, loving, profound teachings of Jesus.

In the past India was not as much of an inhospitable place for deeper spiritual exploration as Europe was. Who knows what the future will bring.

Yoga; what a silly game to make an effort to transform ourselves so that we can experience that everything was already perfect and blissful as it was. But is there any better game?

 

[kmguru]

My own hunch is that many have and continue to emerge to the level of Jesus and Buddha but that the situation does not call for them to or does not enable them to have roles like the roles that Buddha and Jesus and Mohamed have had in mass culture. Would Jesus be remembered were it not for the perfectly imperfect flawed but usable personalities of Peter and Paul?

That is a great explanation. You, see, we all have our roles in this world - each one is no greater or no less important than the other. For example, the person who developed fire allowed us to develop our society in the beginning. Key persons one after another gave their time to find solutions to complex problems that mankind faced at a given juncture for the continuation of the humankind.

However without Knowledge (Jnana) you will not be able to "Know" anything and therefore you will not be Buddha (the enlightend one). It is definitely hard to reach moksha or nirvana - I do not care who says what! If you did not get your nirvana, according to Hinduism and Buddhism, you come back until you learn enough not to come back.

Now, some paths are defined by the Godhead (universal intelligence) in the sense that if you have a contribution to make in this world, and the Godhead feels such is the case, then you voluntarily come back to finish the job. Then join (Yoga) the Godhead. Here assume the Godhead is the plurality of the intelligence of the organic lifeforce on this planet that may or may not be connected to the Galactic intelligence which is connected to the Universal Intelligence of an order we can not comprehend (anymore than your blood cells are aware of you!)

 

[Rajagopals]

You are welcome Kmguru, for a 5 year old (mature) thank you . People are still reading and responding to this post?!

all Yoga paths increasingly become the similar paths as progress is made on the path and become one path just before the end of the journey.

I totally disagree. I think the destination is same but it never becomes one until the journey is over.

Pranayama (meditation), done within Raja Yoga practices, directs the practitioner to discard visualizing God or any other higher entity separately and specifically motivate the practitioner to discover the God or divine within. This exactly contradicts Bhakthi Yoga which is only about finding and devoting to the God outside you.

Similarly a Karma Yogi will never find time for Raja Yoga or even Bhakthi. They are strong believers of action and materialistic world.

many have and continue to emerge to the level of Jesus and Buddha but that the situation does not call for them to or does not enable them to have roles like the roles that Buddha and Jesus and Mohamed have had in mass culture.

Again I totally disagree. I think this is the most appropriate time (or even late) for Jesus to come back and save all of us from this Kali Yuga. If Jesus or Budha could save the world from war, global warming and what not of 20th century then the whole world would welcome them back. Current state of our world does call for the appearance of the next world Guru at the earliest, so as to save the humanity from disappearing.

Would Jesus be remembered were it not for the perfectly imperfect flawed but usable personalities of Peter and Paul?

Yes. Jesus would be remembered regardless of Peter, Paul or Harry.

In the past India was not as much of an inhospitable place for deeper spiritual exploration as Europe was. Who knows what the future will bring.

Don’t worry the entropy (chaos) is only increasing and we are maintaining it well in India Now every Indian is going to get a Social Security number and I hope in future you will be able to search and find for real Yogi’s and saints in that database.

But is there any better game

Yes there is. Read “Yoga Vasishta Sara” this will accelerate ‘understanding’ (learning the essence). Quoting the opening verse (in a poor English version of Sanskrit) from Yoga Vasishta Sara,

Divi bhoomou thadhaakase bahirandascha me vibho
vibhathya vabhasathma thasmayi sarvathmane namah

“Salutations to the one who is endless and unlimited, present and full, inside and outside this earth, space and beyond the pure consciousness which can be known by experience only”

 

[greenboy]

well in my case

I only have one type of yoga, the one I don,t practice.

 

[joeleitz]

I was thinking about doing a yoga training course and I came upon a site that does yoga teacher training. It claims that the training is non-sectarian but I'm wondering if that's even possible. Has anyone here heard of non-sectarian yoga before? I mean, I would think that whatever postures you do would belong to one type of yoga group or another. Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to have a yoga holiday on the Baja Peninsula.

 

[kmguru]

Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to have a yoga holiday on the Baja Peninsula.

That sounds interesting. As to getting a certificate to teach yoga, get to a place that is really cheap, once you have the certificate, you can do whatever. I am grandfathered in as a teacher before they were passing out teacher certificates because I passed them out with my signature as a teacher in various U.S. colleges in 70's.

 

[nirakar]

Who is regulating Yoga teachers? Are the states doing that?

Is there a Yoga teacher or Yoga schools lobby pushing state governments into creating a Yoga guild? Massage seems to have gone down that path.

States never seem hesitant to expand the scope of their regulations whenever some group asks them to.

 

[kmguru]

In America, everything is regulated. It started with the Yoga Journal. Then there were copy cats. States need revenue, so the first groups approached the states and got licensed to teach which means certification process.

I knew a group in Utah that started a college (like home schooling) got accredited by the state and gave out PhDs for $5000 tuition fees. Then 3 years later they dissolved the college.

These things happen...buyer beware...