Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi during his address to UN General Assembly on September 27, 2014 asked the world leaders to adopt, June 21, as International Yoga Day.

Yoga is more than a 5000 year old physical, mental and spiritual practice having its origin in India, aims to transform body and mind.

In suggesting June 21as the International Day of Yoga, Narendra Modi has said that the datum one of the two solstices, is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and has special significance in many parts of the world.

This initiative found support from many global leaders. More than 175 countries including USA, Canada, China have supported.

On Dec 11, 2014, The 193-member U.N. General Assembly approved by consensus a resolution establishing June 21 as International Day of Yoga. Bikram Choudhury, joins the Yoga community to congratulate all the Yogis and Yoginis and specially the Prime Minister of India, Indias Ambassador to the United Nations Mr. Mukherji on this historic achievement.

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Bikram Yoga is a sequence of 26 posture and 2 breathing ...

Hatha yoga (Sanskrit: hahayoga, listen(helpinfo) IPA:[jo]), also called hahavidya (), is a branch of yoga. The word haha (lit. 'force') denotes a system of physical techniques supplementary to a broad conception of yoga.[1][2]

With its origins in Ancient India,[3]Hindu tradition believes that Shiva himself is the founder of hatha yoga.[4][5][6]

In the 20th century, hatha yoga, particularly asanas (the physical postures), became popular throughout the world as physical exercises, and is now colloquially termed "yoga".

According to legend, Lord Shiva is credited with propounding hatha yoga.[4] It is said that on a lonely island, assuming nobody else would hear him, he gave the knowledge of hatha yoga to the Goddess Parvati, but a fish heard the entire discourse, remaining still throughout. The fish (Matsya) later became a siddha and came to be known as Matsyendranath. Matsyendranath taught hatha yoga to his disciple Gorakshanath and to a limbless man, Chaurangi. Hatha Yoga Pradipika mentions many other famous hatha yogis. Hatha yoga was thus passed down in disciplic succession.

Some of its techniques can be traced back to the epics and the Pali canon.[1] The Pali canon contains three passages in which the Buddha describes pressing the tongue against the palate for the purposes of controlling hunger or the mind, depending on the passage.[7] However there is no mention of the tongue being inserted into the nasopharynx as in true khecar mudr. The Buddha used a posture where pressure is put on the perineum with the heel, similar to even modern postures used to stimulate Kundalini.[8]

Many believe that Patajali, a siddha of the 2nd century BCE, in his treatise on Raja Yoga, Yoga Sutras, professed asanas and pranayam as two limbs of the practice of Raja Yoga,[9] while others assert that Patanjali's sutras do not support the practice of asanas as physical exercise at all.[10]

The Siddha Siddhanta Paddhati is a very early extant Hatha Yoga Sanskrit text which contains much content on the avadhuta, as Feuerstein (1991: p.105) relates:

One of the earliest hatha yoga scriptures, the Siddha Siddhanta Paddhati, contains many verses that describe the avadhuta. One stanza (VI.20) in particular refers to his chameleon-like capacity to animate any character or role. At times, it is said, he behaves like a worldling or even a king, at other times like an ascetic or naked renunciant.[11]

In medieval times, teachings on Yoga were systematized in several texts:

The practices of the Amtasiddhi and Datttreyayogastra are used to raise bindu or prevent it from falling.[1] The mudrs of the Vivekamrtaa work on bindu, not kualin, even though raising it is an important part of the yoga it teaches.[1] The mudras of the Goraksaataka and Khecarvidy are used to raise kualin (they mention bindu only in passing).[1]

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Hatha yoga - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Yoga Stras of Patajali are 196 Indian stras (aphorisms) that constitute the foundational text of Ashtanga Yoga, also called Raja Yoga. In medieval times, Ashtanga Yoga was cast as one of the six orthodox stika schools of Hindu philosophy.

The Yoga Sutras were compiled around 400 CE by Patajali, taking materials about yoga from older traditions. Together with his commentary they form the Ptajalayogastra.

The Indian tradition attributes the work to Patajali. Much confusion has been caused by the late medieval traditions of conflating Patajali, the author of the grammatical Mahbhya, with the author of the same name who wrote the Yoga Stras. Yet the two works in Sanskrit are completely different in language, style and subject matter. Furthermore, before the time of Bhoja (11th century), Sanskrit authors did not conflate the authors, and treated them quite separately. And modern scholarship shows that these two authors are separated in time by about six hundred years. A third Patajali is sometimes also invented, an author on medicine, in order to fill out the meaning of Bhoja's verse that said a single Patajali cured speech through grammar, the mind through yoga, and the body through medicine. However, no major work of medicine by a Patajali is known to Sanskrit literature.[note 1]

The most recent assessment of Patajali's date, developed in the context of the first critical edition ever made of the Yoga Stras and bhya based on a study of the surviving original Sanskrit manuscripts of the work, is that of Philipp A. Maas.[6] Maas's detailed evaluation of the historical evidence and past scholarship on the subject, including the opinions of the majority of Sanskrit authors who wrote in the first millennium CE, is that Patajali's work was composed in 400 CE plus or minus 25 years.[6]

The Yoga Sutras are a composite of various texts. They resemble the Buddhist jhanas.[note 2] According to Feuerstein, the Yoga Sutras are a condensation of two different traditions, namely "eight limb yoga" (ashtanga yoga) and action yoga (Karma yoga). The Karma yoga part is contained in chapter 1, chapter 2 verse 1-27, chapter 3 except verse 54, and chapter 4. The "eight limb yoga" is described in chapter 2 verse 28-55, and chapter 3 verse 3 and 54.

Patajali's composition was entitled Ptajalayogastra ("The Treatise on Yoga according to Patajali") and consisted of both Stras and Bhya.[6] According to Wuyastik, referencing Maas,

Patanjali took materials about yoga from older traditions, and added his own explanatory passages to create the unified work that, since 1100 CE, has been considered the work of two people.

This means that the earliest commentary on the stras, the Bhya, that has commonly been ascribed to some unknown later author Vysa (the editor), was in fact Patajali's own work.[6]

Patajali divided his Yoga Sutras into four chapters or books (Sanskrit pada), containing in all 196 aphorisms, divided as follows:

Yoga consists of the following limbs as prescribed by Patanjali: The first five are called external aids to Yoga (bahiranga sadhana).

Excerpt from:

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ROMULO: My enthusiasm for yoga has never waned even after 12 years.

MYSORE-STYLE yoga develops strength and encourages independence.

Peopleget into yoga for many reasons.

A friend dragged me along to my first yoga class several years ago, and I felt lighter and happier for the rest of the day. But the reason I really liked it was that it gave me relief from the pain of a broken heart. There was something inherent in the yoga practiceabout the experience of breathing while moving my limbs into posesthat helped me let go.

Slowly, over time, with consistent practice, yoga sorted me out physically and emotionally. It made me strong enough to confront my fears. It helped corral my mind, so that I stopped being a prisoner of my unrelenting thoughts. Soon, little (and even big) things stopped bothering me, and I grew less and less concerned about what people thought of me. Overall, I became a kinder, gentler personor so Ive been told.

Today I feel I am more myself, or who I was meant to be, and not so much who I thought I should be. But I still have a lot of work to do. Going back to my mat every morning to do the postures is certainly an important part of the work, but theres more to it than that. Ive got to go deeper.

Manila had its yoga boom sometime between 2008 and 2011, with studios sprouting all over the city; so Im guessing longtime practitioners want something more substantial by now. Like me, you might be curious about the inner practices, even if your reasons are self-serving. If yoga can piece together a shattered heart, imagine what will happen if I do more of it.

Some of you might seek to understand the foundational philosophies, or you might be experimenting with pranayama breathing. Maybe you know some words in Sanskrit and have added a sitting practice to your routine.

After noticing the feelings and sensations that arise when you shape and twist your body into poses day after day, it is not surprising that youve sharpened your awareness. Strange as it sounds, by bending your spine this way and that, you somehow stimulate interest in things that didnt matter to you beforelike the concepts of truth and suffering; and how you relate to yourself and others.

Clarity and purpose

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When yoga goes beyond the mat

Warnbro Swans Integrated Football Team player Crystal Bushell, 16, vice president Wayne Hunt, and player Ryan Light practice for Rockingham's Biggest Yoga Event with Body Prep owner Mandy Collins. Picture: Elisia Seeber

Event Rockingham's Biggest Yoga Event Village Green(Near the war memorial) Sunday, March 8 6-7pm Gold coin donation

Yoga mats will be rolled out across Village Green this Sunday as residents stretch for a cause at Rockingham's Biggest Yoga Event.

Body Prep Outdoor Group Training and Yoga owner Mandy Collins said she was holding the event to help the Warnbro Swans Integrated Football team raise much needed money.

"It is a great way to get the community involved in yoga but also to raise funds to help the team get what they need," she said.

Ms Collins said the team was given a taste of yoga at a training session last week and were hooked.

"Yoga complements their training, it's a great stretch and relaxation exercise for the body, it also focuses the mind," she said.

Whether you're a footy player, elderly, or young, Ms Collins said yoga was both enjoyable and beneficial.

Vice-president Wayne Hunt said the team was hoping to raise $1000 to buy new training jumpers and shorts.

"Integration is about the players being the same as everybody else, so if you want play football you train the same way you play, in shorts, a footy guernsey and boots," he said.

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Stretch for biggest yoga event

He is Bikram Choudhury, 69, the father of the famous Bikram yoga.

The reach of Bikram yoga is so far and wide that you can find a Bikram yoga-affiliated studio in almost every continent.

The man now finds himself in the midst of allegations of sexual assault and rape by women who had attended his classes.

Ms Diane Lee, 46, director of BYCH Hot Yoga here, had trained under him in 2004 at his international headquarters in Los Angeles.

She has been practising yoga since 2001 and Bikram yoga since 2003.

She says he never behaved inappropriately towards her and she did not see him misbehave with the other female students either.

But he had a habit of saying politically incorrect things.

"He said that all the time in my training. We just laughed about it.

People did say that enough is enough and it is true, it was wrong.

"But we all knew he is politically incorrect. He just says what he thinks.

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Local yoga teacher saw no sexual abuse from Bikram founder

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Yoga inside Tulsa jail; violent inmates practice

Cindee Joslin, the owner of a school in Bentonville that teaches yoga instructors, was preparing for her first training session when she received a letter from a state regulatory board in July notifying her that she had to get a license or apply for an exemption. Otherwise, she risked being fined.

At the time, her future students had paid their tuition and had temporarily relocated from other states.

"I was very concerned -- very, very concerned," said Joslin, owner of Yoga Story. "I was on pins and needles there for awhile."

Seven months later, because of a change to Arkansas law that the state's 12 yoga teacher-training schools initiated, Joslin tossed out the "stack" of paperwork she had been working on to receive a license.

"I was so relieved when I got to throw that away," she said. "It's a huge victory."

Twenty days after Sen. Uvalde Lindsey, D-Fayetteville, and Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, introduced a bill to exempt yoga teacher-training schools from the authority of the state Board of Private Career Education, Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed it into law.

The legislation, enacted Feb. 11, amended the code governing the board -- which oversees private post-secondary career schools for fields such as real estate, bail bonds, and tattooing and body piercing -- to prevent it from exerting its authority over yoga teacher-training programs and other instructor-training programs, including dance, music, horseback riding, and sewing, knitting and other needle-crafts.

Lindsey said the programs were "avocational and recreation" and therefore should not be regulated by the state. Collins said the board's action to license the schools was "government overreach" because "there was not a breakdown in their system as it currently existed."

Now, the state Board of Private Career Education is sending back applications and refunding fees submitted by three yoga teacher-training schools that went through with the licensing process.

"We will not license them," said Brenda Germann, the state agency's director. "We'll go from there and move on. If they need us for anything, we're here."

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Yoga teachers praise new law on schools

Evolve All of Us

Posted on February 16, 2015

This emerging social potential movement is not revolutionary, but evolutionary. Its aim is not to destroy, but to fulfill. When the butterfly emerges, it doesnt deny the caterpillar it is the caterpillar evolved. This movement is not an attack on another group or an assertion that our way is better. The movement is not here to attack but to attract. Its purpose is to evolve all of us, our communities, and our world so that all people are free to fulfill their highest potential.

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Posted on February 04, 2015

Another excerpt from my newly-released book: Conscious Evolution Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential (available for order now at http://www.evolve.org: Within the next few decades we can and indeed must discover and commit to an evolutionary agenda and to a universal humanity where our spiritual, social, and scientific and technological capacities are fully activated. We are now in the midst of a global awakening that poses new dangers and new potentials. I believe that we will consciously and ethically learn to use our vast collective powers for the evolution of our species and the birth of a universalRead More

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Posted on January 16, 2015

The world is moving so fast now it is vital for all of us who are alive to connect to the impulse of creativity, love, deeper connection, to Source, to come together as pioneering souls. The newly developed Sacred Journey of the Conscious Evolutionary 2.0, starting January 20th, is exactly what will help you and all of us to emerge more fully to become co-creators, as our essential selves, our true nature, the divine within. My two colleagues, Patricia Ellsberg and Carolyn Anderson and I with a team of beloved and trained facilitators headed by Bonnie Kelley will beRead More

Posted in Barbara Marx Hubbard, Foundation for Conscious Evolution

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Barbara Marx Hubbard