Dynamics of Yoga: The Foundations of Bihar Yoga

The Dynamics of Yoga Practice- Healing the Bealing The Body, Mind and The Soul

Dynamics of Yoga

Dynamic of Yoga outlines the original yogic concepts and practices which form the foundations of Bihar Yoga, or Satyananda Yoga. Ideal as an introduction to Bihar Yoga, these early teaching of Swami Satyananda Saraswati aim to give the reader a deeper understanding of yoga and its practical application in daily life. The core practices of yoga and meditation are highlighted, with emphasis on mind management and the development of awareness. The book remains a timeless work on the art and science of yoga as seen through the eyes of a master.

Include in this edition is a new chapter outlining the history and development of Bihar Yoga.

Swami Satyananda was born at Almora, Uttar Pradesh, in 1923. in 1943 he met Swami Sivananda in Rishikesh and adopted the Dashnami sannyasa way of life. In 1955 he left his guru's ashram to live as a wandering mendicant and later founded the international Yoga Fellowship in 1963 and the Bihar School of Yoga in 1964. Over the next 20 years Swami Satyananda toured international 1987 he founded Sivananda Math, a charitable institution for aiding rural development, and the Yoga Research Foundation. In 1988 he renounced his mission, adopting kshetra sannyasa, and now lives as a paramahamsa sannyasin.

There are many books on yoga. Some have been written by yogis from India, and have dealt mostly with the more abstract aspects of yoga like dhyana and samadhi. Other books have been written by authors form western countries, who have tended to emphasize the more tangible, physical potentialities of applied yoga, such as asana and pranayama. However, the vast potential of psycho-physiological therapy; its unlimited scope on the spiritual path; its unequalled utility as a way of life which leads of happiness in the trying circumstances of the fast-changing, modern world; and its bright future as the culture of tomorrow these aspects of yoga have not yet been explained in detail.

Many people associate yoga with hermits sitting on mountain peaks or in carves, with people who sleep on beds of nail or do strange things in general. Most people in the world, however, have no concept about yoga at all, for little has been done to explain yoga in terms that they can easily understand, devoid of the trappings of esoteric 'mumbo-jumbo'. It is hoped that this book will help people to understand yoga and to realize that it is a science very much concerned with modern living.

We believe that a systematic effort, in the form of a movement to propagate yoga in its broadest sense on an international basis, will tear asunder the veil of mystery surrounding yoga and that yoga will eventually emerge in all its pristine glory and truth.

Yoga is not for a select few individuals, but is for all the young and the old, the fit and the ailing, the rich and the poor. With its infinite resources and potential it will usher mankind into a new and glorious era of evolution.

This book is but a small token of our dedication to the cause of yoga and an attempt to explain yoga and yogic techniques in a clear and unambiguous language. It is a humble offering.

First of all, our thanks are due to all those great masters in the field of yoga who attracted and inspired us to become devotees of the most melodious art and philosophy of yoga from the very start of our consciousness.

Then our thanks are really due to our most revered and beloved living teacher, Brahmrishi Swami Omanandaji Saraswati of Indore India who came in our lives at an right moment to instruct and induct us in the order of Yogacharyas in December 1996 when on the invitation of our good friend Pt. Virendra Bahadur of Lucknow we got the opportunity to join him for a ten days Yoga camp with Swamiji in his Indore ashram. But for him we would never be such ardent and passionate lovers of yoga.

Our most humble thanks and gratitude to our loving yoga student and friend, Mr. Satpaul Goyal of Ann Arbor, Michigan USA who offered to examine the manuscript with spelling and syntax, sharpen its features and embellish it in all possible ways.

Our loving thanks are due to our daughter, Meenal, her daughter, Ilisha, aged 9, and our granddaughter, Saloni aged 10, to offer to do most of the images for the book.

Lastly our loving thanks to son, Vivek, and Akshat, daughter's son, for taking the pictures.

Mr. J Agarwal a keen researcher and proficient writer on theology and Vedic Sciences. He has written three more books earlier, published by Pushtak Mahal New Delhi and available on Amazon. He is a retired Chief Engineer of UP Irrigation Department, retiree of 1996. Ever since he has devoted his time and energy to the study and practice of Vedas and Yoga sciences. He has been pursuing his Yoga teachings in India and abroad for long time. Verily, through Yoga his mission has been the propagation of Vedas and bringing people into the Vedic fold once again. This has led him to the formal study of Vedas and other Vedic literature to understand the basic foundation of various religious beliefs in India and elsewhere including development of spiritual philosophy from Vedic times down to Rishi Dayananda Saraswati of twentieth century. The present book is a result of his untiring efforts over the past two decades towards propagation of Vedas across the world.

I do not remember as to how and when I got attracted towards yoga in life. But my association with yoga goes back to the midforties, last century, while in school, I was rather a thin boy. One of my good teachers, who came to teach us Hindi in our Saharanpur home, advised me to spend some time out of my short mornings (due to early school) in the park opposite our home, do some jogging and other exercises, and take a glass of milk after that. He also advised me to do some body massage before bath occasionally. My tauji, elder brother of my father, a product of the Gurukul Kangri Jwalapur, Haridwar (now university), always kept an eye on me, and not only kept advising me to do lot many small things from time to time, but also gave me several short books to read and follow. Maybe, I picked up some clue to yoga out of that material.

Later in early fifties, while pursuing my graduate studies in the University of Lucknow, during morning walks of about forty-five minutes plus a short visit to the university gymnasium proved instrumental to bring home the essence of Yoga to me. It was here I got motivated to attempt and practice some yogic postures like, shirshasana (head stand asana), and continued them for long.

There was some gap in the sixties after marriage. But soon in the seventies, while working in Nainital district of Uttar Pradesh, I picked up some books on yoga from a Nainital Book Store, learned some inspiring and less-time-consuming asanas to incorporate in my daily regimen. In the early eighties I remember having taught a few good asanas to my daughter and son as they went to college and advised them to find time to practice even in their rather busy college schedule as an aid to keeping good health through their full professional program.

On retirement from work in the mid-nineties we (both) focused passionately on the study and practice of yoga after intensive training for certification (as yogacharyas).

Now it was time to take a pledge to dedicate ourselves to practice and teaching of yoga as a mission of life to as many people as possible with no obligation. And ever since we are conducting free yoga camps in India and abroad. Though we don't sell yoga, yet many participants by way of gratitude want to offer gurudakshna. We welcome such donations for the sake of education of the poor and needy in India—especially Sanskrit gurukuls on Panini Ashtyadhyayi, necessary for understanding original Vedic texts.

Today it gives us immense pleasure to talk and disseminate the knowledge of yoga, its science and art to as many people as we can. Yoga is a great gift of God to humans revealed to the ancient rishis. Yoga knows no religion. It is mandatory life style for all irrespective of caste, creed, or geography, a holistic, much more obligatory (not optional) life style for life long wellbeing.

We were inspired to write this small book because during our classes. In United States of America we found that a small practicing manual on yogasanasa and pranayama is essentially needed as a handy tool to guide yoga aspirants to persue their practice without a regular yoga teacher to keep them in good health while attending to their strenuous work schedules as also to stay motivated for higher goals of life—of peace, happiness and joy. In one of our visits to the US in 2003 in our classes in the office of our son twenty-eight Americans attended. We were impressed by their intent and passion.

Later, we started working on this book and today we are happy to see this book in your hands. Most of the chapters incorporated are based on the content and spirit of our teachings. The purpose of this book is to introduce to the reader the concepts of daily practice. Yoga considered esoteric by many even this day is highly interesting and absorbing science and art of living.

An important rule is never to force and over strain, beyond your capacity, learn to follow your body language telling all the way how far to go.

I would suggest that while using this book you share the knowledge with someone you care. That would not only help you in achieving your goals but ours too by integrating it into lives of others.

Thank you for giving me the privilege of sharing this work. I wish you a life full of hope and fulfillment of your dreams, goals, perfect peace and happiness. My blessings for putting your brick in building a new world order of hope, happiness, peace and joy for mankind.

Yoga has suddenly assumed worldwide recognition, and acceptance today not so much as a path of salvation, and enlightenment but as a great art of living. The history of Yoga goes back to age of seers who lived in India more than 5000 years ago. Today Yoga has become sine qua non among the stars, the sportsmen, and the executives, politicians and professionals— practically all fields throughout the world. Every week ends in the West (also elsewhere in the world) people rush from their high stress jobs to hear to the melodious and soothing voice of the yoga teacher. There are many who need yoga therapy to de-stress their bodies and minds from the stress generated from their weeklong multifarious activities. The yoga teacher's Namaste at the end of the session, meaning 'the divine in me bows to the divine in you', sounds so soothing and tranquilizing.

Dr. Carrie Demers of the Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy, Honesdale, Pa USA, admits, `Our system of medicine is very fragmented. We send you to different specialists to look at different parts of you. Yoga is more holistic; it's interested in the integration of body, breath and mind.' And further says, 'In modern medicine, we are actually doing a lot more guesswork than we let on. We want to say we understand everything. We don't understand half of it. It's scary (frightening) how clueless we are.'

As we enter the new century we find that the medical science has a formidable range of painkillers, but hardly anything for sorrows and pains or stress plaguing the human society.

Desperate people consult dozen specialists to get dozen conflicting opinions. What actually the West is coming to realize and accept is that they have been treating the disease and not the whole human being where as in the East they take care of the patient more than the disease. Going to the root of the ailment, East works on the human body on inside-out basis rather than outside-in basis.

Ashtanga Yoga, propounded by Maharshi Patanjali, helps us to endure the suffering gladly without feeling the pain. The individual thus learns to endure what cannot be cured, and cure what need not be endured.

Patanjali and His Yoga Darshan

Before we go further let us talk about the father of yoga science, the great savior and sage Patanjali and his famous work on yoga—the yoga-sutras.

Nothing much is known about the life of the great master, who may have lived sometime around the Great Mahabharat war in India (more than 3000 BC) or even earlier because the great intellectual wizard, Vedic scholar and author of the famous Mahabharata epic, Maharishi Vedavyasa himself wrote the first commentary on yoga sutras.

Patanjali is referred to as one of the highly evolved souls who graced the Earth to help humanity. The yoga system, though always existed in the Vedic texts, Patanjali developed it in the form of sutras for the benefit of mankind. Yoga, therefore, has an ancient origin from the beginning of the history of ancient Aryans. We come across references to yoga in the hymns of the Vedas indicating the different paths pursued by various seekers. It is a system purely based on the Vedas and the Upanishads.

Patanjali, as a great scientist of human behavior, experienced the sorrows and joys of humans and learned to transcend them, and thus brought out his 'magnum opus' on yoga science known as 'yoga darshan' or the mirror of the human soul.

Yoga Darshan

The Divine Philosophy of Action (or yoga darshan) means vision of self or mirror of the human soul. The Yoga darshan has come down to us in the shape of 196 sutras or aphorisms to cover wide range of aspects of human life and behavior. It begins with a prescribed code of conduct and with the vision of man's true self. It certainly is a comprehensive exposition of study, analysis, and synthesis of various facets of human psyche—emotions and intelligence integrated with the gross physical body. The sutras are very apt, concise and scrupulously accurate and precise in meaning.

In Yoga sutras the great master elaborated the means of overcoming the afflictions (klesas) of the body and the perturbations (fleeting tendency) of human mind that are real obstructions in our way to peace and spiritual contentment.

The Yoga darshan stands till today as the fountainhead of our entire knowledge on the esoteric yet highly spiritual philosophy and art of yoga.

The yoga-system of Patanjali is an ethical system based on non- violence, truthfulness, austerity and extreme purity of body and mind. In short it requires observance of the highest standards of moral and ethical values before one can aspire to step deep in the realm of true spiritual sadhana I yoga practice.

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Yoga is a unique science with an age old history and wide scope and it is unique because despite being ancient it is still a new branch of well tested knowledge. Its permanence lies in the fact that it is a compact code of conduct and knowledge to teach physical fitness, mental discipline and spiritual enlightenment.

Yoga does not believe in compartmentalization of knowledge into science and spirituality. Being an inclusive knowledge, Yoga recognizes that both these important branches of knowledge are indispensible and have to go together to deliver prosperity and peace.

The basic theme of this book is to shed light on the present system of education is incomplete in its scope and approach, despite the knowledge and surfeit of goods and services that it has delivered. It has no tested system and methodology to inculcate humaneness, morality and spirituality in the students. These shortcomings have not been able to restrain people from the vices of greed and violence, which are threatening the existence of the planet.

The Yoga system of education offers a methodology to transform and uplift the people living in the current world order to inspire and unite people to herald a better world order. The view of Yoga is that science and technology can offer the hardware of civilization while Yoga can provide the spiritual software to weave with love and peace, the tapestry of the new world order.

Mr. R.R. Varma was born in a remote but picturesque village of Himachal Pradesh. He did his primary schooling from a village and continued further education up to Graduation as a private student, while combining the Endeavour of learning and earning. In the year 1961, he qualified the Indian Police Service (I.P.S.). Mr. Varma started his service in Delhi and subsequently served in various wings of the Police department at different places in the country. In recognition of his meritorious and distinguished services, Mr. Varma was awarded with Police and President Medals. After retiring as Director General of Police, he served as the Chairman of Public Service Commission for five years.

For the last 33 years, he has been an active member of the Yoga Satsang Society of India and practices regular meditation. He enjoys writing, has contributed articles to national newspapers and magazines, and has also published three books through Prakash Books, New Delhi. Mr. Varma likes reading, and is fond of trekking and mountaineering. He is also a passionate orchardist and enjoys working in his apple orchards.

Broadly speaking, the purpose of education, apart from acquiring skills, is to build character and develop the mind to understand the mysteries of life and the universe to enable creatively inspired people to work for prosperity, peace and enlightenment of humankind. It is, therefore, through the pursuit of education that humanity, struggling through ages -as reached the present era of affluence marked by a surfeit of goods and services along with the explosion of knowledge. However, the long history of humanity for many people is a tale of grim struggle and penury that they had to brave through centuries. In this background, this present phase of abundance seems a sheer interlude, because our future stands - threatened by grave dangers, which are the consequences of - own making unleashed by greed and ignorance. It seems _- a: the instinct of violence has affected our genes. Even if we < of>

The dangers of man-made challenges that are confronting the world now are nuclear arsenals, terrorism and global warming. The crisis of sub-prime episode had pushed the world economy to the brink. Corruption, tax havens, drug trafficking and mafias are blooming because it is greed which is calling the shots. Business conglomerates, corporate, governments, academia, media et al are players in this game of minting money, in which some are proactive and some helpless.

It is not that men and women who are at the helm of affairs in various fields all over the world are not capable and responsible people. Most of them are outstanding and honorable people, and it is in spite of the capable and experienced world leaders that the dangers of destruction are looming ever large and solutions seem to be slipping through their fingers.

At this juncture, we must sit up and ponder whether everything is really correct with the main system of education that we have been following across the world; because it is education which is the real source of knowledge, which breeds wisdom to guide and bail us out in dire situations.

It is an understood fact that the system of education that we have been pursuing is incomplete. No doubt on the material plane, knowledge derived from education has served humanity beyond expectation but it has not been able to cater to the spiritual dimension of human life, which is the very essence, and substance of life. We should never forget the principal teachings of scriptures which proclaim that the real man is soul because man is essentially the soul and has a body. The prevailing system of education caters to intellectual pursuits and cannot access the soul within. This is the root cause of imbalance in the development of human personality. Since the existing system of education develops the mind and cannot relate to soul, which is the core and essence of every human being, therefore existing education is an incomplete source and medium of knowledge to develop the holistic and balanced human personality. No doubt, books for ages and computers of late are the source of knowledge which has showered, among other blessings, awakening and prosperity, Out lack of basic values and scourge of greed have unleashed the monster in people which has robbed peace and threatened our existence. Therefore, now there is need to recognize mat beyond human mind there is a higher, nay the highest acknowledge; the human soul which is the source of love and peace and the supreme knowledge, which the present system education cannot access.

In support of this view it may be said that the Yoga system education is a time honored and trusted system of ancient and yet ever new knowledge to discipline and use the mind creatively and access the soul slowly but certainly. Yoga is not against the present system of education but rather applauds -..s contribution to improve the basic material dimension of -:e so important for human growth and development. In fact, 7-2 role of modern education and Yoga are supplementary to each other. The essential role of Yoga-based education begins where the role of mundane education ends; but the importance of the latter is necessary to provide for the basic needs of physical life. Science and technology are the main forces, which have catered to material well being by alleviating the suffering of people, yet modern man stands bereft of individual peace and social harmony. Consequently, now greed, insecurity and violence have become nightmares of humanity. The Yoga system of education is a dependable methodology of education to culture and transmute the human mind and ultimately lift the consciousness to the spiritual dimension of higher life.

Like natural sciences, Yoga also is a science but it is a higher and finer science. Compared to the science of Yoga, other natural sciences lack advanced intuitive subtleties. Natural sciences deal with energy, matter and mind but the science of Yoga begins from where the physical sciences give up. Yoga deals with the astral and causal and spiritual dimensions of life and matter. Yogis know for certain that behind the phenomenon Universe and the body of man, exist their astral and causal counterparts, from where evolves energy and macrocosm of the cosmos including man's mind and body. Yoga education teaches that the source of mind, energy and physical forces and forms, which make the universe, are soul and spirit. All bodies and physical objects are operated in their actions and motions by their astral counterparts, which enliven, motivate and operate the manifest world of senses. Yogis have developed special techniques and scientific methods based on experiments and trials to culture and control the mind and senses to specialize in the art of exteriorization so essential to

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