CERTIFIED SIVANANDA YOGA INSTRUCTOR
Information on Yoga:
- Veronica and Yoga
- YOGA FOR KIDS
- HOCKLEY HIKES
- WOMEN'S HIKES
- VERONICA'S YOGA COURSES provided through Parks and Recreation Fitness Program - Town of Orangeville
- The Meaning of yoga
- Kinds of Yoga
- Life and Breath
- End of Tension
- Evaluating your progress
- Meditation
- My personal experience
- More info on yoga
- Tell me more about Verónica's books: contents, reviews, how to buy them...
- Contact information
The underlying purpose of all the different aspects of the practice of yoga is to reunite the individual self with the Absolute or pure consciousness. In fact, the word yoga means literally 'joining'. Union with this unchanging reality liberates the spirit from all sense of separation, freeing it form the illusion of time, space and causation. It is only our own ignorance, our inability to discriminate between the real and unreal, that prevents us from realizing our true nature.
Even in ignorance, the human spirit often perceives that something is lacking in life - something that neither achieving a goal nor fulfilling a desire can satisfy. In each individual life, the restless search for love, for success, for change, for happiness are all witness to this underlying awareness of a reality we sense but cannot somehow reach.
In yoga teaching, reality by definition is unchanging and unmoving - the world, the manifest world and universe which we perceive as reality, is the one under a permanent state of flux, it is therefore an illusion, or Maya.
Our craving for happiness comes from not being able to see through the manifest world into absolute reality, in this way we believe the illusion and keep searching endlessly for a happiness that always escapes us.
To a yogi, body and mind are part of the illusory world of matter, with a limited life span, but the spirit is eternal and passes on when one body wears out, to another. In this way, through the cycle of reincarnation we draw nearer to reuniting with the Self within, as the veil of ignorance grows thinner. Free from self-identification with name and form, you can transcend the body altogether and find the Self which is immortal. Yoga begins with the body and it ends transcending it.
Through toning and relaxing our bodies and stilling the mind, you begin to glimpse a state of inner peace which is your true nature. It is this which constitutes the essence of yoga - this self-realization that we are all seeking, consciously or unconsciously, and towards which we are all gradually evolving.
"Yoga is not a theory but a way of life."
There are several major types of yoga each employing different techniques but all designed to achieve the same unifying objective.
- Raja yoga for instance deals with meditation.
- Hatha yoga deal with the physical.
- The objectives of Hatha yoga are:
- To cultivate the natural beauty of the body and attain a high state of health
- To awaken a great power that lies dormant in the organism and utilize it for developing one's own unique individual potential, that's to say to achieve self-realization.
Hatha yoga is composed of a series of postures or poses called 'asanas'. As you perform the asanas you must be aware that they have been carefully designed to promote health and beauty as well as stimulate energies. There is a need for poise, balance and concentration as well as deep breathing during the hatha practice.
Yoga will also exercise all your organs and glands. The inverted postures are also of great help in massaging some of the glands and organs.
This means that one get total involvement in the practice. Throughout the yoga practice we attempt to fix the consciousness fully on all movements of the exercises and not allow it to wander. We then become totally involved in what we are doing. You must feel what is happening in your organism particularly during the holding periods, fell the stretch, feel the release of energy within you, feel the resulting relaxation which is one of the wonderful fruits of yoga practice.
"The body is the temple of the spirit"
As you cultivate and awaken the great reservoir of life-force that lies within you, indescribable positive life-force will occur and you begin to experience an unimagined beauty not just physically but at all levels of your life.
"Life is in breath, therefore he who only half breaths, half lives"
The way we breath directly affects our physical and mental well-being and determines to certain extent the quality of our lives.
The body can go for many weeks without food, days without water but not long without air. In yoga air is known as prana or life-force. This is not the air itself but the subtle life-giving element extracted from the air. The more life-force you have in your body, the more alive you are.
Most people have the habit of shallow breathing. With the practice of yoga we learn how to breath in a complete way and extract the most life-force possible. Also we learn to make breathing slow and rhythmic whenever possible.. This helps anxieties and tensions lessen or dissolve completely and control of the mind for the purpose of concentration is greatly increased. By breathing deeply and fully we can revitalize our bodies and clear our minds.
Life is breath!
In today's society we all experience some degree of tension. Through the yoga practice you will be able to release and let go of much of that tension. Tension is a tightness or a squeezing that occurs in the organism mentally, emotionally and physically.
Yoga helps us gain awareness of our tension and help us order our body to relax. Yoga exercises frees a great amount of tied up tension leading to mental and emotional relaxation.
The beauty of yoga is that you do not have to compete with anybody, not even with yourself. You can just enjoy your natural pace of progress as you move along. You will see that some days you will perform better than others and you will learn to accept that. So it is important to listen to your own body and follow its guidance without forcing position or pushing too hard but going as far as it is comfortable each time.
With time you will see incredible progress as you gain tone, flexibility and suppleness in your entire body.
6. Meditation
"Meditation is a continuos flow of perception or thought, like the flow of water in a river" Swami Vishnu Devananda
At one level or other we are all seeking the peace of mind that meditation brings. When our attention is fully engaged, the mind becomes silent. When we manage to restrict our attention to one object the incessant mind chattering stops.
To find a lasting contentment and peace you need to train the mind in meditation.
Meditation is the practice by which there is constant observation of the mind. It means focusing the mind on one point for example a candle and stilling the mind in order to perceive the Self.
Thus, by stopping the waves of thoughts you come to understand your true nature and discover the wisdom and tranquility that lies within. With continued meditation practice you discover a greater sense of purpose and strength of will and your thinking becomes clearer and more concentrated, affecting all you do.
By sitting quietly you can become aware of what is transpiring within you. Through this technique we temporarily withdraw ourselves from many superficial activities of the day and turn our attention inward. In so doing we gradually come to perceive the source of our existence and automatically integrate ourselves with this source.
Thus, we allow ourselves more and more to become expressions, sounding boards of the Absolute, of the Divine within. Then the individual is freed from the terribly confining limitations of what she has heretofore conceived of as 'me' or 'I' and the necessity of protecting the 'ego'. As we accomplish this, we can experience dissolving into it all and a great sense of bliss, joy and true peace.
"Meditation is the continuos flow of perception or thought, like the flow of water in a river,"
Swami Vishnu Devenanada.
Consciously or unconsciously we are all seeking the peace of mind that meditation brings. Meditation is the practice by which there is constant observation of the mind. It means focusing the mind on one point, stilling the mind in order to perceive the Self. By stopping the endless waves of thoughts you come to understand your true nature and discover the wisdom and tranquility that lie within.
Meditation is not just sitting in front of an object but it translates into everything we do. Like the Zen masters suggest, we should eat when we are eating, walk when we are walking and wash dishes when were we are engaged in such activity. Therefore, at any given time our attention is fully and completely focused on our present task at hand. In this way any thing that is not relevant to our present circumstance should not be acknowledged or invited but should be left to flow in and out until such thoughts fade away leaving room for peace, quiet and lack of inner conflict.
In this way, as you practice meditation in everything you do, you discover greater sense of purpose and strength of will and one's thinking becomes clearer and clearer and more concentrated affecting positively everything one does.
The mind can be like a wild lake, full of thoughts invading our calmness and inner peace. Our senses are constantly drawing the mind outward wasting in this way valuable energy.
The mind is by nature constantly searching for happiness, vainly hoping to find satisfaction once it attains what it desires. The problem is that once we have acquired what the mind first desired, immediately after another desire comes up and our momentary satisfaction and happiness fades away and focuses on the demands of our new desires. This is because the true desire remains unfulfilled.
Yoga teaches that we possess a source of joy and wisdom already inside us, a fund of tranquillity that we can perceive and draw nourishment from when the movement of the mind is still. If we can channel this desire for contentment inwards instead of attaching it to external objects that are ephemeral and temporary, we can then discover how to live in peace.
On of the most useful tools of meditation is to watch the mind and learn not to identify and react on our emotions and thoughts. So we can just assume the role of witness of this constant play of thoughts. In this way our thoughts lose their power and we can start to see the mind and the body as instruments that we can control. In detaching ourselves from the games of the ego we learn to take responsibility for ourselves.
Eventually we realize that through the practice of meditation on our daily lives we can learn to discover and incredible inner source of peace and joy freely available to everyone at all times. Our peace and joy stops to depend on the constant flux of our thoughts and external ever-changing circumstances, instead our peace springs from the bottom of the heart and soul.
In this way, you gain confidence that in the midst of the changes and external factors affecting life, one can remain in constant peace and joy.
Meditation can bring our flow of peace back into our fast-paced lives and teach us to turn our eyes inwards for an endless supply of bliss, harmony and joy!
I started doing yoga when I was quite young, at around 15 years old. Right then I loved it! I thought that it was a great discipline that brought me to a peaceful and most wonderful state at all levels of my life.
I did not always stuck to practicing yoga everyday for the first few years but in the past 5 to 6 years I have been practicing it everyday. At the beginning, it would be hard to have discipline and abide by the schedule I had set up for practicing. Also my body wasn't always responding quite as I wanted it to, so I would get frustrated at times. This is not at all yoga's way of taking the practice, I know!
However, as the months went by I started to enjoy more and more my practice. I gradually was getting so much benefit from it that it became something I would not want to skip under any circumstance.
Now, no matter what I have to do in any given day, I know that yoga is one of the activities that cannot be crossed out from my to-do-list. If I need to, I get up earlier to make sure that I will have extra time to include my practice on a busy day.
The rewards are plenty: I have no more back pain fro one! I am flexible, this is very important. I always keep in mind that old yoga saying: "One is as young as one's spine is flexible." I am more concentrated when performing tasks and overall calmer and more joyful.
Whenever I am done with my yoga practice I feel recharged, in peace, in harmony and I experience a blissful state of inner connection with it all. The joy and bliss spring from inside and stay with me throughout the day.
I love doing yoga! Yoga is a practice that gradually becomes our very life itself!
Veronica Munoz
Phone: 519 942 2852 or 416 699 9943
Email: yoga@artisticliving.com
Personal Email: vmunoz@artisticliving.com
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